Booking Engine Solutions

Pre-stay, Post-stay and HTML email: what does that mean for your Booking Engine?

2012-02-05T08:50:00.000-08:00

There's nothing worse than wasting time in trying to create something that, ultimately, does not work at all or just a little.

Email is an instrument aged as the web, so it's young if you think about it in absolute terms, but old when considered in relation to communication on the Internet and its evolution. Yet today it is an indispensable and irreplaceable tool, especially for business.

Any booking engine, as well as any e-commerce platform for online sales of any business trade, cannot do without email notifying both the buyer and seller.

About the hotel industry, the email a customer receive after its hotel reservations is always pretty standard: summary of the booking with travel data, references and contacts of the hotel and little else. Being a 'closed' text message, there's no so much work to do about its content, while there is about its shape.

Pre-stay and post-stay email in html format with the ability to insert images and links: they have become indispensable tools for hotel booking engine that all hoteliers want. But does it has only an aesthetic function? Or rather, the aesthetic end in itself really brings tangible benefits?

It requires the utmost attention, this could even be counterproductive and harmful. Do not forget that the html email are subject to spam risk. Many corporate servers block emails containing even a single image. In addition, a careless use of images can determine insertion into black-list by the server you are sending these emails.

Even the major portals, rather than the bigger airlines still prefer text-only booking confirmation email, which automatically eliminates the risk of non-receipt by the customer.

Then put yourself in the shoes of your customer who has booked online, who receive at least three email for one reservation only. Someone could think that it may look cute and funny, a symptom of great attention to the guest and his needs; however, it could also be a redundant process, almost annoying. We think especially to those regular customers who regularly book through the booking engine on your site, who receive at least three mail every time they book. Indeed it can be a bit hard to accept, especially if we consider that the e-mail content is often repetitive. The e-mail post-stay only can count on a different message from earlier ones. But even in this case, Can we truly say that sending multiple mails leads to tangible benefits?

Let's make it simple: even html, pre and post stay emails must have a goal. So they have to bring results. In short, they have to increase your online sales.
How? Encouraging the customer to purchase additional services, showing the real benefits and acting as a proactive sales tool that encourages customer to personalize his stay.

Your pre-stay email should contain a link to his same reservation made through your booking engine, which gives the possibility to add additional services.

For instance: if you have a spa or wellness center, you may try to provide your guest with a relaxing treat for his arrival at the hotel, maybe with a little discount on the selling price, in order to show it as a real benefit you're giving to him.
Or a dinner at your restaurant, a taxi from the airport to your hotel, and so on.

Not necessarily services for a fee, but small gestures which surely will be appreciated, such as a daily newspaper that the customer can directly book from his pre-stay, an extra pillow for those who prefer to sleep 'high'. For sure you will not make extra revenue, but definitely it will be a much appreciated service to your customers, besides give them a valid reason to book on your site, instead of OTA. Whether the customer pays 30, 50, 100 or 1000 $ for staying at your hotel, it's a non-commissionable revenue anyway.

Although conceptually different, the goal is always the same even for your post-stay e-mail. For instance, in addition to greetings and thanks, you may provide your customers with a voucher for a free-drink for his next trip to your hotel, or a small discount.

Even small actions can lead to great results. Of course, you need the right instruments, a booking engine that allows you to create and manage your dynamic proposals, much less room-centric and much more customer-oriented, which gives a real added value to your email communications.

Everything else is figment of your imagination and your ability to sell and communicate with your customers.

Madeep.com

When small hoteliers raise their voices...

2012-02-02T06:46:00.000-08:00

It seems that the nodes are gradually coming home to roost. We do not know how far it is because what we know is often only a small part of what it really is.

We're talking about TripAdvisor, the online review site for the hotel industry. Final judgment comes directly from the ASA, Advertising Standards Authority, which after more than four months has concluded its investigation phase against the British giant.

The reason is simple and well known: fake reviews. It's a serious matter, but it is quite ridiculous to read about TA's statement stating that "there are no fake comments or fake reviews on our site." Let's face it, it's like saying that there is no crime all over the world. Apparently even the objectivity can be bought at the supermarket ...

The conclusion reached by the ASA is that inevitably these fake reviews are possible as well as highly likely, if not certain, as then ascertained. In fact, this story was born more than a year ago by two anonymous hoteliers who simply showed how it was possible and very easy to post fake reviews, both on themselves to improve their visibility and, on the contrary, on its competitors profiles in order to destroy their reputation.

At that time, the ASA started its investigations, new realities were born as Kwikchex, created for the management and preservation of the online reputation of individuals, businesses and users in general.
Surely it is an exaggeration to say that only two hoteliers put the giant TripAdvisor in trouble, but it certainly helped to create awareness among other hoteliers, hotel managers and hotel employees in general.

When small hoteliers raise their voices...

Madeep.com

Booking Engine and Web Site: how to disintermediate OTA's

2012-02-01T05:40:00.000-08:00

Today, the sharing of information through the internet is fast and wide. Especially in terms of blogs, forums and social networks, the expression of our own ideas, thoughts, considerations and even bad luck has become a sort of need.
Even for hoteliers that does not change, indeed. All over the world new Facebook groups were born, dedicated to tourism industry professionals and employees, places where vent frustrations after a working day spent sipping customer complaints and troubles, sharing them with those who work in the same area.

Sometimes it's quite fun reading about these stories, real life and problems of everyday life, a kind of confession room of Big Brother, but for normal people who work every day and every day is faced with problems, whether large and small ones. And sometimes, in fact, it's sobering to see how increasingly hoteliers feel powerless in the face of reality, halfway between the customer and the broker.

Finally, I have to admit that some of these confessions give me a veil of sadness mixed with anguish: regular customers who start to rely on online intermediaries for their online reservations, instead of booking as they always have. It will be for convenience, fashion, immediacy. Anyway, one has the impression that, despite they are and remain regular customers, they have become clients of the intermediary.

Let's start with a premise. The total disintermediation does not exist, at least today. Let's try to understand how the booking process works and what brings the customer to book on a OTA portal rather than the hotel booking engine:

Such a theory is what happens in almost all of the booking processes. No wonder then to see a good number of visits on your site, but you have to intervene if your booking conversion bookings is not good. A good average conversion is around 3%, but there is no unique threshold for all situations and for all hotels since too many variables involved.

In the picture above, I have not purposely designed the last step of the process, the most important, where customer make the decision about the platform to use for completing his reservation, OTA site or hotel site. At this time so many variables come into play that the hotel may seek to exploit, starting from:

Hotel Web Site: user visits the hotel website after having already seen the room prices on the OTA, trying to get more information on the hotel itself. Do not forget that any user have become "aware" of what happen since the web give them the possibility to be informed because the network allows them to obtain all the information they want when they want. If the hotel is not trying to give them the information through its website, the OTA will do in its place, thus increasing the chances that the portal will take your reservation. Last but not least, user is interested in visiting hotel website making some 'rate hoppers', trying to find more convenient fares, special offers or packages. User does not know that hotels are subject to the constraint of the parity rate, so the curiosity and the hope of finding the most affordable hotel is still alive and he knows that he can do taht through the network.
Booking Engine: web sites are not all the same, and being on the web it's not enough to be 'attractive' to your customers any longer. So are Booking Engines. A good booking engine determines the positive or negative performance of any hotel. The usability of a booking software is to allow the user to browse and book easily, speedly and immediately. For example, what may seem small technical details such as server response time to user's request (the time that passes from the moment user clicks a button until he gets to the requested page), on the web become the fundamental aspects of usability, so a wait of 0.3 seconds and a wait of 2 seconds make a huge difference. On the other hand, the booking engine must be as flexible as dynamic to allows hotelier to easily configure all of the best methods of online sales for its services, rooms, restaurants and so on.

All things being equal (room X at the price Y, both on the hotel website and the OTAs portal), the client will be in a position of having to decide where to make his reservation. Hence what are the fundamental aspects you should work on to start your own process of disintermediation:

Adequacy and completeness of the information: everything posted on your web site, whether they are photos, descriptions and items must be clear and understandable, should not be ambiguous and difficult to realize. The user must be sure of what he's reading and seeing, especially, he must understand it without difficulty;

Make sure you have a booking engine that is powerful and can satisfy the needs of online retail. It is NOT absolutely true that a more expensive booking means better performance. Rather, make sure that your booking engine can meet the today's needs and, at the same time, make sure it is constantly evolving, because tomorrow is another day and the time runs much faster on the web;

Do not simply sell only rooms, but try to offer all other services your hotel has such as restaurant, spa and fitness center, room service, transfer service from the airport or city center ... This is a focal point of the process of disintermediation. OTAs only offer hotel rooms, but they do not treat any ancillary service, unless they are included in some of your package rates. Make sure you have a booking engine that allows you to configure the sale of ancillary services. In addition to helping you to generate ancillary revenue (or extra revenue), it is an aspect that can have an important influence in the choice of the customer to book on your web site, instead of the portal one;

Clear payment methods and cancellation policies. User does not have to feel cheated and anyway all your policies must be clear and easy to read ... This is the same concept stated in point 1: clarity and transparency. Otherwise, the user, even unconsciously, will feel "guaranteed" by booking through the OTA portal;

Do not 'spam' OTAs' sites with too many special offers and rate packages. Keep them for your own website. I'm not talking about violating the parity rate, rightly mandatory for all the OTAs, but exploiting your special rates to give your website an added value;

Put in evidence the special offers and packages on your website because they are easily identifiable and accessible;

Offer your customers corporate discount codes or codes to book on your web site with cheaper rates (opaque biddings). Give these codes to your occasional customers too, especially those who have booked through an OTA ... just a little present such as an aperitif or a small discount for their next stay. Make sure that your booking engine is able to support this objective.

Be visible and bookable from mobile devices, especially if you are a hotel with a lot of business customers who are used to move even at the last minute and who make use of BalckBarry and Iphone for their work;

Foursquare: the social network for mobile based on geolocation. It is not yet entirely exploded, but the 2012 seems to be the right year and for the hotel opens a new, huge and magnificent opportunity for disintermediation;

Social networks must be used as communciation tools, not even sales tools. The sale can be a direct consequence of the relationship that you will be able to establish with users who follow you. Give them the opportunity to book directly from social networks, but don't force them. It makes no sense to use social platforms to 'spam' offers, discounts, packages. This is not the way you could be attractive;

Find out, find out, find out: the web is out of step with the times because it is already in the future. Not a day goes by without news and constantly changing scenarios, but rather than the volume of these news, very often it's the little ideas, sometimes simple, that can reverse the situation. For instance look at what is going on with Google Hotel Finder and what kind of reactions it has generated;

I know, it's not easy, but starting from a clear idea of what you're going to do, for sure you're already halfway there.

Madeep.com

Popular Facebook Apps for Hotels

2012-01-26T13:58:00.000-08:00

You have heard all about how important social media is to the travel industry and more specifically the importance of social media for the hospitality industry. You have listened and hopefully you have taken action to introduce your hotel to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, FourSquare, TripAdvisor and other relevant social media sites. But now, you are finding your foray into social media has fallen flat.

Start the year with a focus on spicing up the hotel’s Facebook page to grow fans, increase interactions and ultimately prove a return on investment on your page. Pepper in some of the best hotel apps on the hotel’s Facebook page to attain your social media goals. Adding tabs to your hotel's Facebook page will not only make your page appear more interesting, but will actually give visitors more to do on your page! Applications capture visitors’ attention, draw them in, push them to interact with the page and provide opportunity for fans to take action with the brand.

Flavor the Hotel Facebook Page with these Apps:

Welcome Tab – Greet newcomer’s to your page as you would welcome guests into your hotel. I would even recommend setting this tab as the default page that appears to new visitors. Utilize the page to invite them to your hotel and ask them to like your page! Simply create your welcome app as an iframe and you are on your way to gaining fans to the page.
YouTube – After you’ve welcomed your guest to the page, offer a tour to show them around. By adding a YouTube app that connects to videos of your hotel, you can show off the property without leaving Facebook. The video component is engaging and a fantastic way to show searchers your hotel beyond the photo albums.
Twitter – Looking to share even more information with your fans? Then add the Twitter application to the page. The Twitter app pulls in all your tweets from Twitter to your Facebook page. The app promotes your Twitter page to attract fans from Facebook to convert to followers on Twitter too. Be sure to optimize your Twitter page with these helpful tips.
Coupons – Everyone is looking for a deal! Create a Coupons app to offer a deal such as 10% off dinner, or a free room upgrade to your Facebook fans. The coupon app encourages visitors to like the page and is an extra incentive to take action and visit the hotel. Plus, hotels can track the coupon and in turn measure ROI.
Email Sign Up – Your page offers fans so much information but they still can’t get enough! They want the opportunity to join a mailing list. Add an Email Sign Up tab for fans to add their contact information. Check out Constant Contact or MailChimp’s app to add a basic form and start transferring fans from Facebook to contacts on your email list.
My Top Fans – Reward your fans and encourage interactions at the same time with the My Top Fans application. The app evaluates interactions between the page and its fans to determine which fans engage with the page the most. Once the app calculates the most interactive fans it features the fans on the page. The app is great motivator for fans to interact with the hotel’s page to earn "Top Fan" status.
Booking Widget – Let me guess, your primary concern with managing the Facebook page is proving a return on investment. Add a booking widget to the page and start using Facebook as another source for making direct reservations. Fans will love the convenience of booking a room right from the page and the hotel can start measuring a quantitative ROI.

Use this list of hotel Facebook applications as a starting point to add some more flair to the page. These apps all aim to help increase page fans, lure fans to interact with the brand and in due course bring business to the hotel.
What other apps would you find beneficial to hotel Facebook pages?

source: Blue Magnet Interactive

Never forget that a social media is a communication tool first. The reasons you may need them for your business is to keep in touch with your Guests. Traffic and Sales are a direct result of your communication skills.

Madeep.com

Expedia fined for lying to clients

2012-01-21T03:30:00.000-08:00

Internet holiday site Expedia has been ordered to pay €427,000 to French hoteliers after being found guilty of a series of 'false price reductions', 'false prices for hotels' and 'false information on hotel availability'.

The world's No1 internet travel agency - which also includes travel advice site Tripadvisor.fr and hotel booking site hotels.com - was condemned by the Tribunal de Commerce de Paris for misleading customers and ordered to pay the money as damages.

It must pay €305,000 to the hoteliers federation Synhorcat and the rest to two hotels which sparked the initial complaint: €79,000 to the Hôtel de la Place du Louvre in Paris and €43,000 to the Château Guilguiffin, in Landudec, Finistère.

Expedia was investigated by the anti-fraud agency DGCCRF who found that internet bargain-hunters had been misled by the American-based sites. Buyers were given information that certain hotels were full and were directed towards other hotels with whom Expedia and Hotels.com had commercial links.

source: HospitalityTrack

Madeep.com

How to leverage private sales sites in your online distribution strategy

2012-01-18T06:57:00.000-08:00

Online bookings have grown beyond the traditional distribution channels like OTAs & GDSs with a consistently increasing influence of social media, e-commerce sites and private sales channels. Breaking the monopoly of OTAs, these platforms have emerged as a profitable option helping hotels maximize revenue.While there is a level of uncertainty amongst hoteliers to use these sites for tactical inventory disposal, it is also true that a lot of these arguments stem from a lack of foresight hampering business to flourish all year long. Amidst this scenario, the role of a revenue manager is constantly evolving. A sharp analyst will start exploring new areas/channels and establish closer relationships with strategic partners.

It is important to bear in mind that no economic situation is permanent so a revenue manager should review and install strategies that will hold good in the long term. A short sighted outlook will only help you in the current scenario but less likely to prove helpful in a changing scenario. The way your hotel is positioned now, will greatly affect how your hotel comes through a period from cautious to optimistic market outlook. A well thought out strategy is not about constantly changing direction; it is about setting your hotel up for the future with a range of longer term objectives.

Be it guest satisfaction, your own standards or prices, the best wholesome strategy is to make your hotel the leader in revenue optimization. Close relationships with a hotels distribution partners should be an aim of revenue managers at any time, these closer relationships can go a long way to driving volume, if revenue managers approach this opportunity cautiously. Focus should be on establishing a Win-Win situation that protects your inventory and pricing integrity.

Poor pricing has a lot of dangerous consequences but the biggest of them all is bloodbath in the market. This helps no one apart from a discount seeking customer and ironically, in many cases, the same customer would have happily paid more instead of availing of an existing discounted rate since it's available. Reacting to market pressure by slashing prices may provide some short term benefits, but it could pull down the entire market to lower ADR levels which take significant time to even come up to the previous price points. This is where responsible discounting comes in and a partnership with a private site helps you in building base business in your tertiary booking window without impacting your transient or negotiated segments.
However when working with Private sites the hotelier must be careful about the following:

Integrity of the private site they partner. It must be a true member only site and the membership should be available with a fence around it and not just something sold easily on e-Bay.
The deals must never be put out in a predictable manner.
Private sites must be the chosen option to keep the customer excited so room deals, Day package, Spa package, F & B deals, MICE deals all should be flashed instead of just promotional room packages.
The deals must be put out with a time limit or stocks last banner and not just one of the two to make it less structured and predictable.
The deals should be fenced, well ahead in time and attractive. Remember you are attempting to garner latent demand here.
Measure the performance of private sites and monitor them from time to time, if a site is not performing evaluate if it fits with the property profile that you represent.
Don't overdo it.

For OTAs: The option of offering Opaque pricing can come closest to competing on the same turf. It is important to speak to your valuable partners to make sure that the Mystery hotel or Hotel Roulette (As some opaque products are termed) deals are different from private sites in the content and value offering. It doesn't have to mean better or flashy but just try to make it sound different to serve its purpose.

There is no denying the fact that these new sites definitely have emerged as an interesting option in online distribution. However, in order to combat a few uncertainties that have prevented hotels from expanding their revenue and client base, hoteliers must choose the right private site while conducting a thorough analysis of their demographics in order to ensure brand integrity.

In addition, a certain level of foresight is expected from hoteliers wherein they target or not, a new segment which is unable to afford the product today. Nevertheless, hoteliers should adapt their pricing and distribution strategy that certainly incorporates a thorough feasibility evaluation around these sites besides the traditional OTAs and GDSs.

source: hospitalitynet

Madeep.com

Brands team to launch Roomkey.com hotel search

2012-01-17T05:27:00.000-08:00

REPORT FROM THE U.S.—In a long-anticipated move, six of the hotel industry’s biggest brands have come together to offer consumers a new channel by which to search and price hotel rooms. Roomkey.com will offer the ability to search, shop and compare hotel rooms from all of the major brands and still allow consumers to book direct.

With Wednesday’s launch of Roomkey.com, the biggest implication for hoteliers is bookings will be pushed direct rather than through intermediaries, which Roomkey.com CEO John F. Davis said will result in commissions “significantly less than that what would be considered market.”

During an interview Wednesday morning with HotelNewsNow.com, Davis said 23,000 hotels are available on Roomkey.com, and he hopes to add additional brands throughout the year, with a goal of 80,000 hotels available by the end of 2012. Another partner brand adding “thousands of rooms” will be announced as soon as early next week, he said.

Offering rates and availability direct to Roomkey.com are Choice Hotels International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International and Wyndham Hotel Group, all of which are listed as “founders” in Roomkey.com’s first news release.

UPDATE: On Thursday, Best Western International announced it has jumped on board as well.

Davis—most recently CEO of BirchStreet, who also launched hotel distribution switch technology company Pegasus in 1989 and co-founded 1-800-Flowers in 1982—said the Roomkey.com concept was discussed for more than a year and a half.

“Three of the big brands more than a year ago got together and started talking about what they can do to reduce distribution costs,” he said. “As they began to talk, word got out, and they invited more hoteliers into the discussion. Through 2010 it was primarily hoteliers discussing it.”

“Then they started discussing how to fund it and how to put together a management team and they called me,” he continued. “I’ve done this once or twice or three times. I listened to the business plan and became very intrigued.”

Flo Lugli, executive VP of marketing for Wyndham Hotel Group, told HotelNewsNow.com Wednesday that the six founding brands have made a commitment to build Roomkey.com to scale by directing a small portion of their direct traffic to Roomkey.com. With that support, Roomkey.com “doesn’t need to go out with a US$50-million war chest” because the brands will be able to help build the project to scale with little or no investment.

More specifically, if travelers search on a brand.com site but don't end up booking, as they leave about 10% will receive a message directing them to Roomkey.com for more options.

Steve Sickel, senior VP of distribution and relationship marketing for InterContinental Hotels Group, said brands’ direct websites don’t compete on the ability to offer choice of brand. Roomkey.com, however, gives the customer “the choice that they’re looking for and the confidence of booking direct.”

“The other piece of it is that we are consumer centric,” Sickel said. “The sooner we can start to interact with the customer, the better. Once the shopping phase is done we can start their branding experience and carry that experience to the hotel.”

A reaction to Google?
Davis said Roomkey.com was “somewhat” a reaction to Google’s foray into the travel space, but the big difference between Google and Roomkey.com is that Google isn’t being driven by hoteliers; Roomkey.com will operate via a direct connection to hoteliers’ inventory.

“The concept is not a copy of Google, but we’re both going down the same path because that’s what the consumer is demanding,” he said. “I sleep well knowing Google is working on something similar to us—they have some smart people working there.”

Davis said hoteliers today are faced with the conundrum that they’ve got to distribute hotel rooms electronically but have got to do it in a cost-effective manner.

“They also need guests to be able to book directly,” he said.

Another channel
Both Davis and Lugli stopped short of saying Roomkey.com will allow revenue managers to reduce the amount of inventory given to OTAs or Google, rather it will be another—more cost-effective—channel to assist in finding the optimal channel mix for each individual property.

“It doesn’t really change how we advise our revenue managers,” Lugli said. “Roomkey.com is just another tool for us to drive direct business, along with several other initiatives underway, including the relaunch of our direct websites.

“Ideally, we would get 100% of our business direct, but that will never happen,” Lugli said. “We have an extremely positive relationship with both Google and the OTAs, and the Roomkey.com venture is not a venture that is us targeting any other third party.”

Davis said, through Roomkey.com, hoteliers will be able to recognize guests at the front desk as one of their own rather than being introduced through a third party, which is an oft-heard complaint about selling rooms through third parties.

Roomkey.com soon will offer independent reviews and the ability to compare, plan and share with friends and family. It initially will be as U.S.-only model, but an expansion to English-speaking regions outside the United States is expected shortly.

Roomkey.com acquired its technology platform from hotelicopter in an asset deal that closed last year, according to the news release. Stephany Verstraete will serve as chief marketing officer and J. Kurt Zimmer will serve as chief technology officer.

source: HotelNewsNow

Madeep.com

Hotel Industry Online Business: Not Only 'Room'

2012-01-15T06:22:00.000-08:00

The new year has come and travel industry experts already foresee all major changes in the online promotion for the tourism sector. In these times it is customary to talk about forecasts and future scenarios on which to focus our attention and to invest the most of our resources, both time and economic.

All these opinions are to be agreed with, each one for its own micro-industry and various to each other for topics and ideas. All with one common denominator: giving life to the future, riding the new trends, new technological solutions and seize the opportunity given by the new methods of communication such as blogs, social media and mobile.

But, what do you have to communicate? And what would it help to sell? The rooms of your hotel? Quite right .. but, is that all?

I like to think of the Internet as a wonderful information, communication and sales tool... information, communication and sales. We all agree that information regarding hotel rooms are now everywhere: websites, portals, blogs and, for some time, even social media and mobile devices. Indeed, mobiles have allowed hoteliers to leverage their own bedrooms and offers as an argument of communication in order to interact with their own customers online and, more generally, with web users.

Hotel rooms are the core business of any hotel, but we know that they do not just sell holidays and more and more hotels are now looking to expand their reach by offering a range of services closely related to the night stay: restaurants for food and beverage services, conference centers and mice facilities, tours and travel services, spa and wellness centers, golf and tennis clubs.

All information properly published and advertised, but still not sold on the web.

To make a parallel, the NO bookability of amenities is very similar to what happens when a customer tries to book a room online but can not find availability for the dates requested. Result: lost customer. In fact, There are a few possibilities that the client be adapted to other dates in order to stay in that particular hotel, and virtually no possibility that the hotelier is able to make direct contact with the customer before he leaves the research, trying to propose him other valid solutions.

Very often we make the mistake of thinking that it's sufficient to publish such information on the web site and other platforms, including social media and mobile, to believe that we have done the best we can to get sales. But, similarly to what happened 10 years ago, when the Internet started to become mass media and hotels began to be present and to make reservations on the web, now also for ancillary services it is not enough we to publish them on the web; it is necessary to propose them. Simply put, selling when the customer finds what he seeks and, above all, what he is stimulated from.

We should all be a little psychologists to understand what is dictated by the stimulus and what it entails. The human brain assimilates and processes a limited number of information simultaneously. When the customer decides to book a hotel room, his only goal is to reach the end of the process: making a booking. For this reason, very often, the customer may not know what other services may be right for his needs. The website from which the customer makes the reservation, whether it's the hotel site rather than a portal, is the prime source of inspiration that can cause the client to be stimulated to buy, but if this desire is not supported by the chance to proceed with its reservation, the effect could backfire dictated by a sort of delusion after a no fulfilled desire.

I know, such as concepts are a little bit too abstract, and perhaps even extreme but, actually, the interesting thing is that all this has been tested with real data and the results are astounding. Data that compare the first period of adoption of the proposed line with the previous period where, in cases less optimistic, sales doubled quickly and, in many cases, the data can't even be compared because the online has allowed hoteliers to sell products and services that before remained almost completely unsold.

The web and its tools that allow to exploit its potential to be used as a purposeful and proactive system, not just a passive channel to receive purchases. A resource which still remained unexplored, although available from the birth of the Internet.

Well so is the future, with its changes and innovations, new technologies and strategies that will ensue, but why not to try making the best use of what is already in our hands?

Madeep.com

E-commerce in 2012: the experts' view

2012-01-04T05:50:00.000-08:00

The e-commerce market continued to grow last year, with online sales expected to reach £81bn for 2011.
I've been asking some industry experts about significant trends from last year, and what they expect to see in 2012.

What were the most significant trends in e-commerce in 2011?

Paul Rouke, Founder, PRWD
Some of the UK's biggest retailers were engaging the likes of ourselves at PRWD in the planning and early design phases of their replatforming projects.
This approach, compared to previous years where our involvement would typically be towards the end of the project lifecycle, has enabled retailers to move more towards a user-centred design approach, reducing the scale and cost of technical changes.
It had also enabled a greater degree of best practice to be implemented whilst at the same time looking at ways to provide more persuasive and in some cases innovative user experiences.

Depesh Mandalia, Senior Marketing Manager (Personalisation & MVT), Tesco
I've seen far more conversations around conversion optimisation in the last few years and in 2011 more action around this.
Perhaps this is just an evolution of online as e-commerce usability rapidly matures. Or perhaps companies are moving the weighting of budgets away from acquisition as markets saturate or as a symptom of the global crisis. It's certainly not a bad trend!
Mobile was one of my big trends to look out for in 2011 and we've not been let down. Mobile apps and sites are rapidly being deployed as competition increases for consumer spend.
There's still a long way to go to maximise this tool as companies realise the role mobile plays. Whether its for direct purchases, click and collect, researching before buying online or in-store it seems you need a presence or potentially lose out on a significant channel.

Dan Barker, E-business consultant:
Android really took off in 2011, and some of the sites I work with now get more Android traffic than iPhone. That meant lots of companies instantly moved from worrying about 'iPhone apps' to producing mobile versions of their main sites.
It was also the year Magento became 'the standard option' for small/medium-sized e-commerce sites thinking about replatforming.
Social media finally moved past the top of the bell curve, and it's now an oddity to find online retailers not doing something with Facebook or Twitter.

What's on your e-commerce wishlist for this year?

Paul Rouke:
More retailers will recognise the importance of both conducting user research and implementing a continuous testing and optimisation strategy, although I personally feel this is actually still a few years away.
Retailers will begin to focus on providing more persuasive browsing and shopping experiences, adopting some of the many approaches used by the likes of Booking.com.

Depesh Mandalia:
I'd like to see mobile maturing much quicker in 2012, whether it’s an app, mobile web or a hybrid strategy.
I'm looking forward as a consumer and a marketer to making more of this channel. I love the apps I currently use and love some of the mobile specific websites out there but we're not quite there yet, both in terms of what consumers want and how consumers want to shop.
It'll be a learning curve but one I'd like to see quickly evolve.

Dan Barker:
Lots of the 'walled garden' stuff Google has been doing lately is sad. I hope there'll be less of that.
I hope the Kindle Fire will sell loads, and that tablets will push more into the mainstream. It's fairly common to see sites taking more orders from iPads than from phones now, I'd bet the Kindle Fire will continue that.
There're lots of interesting possibilities there too, such as tie-ins between books and websites, films, games and websites, etc.
It would be nice to see personal commerce grow much more. eBay got everyone used to selling second hand stuff, and marketplaces have accustomed lots of people to the idea of selling directly themselves. I think marketplace sites will continue to grow, and more will move on from there to launching their own sites.

What are your predictions for 2012?

Paul Rouke:
Retailers who don't yet enclose their checkout process will implement what the likes of Amazon, ASOS, John Lewis and Game have been doing for years.
Retailers who currently force new customers to create an account or register at the start of checkout will finally realise that consumers don't want this forced on them and will therefore adopt a new approach.
This is to provide new customers with the option to create an account at the end of checkout.
The usability, persuasion and conversion optimisation industry is still very much in its infancy in terms of penetration & budget allocation with senior decision makes within retail organisations, but I certainly expect that during 2012 there will be a marked improvement in these areas.
Attendance at conferences like Conversion Conference London will be significantly higher that 2011 as more businesses recognise that investing more in conversion whilst potentially reducing some of their acquisition spend is a very intelligent commercial decision.
Remote user testing services like whatusersdo will grow significantly as more businesses use this type of approach to begin understanding consumer behaviour.
More SEO agencies will look to position themselves as also being conversion rate optimisation specialists, as they seek to exploit the growing market opportunity that exists in this industry.

Depesh Mandalia:
As quickly as mobile has taken off I think tablets still remain largely untapped. Some consider the strategies similar but I think the way they're used to consume media, games, and productivity differs.
The devices may well converge as more and more is compressed into smart phones and it'd take a brave marketer to bet against the tablets but with announcements recently of the automotive industry using tablets in their vehicles there's still scope for growth and a wide market to tap into.

Dan Barker:
I think we'll see a lot more 'e-commerce add-on' businesses pop up. People like Predictive Intent and Peerius have done this really well with smart on-site merchandising, the same with Feefo and a few other on-site reviews systems.
And third party 'abandoned basket rescue' systems have really caught on. I think we'll see a lot more of those types of systems.Things will continue to be a bit rocky in the UK, so I'd bet internationalisation will move from being a 'nice to have' to something far more sites focus on.
And, as traditional shops struggle, I expect a few more pureplay online businesses will start to open physical shops to function alongside their online stuff, and for more to push into direct mail.Mobile and social will continue to be the big, buzzy topics.

source: econsultancy.com

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E-Commerce for the Hospitality Industry

2012-01-02T14:11:00.000-08:00

The Internet has consolidated itself as a very powerful platform that has changed the way we communicate, and the way we do business. Over the last decade the population of Internet users has increased rapidly. The hospitality industry has always been among the first to capitalize on new technologies. Costumers are constantly seeking new sources of information to help them make decisions before purchasing services. E-commerce has been defined as "the buying and selling of products and services by businesses and consumers over the Internet." With hotel e-commerce, the landscape of the hospitality industry is forever changed. Online sales are an important part of the business. The growing importance of e-commerce in the modern hospitality industry has created an urgent need for simple solutions to manage companies' online presence. Now that each hotel is involved in e-commerce, why is hotel e-commerce so important today?

Accelerating Internet usage worldwide
The Internet is the lowest cost hotel-booking channel
Most travelers research hotel reservations on the Internet
Social media and online hotel reviews are an increasingly important decision factor
The web is the preferred media source for travel information, favored 17:1 over television and 6:1 over newspapers and magazines.

Smart hoteliers need to keep a sharp focus on the fundamental shift in ways customers are seeking information and channels that drive maximum return on investment. Here is a list of the basic e-commerce strategies that will help to get the best from the Internet world.

Search-friendly web site design. Site download speed is one of the most important ranking factors in organic search. Search engines want users to have a good experience. A good experience translates into a site that has relevant and compelling content, is quick to download, can be found easily and is compatible across all browsers. Heavy graphics, animation and flash demos cause your site to perform slowly. Sites that are built keeping these guidelines in mind will deliver better user experiences, will perform better on search engines, and ultimately drive higher ROI.
Improve conversion and usability. With the increasing volume of information that hoteliers are trying to provide travelers, it is key for hotels to focus on usability and conversion. Hotels tend to keep adding promotions, banners to promote offers and special deals. We forget that the human brain can only consume limited information. It is important to take a holistic approach and prioritize information. Good web site architecture and organized content improves site usability and its efficiency when used with search engines.
Paid search. This instantly drives targeted, qualified traffic to the web site and increases conversions. Locally targeted paid search campaigns are a great option. Most of the search queries related to hotels include location as a modifier (for example, Moscow hotels). Identifying top feeder markets and targeting campaigns specifically to those markets will help to increase conversions. It is also important to optimize all aspects of your campaign to maximize conversions. Here are some tips: make sure your ad has a call to action and offers value to customers; make sure your ad groups are made up of tightly knit keyword themes and that those keywords are reflected in your ad copy; ensure that your landing pages clearly reflect the offer promoted in the ad copy and includes clear calls to action and conversion factors.
Real time search — natural ranking. Building strong sites with compelling fresh content, and quality incoming links will always be essential for any site. With search engines launching real time indexing, it has become crucial to treat their site as an information platform for fresh content. Adding real time search functionality to your site, capability to generate user reviews, launching contests helps to build fresh content and quality links. Maps, photo galleries, videos and press releases are creative ways to distribute content on different channels.
Mobile. As things stand now, mobile queries represent about 10% of all queries made on Google. People are using mobile devices to conduct searches, as well as share content, connect with friends and browse the web. Google has recently announced that the mobile market is their priority. We are seeing a steady growth in traffic coming from mobile phones and smart phones. Hotels can leverage the mobile market by optimizing their site for mobile phones, improving the download speed of their site by avoiding heavy graphics and flash, making sure their site is mobile compatible, and promoting mobile sites across all platforms including paid, social and local. Location based services such as Foursquare and Facebook Places can also help to reach sets of customers who are active on these channels in their local community. Offering mobile specific coupons and specials helps to connect with a different set of customers who are active in the mobile space.
Embracing social media. 93 percent of social media users expect companies to have a social presence. 85 percent of social media users want companies to interact with them on social sites. A well-planned social initiative can turn fans into brand evangelists.
Test, test, test. Top e-commerce sites are continually testing new things. It's the only way to achieve continual improvement. I've seen examples where changing one word in a headline increased sales over 3 times. What difference could a seemingly insignificant change like that do for your web site?

Hoteliers need to ensure that they are using the full potential of the Internet. If someone walks up to you today and claims that they are an "Internet expert," walk away … fast! The web as we know it today has only evolved over the last 18 years, yet no other technology has impacted humanity so radically in our history. We have to constantly learn and look for ways to harness the power of new developments and trends. "For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today," in the words of a famous proverb.
source: The Moscow Times

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"YES AND..." & "NO, BUT..." - Imagine that...

2012-01-02T02:21:00.000-08:00

Imagine that you have to book a hotel room for your next trip. The goal is simple: make an online hotel reservation, no matter what kind system you use and how you get to the final hotel choice. So, more or less the process is always the same: search engine, travel portal, set input parameters such as dates and nights and comparison of results, identification of attractive offers, hotel website and booking engine and, finally, the reservation.

Let's stop for a minute at the moment immediately preceding the conclusion of the reservation: I chose the hotel, I checked all the information about rooms, rates, hotel and property, the hotel is in a good location, it has rooms available for the dates of my trip and the price falls in my budget ... Ok, let's book!

Now imagine that you can enrich your travel reservation with additional services that you probably have not even thought about; for example, why not to book a taxi from the airport to the hotel? That would be great, you won't have to think about it any longer. Moreover, the hotel you chose has a magnificent Spa, so why not to book a nice relaxing package or a massage at the time you wish, for the lenght you prefer?

YES AND... a proposal like this, whether online or offline, automatically becomes a proactive sales process that increase customer's desire to purchase, as well as a key lever to make him choose your website for its reservations instead of the travel portal. All this without necessarily having to increase the number of clicks that the user must make before reaching the completion of booking, then having to leave unchanged the possibility of being able to book in just 3 clicks, regardless of the number of rates, rooms, offers and services displayed.

Imagine arriving at a restaurant for a nice dinner with your girlfriend, wife or lover ;-), but you don't have a reservations and, unfortunately, the restaurant owner tells you that all tables are occupied. Imagine then that the restaurant owner says: "as soon as I have an available table I'll let you seat, meanwhile I'm gonna offer you a drink at the bar" ...

Similarly, imagine entering into a beautiful hotel after a busy work day, but even in this case, the hotel is fully booked and you didn't make a reservation because maybe you forgot it or for a simple misunderstanding with your secretary who has failed to reserve the room or, again, you tried to book online but have not found available solutions for that date but you still decided to try to present yourself in the same hotel.
The receptionist, however, also tells you: "I just checked the availability of the last rooms at a hotel within walking distance of the same category, I'm going to book a room for you and in the meantime I call a taxi for moving to there"

NO, BUT ... What do you do when a user tries to book on your site through your booking engine when you don't have any availble rooms? Most of the time he's gonna leave or check availability at other organizations. Just as it happens in the two examples above, even in the online booking process, the concept of "NO, But" does not change. This rule is to be able to propose, for example, alternative dates to the initial request of the customer, different offers from the one selected for which there is no availability, or, in the latter case, you should propose a hotel near you.

As it stands for the offline, even the online consists of cascading and consequential steps, where the user always has an answer to the choice he made and the results obtained and, even if the answer is negative (no availability), he always has the possibility to continue his trial until his goal is reached (reservation), without having to leave the path and then starting a new one.

Try it yourself...

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OTAs are the clear beneficiaries when it comes to rate parity

2011-12-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

Based on new data from RateGain, a maximum of 1 in five hotels in major cities in Europe have introduced a rate parity based rate strategy for the coming three month. Even worse, for the vast majority of hotels, prices on OTA sites were lower than on their own website.

OTAs are the clear beneficiaries when it comes to rate parity.

A new hotel rate parity trends from RateGain for November to January 2012 of three, four and five star hotels across some of the major cities in Europe, shows that the vast majority of hotels don't apply a rate parity pricing strategy.

In top destinations like Paris and London, only a little over 20% of three, four and five star hotels have a rate parity strategy in place. Amsterdam leads the list with the lowest rate parity adoption, with 3% of hotels having a rate parity strategy in place, and 87% of hotels offering lower rates on OTAs than their own website.

Like in Europe, the beneficiaries of rate parity in North America are OTAs and not hotels, in fact only about 10% of hotels apply rate parity strategies at all, with 90% of the remaining hotels offering lower rates on OTA sites than on branded hotel website, or viceversa.

Hotel rate parity trends for December to February 2012 of three, four and five star hotels across some of the major cities in North America. The report shows the percentage of hotels with cheaper rates on their own brand site compared to their rates on other OTAs.

Los Angeles and Toronto leads the report as destinations with no hotels offering rate parity. What's more, both lead also the report with almost 90% of its hotels offering lower rates on OTA sites than their brand websites.

Compared to RateGain's findings on rate parity in Europe, the results look even more troubeling, with OTAs being the clear winner when it comes to rate parity.

Get the full data for Europe and North America.

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Travel & hospitality brands need to make mobile a top priority for 2012

2011-12-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

62% of travel brands don’t have a mobile friendly website. This was just one of the findings from a recent global EyeforTravel survey which examined key trends in travel marketing and distribution.

The survey found that globally, Travel brands are failing to adequately invest in mobile, despite widespread adoption of smartphones and increasing customer search queries via mobile (19.5% of search queries for hotels are made via mobile devices).

The survey (released as part of EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution & Marketing Barometer report October, 2011) highlighted that overall, mobile investment globally for apps and websites had not moved with great pace during 2011 for Travel.

Investment by certain countries however did gain pace. In Europe, Germany is leading the way with 45% of respondents this autumn indicating that they now have a mobile application for their brand – an increase from just 9% back in February 2011.

China saw the biggest increase in investment with 67% of respondents indicating that they have a mobile website for their brand, up from just 30% in February.

The shift towards mobile has been likened to the seismic shift from offline to online that occurred over a decade ago. In a month that saw major travel brands such as Thomas Cook feel the impact of being too complacent about adapting to change, the survey comes as a warning to all travel brands. Those brands who relish and adapt to new consumer facing technology are the ones who will succeed over the coming years.

For many brands, adapting to a rapidly changing technological environment can be daunting. EyeforTravel’s Mobile Innovation in Travel Awards (which will take place in San Francisco, March 5-6) seek to recognise and reward those brands who are investing in mobile right now.

‘Innovative travel brands who have recognised the urgent need to invest in mobile right now to stay competitive are helping to pave the way for the rest of the industry to follow suit,’ says Gina Baillie, GM, EyeforTravel.

‘The Mobile Innovation in Travel Awards recognise the valuable time and resources that they have invested and will no doubt serve to encourage industry wide mobile best practices.’

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source: eyefortravel

Foursquare: what a better tool for hotel disintermediation?

2011-12-18T10:03:00.000-08:00

Like all new applications, also Foursquare had to wait some time before the right of being recognized as a useful business tool, not only for playful activities, but also for companies in all markets, trying to keep up with the times, using new technologies.

Perhaps it was too premature talking about tourism and hospitality industry geolocation until a few months ago, when Foursquare has become a real tool for doing business. Until then, in fact, companies' branded pages were manually created by a dedicated department and, obviously, only those big companies with a great-sounding names were successful. 2011 also coincides with the automation of this process of creating business pages in the self-service method, so anyone can have a professional Foursquare page by following a few simple steps.

While remaining faithful to the idea that Foursquare has not yet been well understood in the Tourism industry and it is doing so much work to take root in it, is good to think that such social geolocation netowrk should be considered almost like all the others.

Why almost? Because, in my opinion, it is even better! It's true that the same information is already present on your official channels, such as your website, your blog, Facebook and Twitter, but everything that you post on Foursquare is strictly location-aware, directly accessible from Mobile, and therefore particularly suitable to create real-time interaction.

Initially I thought that Facebook Places and Facebook Deal (what happened to it?) would have replaced Foursquare, which has exceed expectations.

After several check-in and check-out, I finally convinced myself. And for those who have not done it yet, now it's time to approach this channel and begin to study it to understand that:

with the growth of the mobile applications, geolocation will be the future for many activities, especially for tourism
a "social" channel and a heavily geolocation based tool is the best instrument for getting disintermediated from OTA
Badges and gratitudes methods create a strong bond between the company / hotel and client: loyalty!
recent partnership between Foursquare and Groupon paves the way for some interesting online promotion for your hotel
it is important to assert its "Venue" (as defined on Foursquare) namely its position on the map... as with Google Places
location-based social networks like Foursquare allow totally free online promotion and generate an important word of mouth for your Brand
you can reach the entire Foursquare community with advices and check-in, besides to post the direct link to your official website

For somebody it is soon to hear about Foursquare as part of its tourism promotion but, honestly, as it often happens on the web, it's already too late!

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Google's Matt Cutts: Good Content Trumps SEO

2011-12-16T09:43:00.000-08:00

With the advent of the new algorithm Panda and the new rules set by Google, the life of SEOs (Search Engine Optimization), or those who spend their lives looking for new ways to drag Google users on websites, has become increasingly difficult. The competition for traffic from the search engine has created a real market, which in history has had several changes, some of which are also malignant, since the rise of so-called "cont(ents)ainer" or those sites where the content was produced by weight, with the sole purpose of developing page views and advertising revenue, without even caring about the quality of content, often using automatic algorithms to generate pages full of keywords. Those were the early days, now long forgotten. He then arrived today with SEO services increasingly complex and integrated, aimed at content and research's optimization on the leadership position in the search query.

But Google has become increasingly "smart" by generating a real game of cat and mouse between SEO experts, to invent new solutions, and Google to constantly change its parameters. SEO is now considered a real science, which starts from a number of assumptions about the ways in which to build a web site and its contents. Science for which highly advanced preparation is required and updates almost daily. The negative drift of this science, has created the so-called Black SEO, a malicious use of the various SEO techniques, with the use of tricks that are not allowed to mislead the algorithm. To address this, meanwhile Google has strengthened more and more of his "Team Spam", a department dedicated to counter blow for blow to those who were trying to generate traffic by focusing exclusively on technology and not on the editorial quality. The manager of this team, Matt Cutts, has recently released an interview on specific SEO practices, responding to a question asking whether the sites technically made without following the logic of evil and SEO were actually penalized and removed from Google searches. His answer was pretty clear: "absolutely not".

Cutts said that Google now points to the intrinsic quality of the content and not on how you created the HTML code that contains it. In the interview he said: "Just because someone puts all the dots and write a perfect HTML code, that does not mean you have good content worthy of being rewarded." It would seem, then, that Google will begin to care about the form and go to the substance. Cutts continued: "Although technically stupid pages you may have, this does not mean that you won't have good results. And we want them to be found out by those who looks for them". A blow to the developers and a prize to those who can produce good information? Cutts also says that "Google is doing everything so that no site has to resort to SEO." His words "we try to make it so you do not have to do SEO" leaves little room to the imagination (although in earlier statements encouraging the good SEO) and Google is working so well without SEO content for you to emerge. To hear Matt Cutts, the priority now is to write great content, accessible, interesting, with good titles. Yet another affirmation of the concept "Content is King".

Therefore, if you have a blog or if you are a company that is going to allocate a high budget to pay expensive SEO experts, maybe you should take things slowly and evaluate if it would be better to spend more time and money to produce great content.

In short, SEO experts goodbye? Maybe not, but surely the experts will soon have to expand their way of working, introducing new skills. Meanwhile, one thing is certain: the content, the real one, is what counts. Always.

Watch the interview with Matt Cutts of Google.

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source: RedWrite Enterprise

How OTAs boost illegal hotel conversions

2011-12-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

Law-breaking residential hotel operators aren’t hiding their illegal activity, they are advertising it – listing their illegal rooms on popular Internet travel sites like Booking.com, right next to and competing against legal tourist rooms.

The rise in the number of residential hotel rooms being rented illegally cast a light on the role that Internet travel sites play in facilitating this illegal practice. In many cases, law-breaking residential hotel operators aren’t hiding their illegal activity, they are advertising it – listing their illegal rooms on popular Internet travel sites like Booking.com, right next to and competing against legal tourist rooms. Call it a strategy of hiding in plain sight. But a closer look at the economics of the travel industry shows that in many ways, illegal tourist hotels and websites like Booking.com were made for each other.

With the high end and middle class hotels off the market, the pressure is on the lower end of the tourist market to meet the demand for rooms. It’s no wonder residential hotel owners are looking to jump into the lower end of the hotel market and no wonder that there is a market for their rooms.

Websites such as Booking.com manage to evade liability because owners and operators are clearly responsible for the content of their postings. But shouldn’t Booking.com know local laws governing residential and tourist hotels in the city, especially since they have an office here? Shouldn’t they know this is an illegal unit? How culpable are they?

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source: HotelMarketing

Customer Care starts at the time of booking

2011-12-04T10:36:00.001-08:00

Anticipate Guest requests is one of the main professional esteem in hotel industry. This is not only for a good customer service, but a real business opportunity if you have the right instruments.

Customizing rates, travel offers, packages and stay amenities and services is increasingly the focus of marketing strategies... especially on the web. In fact, while it's a good way to increase your customer loyalty when the Guest is there, the web is a wonderful opportunity to anciticipate his needs that are no longer only "room accomodation".

Providing the Customer with a wide range of additional services, increasingly opportunities to create his own tailor-made holidays or business trips, is not only a simple plus but a your special attention and the best effort you can do for your Guest.

Customer care (and business opportunity) starts at the time of booking before continuing during the stay in hotel. Nowadays, it makes the difference! The difference between expected service and customized service, so what a Guest is expecting to find when he looks for accomodation and you are able to offer to convince him to choose you.

Not all booking engines and online travel agencies are the same. Some one of that allows you to make better use of your sales skills by offering multiple rates, special offers, travel packages and, most importantly, additional services.

If a young couple newlyweds is looking online for your wonderful Luxury Hotel for their wedding night, why don't you give them the opportunity to book a special bootle of Champagne to be found in room at the time of arrival? Maybe when they'll come to you they will be too excited to remember to ask...

If a business man is going to relax in a Spa at the end of his working day, why don't you give him the opportunity to book a special massage into your Spa, at the time he wish (hour) for the time he wants (duration). Maybe when he'll arrive your Spa will be already fully booked...

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