Popular Facebook Apps for Hotels

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.

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Expedia fined for lying to clients

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

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How to leverage private sales sites in your online distribution strategy

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:

1. 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.
2. The deals must never be put out in a predictable manner.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. The deals should be fenced, well ahead in time and attractive. Remember you are attempting to garner latent demand here.
6. 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.
7. 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

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