Weekly article: Digital Marketing Strategies

Max Starkov is President & CEO of HeBS Digital (Hospitality eBusiness Strategies, Inc.), the hospitality industry’s leading Internet marketing services and strategies consulting firm. Max is a recognized "thought leader" in Internet marketing strategies in hospitality and is a frequent guest speaker and presenter at industry events and conferences.

Max received the prestigious HSMAI “Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Sales and Marketing” honor for 2008.”

He has spent his entire professional career in hospitality and travel. He has an extensive Internet marketing experience. He co-founded and served as CEO of three eBusiness companies: Travelbreak.com 1995-1999 (#3 in traffic after Priceline), WhaleMedia.com 1999-2001(Winner of the coveted Microsoft RAD Award for hotel online booking systems), and HeBS (since 2001). Under Max’s leadership, HeBS Digital has pioneered many of the "best practices" in hotel Internet marketing and direct online distribution, and has won many prestigious awards for its groundbreaking website design and Internet marketing campaigns.

Currently Max is serving on the HSMAI Digital Marketing Council, the highest hotel internet marketing authority in the country, commissioned to monitor and educate HSMAI members about the emerging trends and innovations happening in hotel digital marketing universe.

Max has written numerous reports, industry research, and published articles in major travel and hospitality publications.

Please have a look on one of his very interesting and useful latest article, intitled "The Smart Hotelier’s 2013 Top Ten Digital Marketing Resolutions", published on the 4th of January 2013 on hospitalitynet.org:

Click here to read the article

Case study: Coca- Cola & Dismoioù (Team Work)

Please check also these links of Marie and Alexandra

Weekly article: SoLoMo

What does SoLoMo mean? Well, it means “Social Local Mobile”. Basically, it’s when a tourist with nothing but a bottle of water and a Smartphone, consults the social networks as soon as he/she arrives in a new location.  It’s a simple way for tourists to obtain information about activities in their area and for tourism professionals it’s an efficient way of letting the tourists know that they are there, and happy to welcome them! SoLoMo, which is half-way between technological word-of-mouth and a marketing technique, has become a “must”. 

Here is an article explaining the benefits of SoLoMo for the users & all the professionals:

Click here to have a look on the article

Dismoioù & Coca Cola

           
                                          

Coca-Cola Company using SoLoMo App: Dismoiou?

BLYNK

http://www.blynk.it/

Capabilities :

Blynk is a company that creates dedicated applications for hotels.  Blynk iHotel provides hospitality solutions to improve the guest experience by offering an interactive platform.

Indeed, thanks to the application, clients can discover the hotel and its services but also interact with the staff. They can for example order room service, be in direct relation with the concierge or address all kind of requests.  In terms of management this tool allows hoteliers to have a better control of the stay experience and to revolutionize and modernize their offer. They adapt to customers needs and habits in terms of new web navigation and on mobile devices.

For the customers: 

·         Hotel services: booking, spa, restaurant, pool..

·         Concierge

·         Shopping

·         Special offers: get information about the discounts of the hotel but also after the stay

·         Notification: about their requests and reservations status…

·         Other features:  weather, laundry, wake up call, express check out

For hotels: 

·         Fast and easy set up

·         Live update

·         Customizable design

·         Track guest requests

·         Smart advertising

·         Real time resorts and statistics

·         Increase REVPAR

·         Optimize workforce

·         Improve work organization

Costs :

Blynk provides four different packages at different prices.

 

For each packages, different options are suggested:

- Setup & Usage

- Hotel CMS

- Hotel Marketing

- Guest experience

Different prices are setup according to the hotel inventory.

Example: for a hotel of more than 101 rooms, the package "Pro Unlimited" is requested at $299 per month and includes all the options above.

We can say that the prices are very attractive.

Impact:

Beyond the simple booking engine, the application is a real Customer Relationship Manager. It can durably increase the hotel bookings & revenues as clients have a simplest access to services. Blink will also improve employee’s way of working and thus their productivity and the quality of service.

The application will perfectly fit to hotels that are familiar with new devices and technologies like W hotels or Mama Shelter.

Personally, I would register to this website if the hotel is a big one (more than 100 rooms) because it will incredibly increase the quality of service and because the cost is not really high.

Crowdsourcing: Increase Direct Bookings (Team Work)

      

      In collaboration with Marie Charbonnier, Jessica Robles, Valentine Follin- Arbelet, here are our 4 best ideas in order to increase Direct Bookings.   

• Optimize your presence online

-          Well designed and attractive website

-          Good referencing

-          Online community (social media)

-          E-reputation (tripadvisor)

-          Online booking (platform, links..)

-          Get free or charged direct links to your website on bloggers, tourism offices..

• Pricing strategy

-          Differentiate from other channels (distribution channels) by including for the same price more services ex : BB , museum, chocolate, transports….

-          Create attractive  and originals packages  adapted to all kind of clientele

-          Promotions

• Facilitate booking process

-          Different options for the payment

-          Train the staff to be welcoming and able to inform the guests

-          Be reactive on the phone, per email…

• Create a strong relationship with your guests

-          Create loyalty program to encourage direct bookings

-          Organize events and contests to create a first connection with guests or to reinforce the relationship with your customers

-          Satisfaction surveys