Destination Visibility: How Hotels & Resorts Market Online€¦ · Destination Visibility: How Hotels & Resorts Market Online. If you are marketing a travel business to consumers,

Whitepaper

Destination Visibility: How Hotels & Resorts Market Online

If you are marketing a travel business to consumers, it likely has a visual story. Video is a must.

Soon, video in travel will become a pre-requisite to sell online.

Destination Visibility: How Hotels and Resorts Market Online

Introducing Video Marketing for Accommodation Services Hotel and tourism industries are embracing digital marketing methods wholeheartedly. Many hotels and resorts are using authentic, compelling and informative video content to entice travelers and truly convey the holiday experience to online visitors. Offering a video of your hotel or destination can be what sets you apart from other accommodation services and drives your bookings. Video conveys visual and emotional touch points, which are present in almost every travel offering. With the constant expansion of Internet advertising, hotel and resorts have quickly discovered the impact that online promotion with video can have on the amount of guests in their rooms. Here are some brief highlights i:

• Bookings are 67% more likely to happen when avideo tour is available.

• Internet shoppers who view your video are anastounding 89% more likely to book.

• Incredibly, 115% bookings are achievable whenboth above elements are present on a site.

With the constant expansion of online marketing, hotels and resorts have quickly discovered the impact that video can have on the amount of guests in their rooms and most importantly, on their bottom line.One of the most viral and engaging means to market to visitors is through the use of online video. Watching a video of a hotel before checking in has such great value. The travel industry has been leading other industries in how it leverages rich media with consumer facing sites becoming richer and richer with video to attract and retain the online travel consumer. Video has also been reported as increasing conversion rates by up to 85%. But as online video moves from being the exception to the norm more innovative marketing and spend will be required. Here we introduce video marketing as a tool for hotels and resorts to increase awareness, generate buzz and boost bookings.

With a well-designed and easy to navigate website, a few video tours of your hotel or resort and a visual profile of your business, you could definitely see an increase in bookings and negate the need for reduced-priced booking sites like Hotwire, which directly commission from your hotel rooms that are vacant during hot times of the year.

Video Marketing Helps the Accommodation Industry What are consumers looking for when they book a hotel? The average visitor is seeking value and cleanliness, which is easy to describe yet hard to prove without graphic evidence. Posting a video via Flickr or YouTube, or embedded on your website gives added value to the descriptive words used to describe the hotel rooms and features. People greatly prefer watching video over reading text for its ability to engage and this spans just about every industry.

When it comes to engagement, online video is 5.33 times more effective than text. In fact, site visitors who view video stay two minutes longer on average and are 64% closer to purchase (Comscore).

Page 2

Video conveys visual and emotional touch points, which are present in almost every travel offering.

Whitepaper

Marc Ruff, CEO of TVTrip, a site that allows customers to search for hotels in key cities using professional quality videos says customers expect video to answer three basic questionsii:

What’s around the hotel: what is the neighborhood like, what is nearby the hotel

What kind of hotel is it: Is it more a family or a design hotel, what are the amenities, etc…

What are the different room categories: What do I get if I pay $100 more for a junior suite vs. the standard double

Utilizing Online Video & sites like YouTubeMore and more professionals in the tourism industry are using mediums like YouTube to visually tell their stories and present their businesses. Sites like these offer a cost-effective and easy way to post video footage that brings holidays to life for consumers. YouTube and other sources of online video footage are increasingly competing with the traditional marketing methods like brochures as a way for visitors to research their holiday options.

Tourism NT uses a branded YouTube channel which serves as a central point for the region’s online footage. Here is what their Marketing Manager, Rita Harding has to say iii:

“People are looking beyond static imagery to understand what they will experience,” says Harding. “It reinforces the forecasted ‘primacy’ of online as a pre-planning tool. We are really starting to see it become a big force for people.”

Many hotels and resorts are following this same strategy as a way to showcase their offerings, the destinations they are located in and the top attractions in those cities.

???

Google Australia’s head of travel, Claire Hatton, says YouTube is the first point consumers go to when they think about booking a holiday.

“People use it to dream, plan and purchase – all the way through. There’s a ‘purchase funnel’ process that videos fit into. There’s still a role for brochures as people like to see the pricing and have something to hold but videos are going to be a much bigger trend.”

Quick facts iv about YouTube in the present:

• One hour of video is uploaded every second toYouTube

• About 4 billion videos are viewed each day throughthe social video site

• In 2011 alone, YouTube had over 1 trillion videoviews

• Well over 500 years’ worth of videos are watchedthrough Facebook each day

• 61% of travel brands are expecting to increase theirYouTube, Facebook and Twitter investment over thenext three months

Page 3


If you combine the effectiveness of reviews with the fact that videos have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts, video is definitely the way to go

Whitepaper

Hotel Video Marketing Case StudyHotel Casa del Mar in Santa Monica, CA recently performed a case study on how video marketing through both website and through mobile video access would increase their consumer engagement and lead to more bookings. They tested their local market through a text-based MMS short code marketing campaign around Los Angeles which included a video of their hotel. Their results were stunning and taught some valuable lessons about video marketing in the mobile message service format. Highlights of this case study v are below:

• Their MMS video marketing efforts generated a 75% rate of engagement

• Delivery rate for the entire campaign was 100%• 27% redeemed coupons / suggestive promos

through the Casa del Mar Hotel• Video marketing was the catalyst for their

engagement and not the text message itself

This shows that even singular hotel chains largely benefit from video marketing on any platform. In fact, as the Young Hotelier vi suggests, it will be a mix of video and social engagement (i.e. sharing the videos through social networks) that attracts the customers’ attention.

Social Media & Video Marketing go hand in handSocial media has made a significant impact on the way brands in the travel industry communicate, engage and connect with their visitors. It is quickly becoming a vital tool and is dramatically impacting how consumers make their travel decisions. Travelers are able to share their experiences with not only text and photos, but also video reviews.

The explosion of the social web puts your customer in control, a key reason why it has taken off so quickly. Consumers trust other consumers more than they trust you – and when it comes to content, video is no different to text or photos.

When booking trips, tourists heavily rely on fellow travelers’ ratings and reviews to help them make their holiday decisions. As many as 87% of people who read positive reviews are more apt to stay or visit a destination vii as opposed to not having any reviews to find, period. With this in mind, offering video testimonials of visitors that have stayed at your hotel are even more effective than written ones. If you combine the effectiveness of reviews with the fact that videos have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts, video is definitely the way to go. Clearly there is a huge opportunity here as tourism is experiential and video allows experiences to be shared in a much more engaging way than either text or photos viii.

Travelers today use social media to get the real, authentic, unvarnished, unedited preview of what to expect. (Barbara Messing, TripAdvisor). In 2011 it was found that 50 million social reviews were created in TripAdvisor for 495,000 rated hotels. This also displays the power of social media engagement for hotels. The social media world has become a place where user-generated hotel reviews and resort suggestions are spread across friendships in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet and other travel-related guides and networks.

Page 4


50 million social reviews have been created in TripAdvisor for 495,000 rated hotels

As many as 87% of people who read positive reviews are more apt to stay or visit a destination

Whitepaper

The bulk of hotel bookings that come from social media suggestion are harvested from one friend telling another friend about their night at a particular hotel and perhaps sharing the link to the hotel or resort’s website or social profile. The below diagram shows the level of social engagement by major hotel chains:

Social Media Engagement For Major Hotel Chains, 2011 9 (In Thousands)

Social Media & Mobile in the Travel IndustryThese stats, presented by Digital Visitor and EyeforTravel, look at how both social media and mobile technology have impacted the travel industry specifically ix.

• 100% of travel brands surveyed globally had aFacebook brand profile (up from 82% in Feb 2011)

• 75% had a Twitter profile (up from 64%)• 71% of travel brands agree to some extent that

social media has improved engagement• 50% of travel brands surveyed agreed that they

have generated direct bookings from social media• Travel marketers surveyed found that using social

media reduced PR costs by 24%

Page 5


Video Marketing Is the Future of Hotel & Resort SuccessVideo marketing, with its ability to engage, convert and retain is where tourism marketers will focus their attention now and into the future. Many customers will rely upon video for testimonials related to customer resort and hotel stays, how hotels look in general, amenities that can be expected, and getting valuable coupons or promotions delivered in visual format.

For hotels to find longevity in their video marketing strategies they need to engage travelers with stimulating, relevant content and provide them with the tools to make informed booking decisions. Now is the time for the travel industry to leverage video to influence booking decisions. Whether it’s booking a hotel or sharing advice, it is clear that travelers around the world now rely upon video to help plan their trips.

Whitepaper

TestimonialsCaptures customer experiences through authentic, unscripted interviews that build trust and credibility

NewsCompliments traditional PR methods with videos that are journalistic in tone in order to establish credibility and drive media interest.

ProfilesEngaging and unscripted videos that provide clients with the opportunity to deliver a personal message to potential customers in their own style and tone.

AdsEither scripted with a professional voiceover or interview-driven to deliver a positive first impression and drive higher conversion.

Video Solutions

Page 6


Tap into a share of the video marketing explosion that shows YouTube receiving over 3600 hours of video uploaded every minute and viewed over a trillion times collectively a month

Whitepaper

Appendix: Hotel and Resort Marketing Research Notesi. http://www.vfmleonardo.com/bring-your-hotel-life-online

ii. http://www.eyefortravel.com/social-media-and-marketing/soon-video-travel- will-become-pre-requisite-sell-online

iii. http://www.reelseo.com/video-marketing-travel-industry/#ixzz1t4stSy4I

iv. http://www.brandingmagazine.com/2012/01/24/ amazing-visual-youtube-statistics/

v. http://www.pocket-promo.com/case-studies/case-studies-hotels-use-text-message-marketing-to-build-repeat-business/sms-case-study-hotel-casa-del-mar/

vi. http://www.younghotelier.com/young-hotelier-videos/video-whats-next-in-hotel-marketing-3-key-marketing-trends-for-hoteliers/

vii. http://www.stikkymedia.com/articles/social-media-and-the-tourism-industry-statistics

viii. http://www.eyefortravel.com/distribution-strategies/sharing-experience-%E2%80%93-could-video-become-more-popular-text-online-traveller-r

ix. http://www.digitalvisitor.com/latestnewsandresources/social-media-blog/video-social-media-mobile-in-the-travel-industry.html

Page 7


Whitepaper

BusinessCreator, Inc.47 North Jefferson Street, First Floor

Allentown, PA 18102855-943-8736 (Toll Free)

[email protected]

Documents

Destination Visibility: How Hotels & Resorts Market Online€¦ · Destination Visibility: How Hotels & Resorts Market Online. If you are marketing a travel business to consumers,