Hotel Sales Tips for Internet Marketing from Hotel Sales Online

Top Ten Hotel Sales Tips

Recognize the importance of marketing and selling your hotel online. Of all our Hotel Sales Tips, this is the most important. The Internet is revolutionizing hotel marketing and booking and is becoming more important as a source of hotel bookings every year. To maintain and develop your hotel's marketing efforts in this new environment, you must invest the time and money necessary. And it is time and money well spent. The cost of building an excellent website and developing your online hotel marketing and sales is only a fraction of the potential returns - returns that will continue and grow into the future.

Not convinced? Have a look at the facts and statistics about the growing importance of the Internet in hotel marketing and booking.
Educate yourself and your employees about hotel marketing on the Internet. You can't think about things you don't understand, never mind take action. Whether you are doing your own online marketing or are hiring somebody to do it for you, you need to know the basics of the Internet and electronic distribution channels. Also, make sure that your employees know your hotel's email address, website address and what is available on your hotel's website (for example, if bookings can be made through it).

A good place to start learning about electronic hotel marketing and sales is to browse this website. Begin with our article How to Get Started in Online Hotel Sales and Marketing or check out our Overview of Electronic Distribution Channels.
Know the keywords that your customers are using to find information about your hotel and destination. In almost all electronic distribution channels your hotel will be found through the use of specific key words and phrases. You don't choose these keywords, your potential customers do. It is vital that you know what keywords your customers are using to find accommodation and hotel services at your hotel and destination.

Learn about keywords and how to find them by reading our article How to Find the Right Keywords for Your Hotel and Destination.
Constantly work on developing and marketing your website. Your hotel's website is the centerpiece of your own online distribution channel and is the only way you can get online bookings and business from the Internet without paying commissions. Your website should be attractive useful for potential customers and for search engines. It should have information about your hotel, about your destination, and about your hotel's different business units. You should get as many links to your website as possible, and be registered in as many search engines as possible. Developing and marketing your website to make it the best that it can be should be an ongoing job.

Find out about what's involved in building and marketing an effective hotel website in our articles How to Create a Website that Sells Your Hotel and How to Promote and Market Your Hotel's Website on the Internet .
Be able to take booking directly from your website, without paying commissions to anybody. If potential customers can't book directly with you on your website, they will go elsewhere or book through another channel that will cost you a commission. Therefore, you must be able to take bookings from your website. And, unless you want to pay commissions on bookings you take from your own website, you need either a booking service for which you pay a flat rate or, better still, your own online booking software.

If you don't have your own online booking engine, have a look at our reviews of Hotel reservation software and online booking engines and pick one that's right for you. Or contact us for advice.
Be fanatical about reducing the booking commissions you pay to travel agents, GDS systems and representatives, travel websites and other intermediaries. There are many ways that potential customers can find and book your hotel using electronic hotel marketing and sales channels, some of which will cost you a commission on each booking, and some that won't. As much as possible you should maximize the amount of business that you get through non-commission channels and try to use commission-charging channels only to attract new business.

Get an overview of electronic distribution channels and focus on the channels for which you don't have to pay commissions. Try to use commission-charging distribution channels only to attract new business and work to minimize repeat bookings that come to you this way.
Use pay-per-click advertising. Pay-per-click advertising is Internet advertising on search engines in which you only pay when somebody clicks through to your own website. You bid for specific key words and phrases, which means that the website traffic you get from this advertising is highly focused and targeted to your hotel and destination.

Find out more about Pay-per-click advertising by reading our article How to Use Keyword, Pay-Per-Click and other Online Hotel Advertising. Also, do a search on Google and other major search engines for accommodation at your destination and see what pay-per-click advertising accompany the results.
Use GDS to maximize new bookings but minimize repeat bookings from GDS. The Global Distribution System, or GDS, is the computer system used by travel agents and some online travel websites to find and book hotel rooms. It is important to be listed on the GDS system, but since you pay a commission on every booking taken via GDS you should manage this distribution channel carefully. For example, while GDS is an excellent way to attract new business, you should do everything possible to minimize repeat bookings taken via GDS, encouraging repeat customers and travel agents to book directly with you.

Read our article How to Use GDS Systems Profitably to find out more about making the most of GDS distribution and marketing. You might also check out our reviews of services offering GDS system access and GDS positioning.
Use travel websites and other 3rd-party intermediaries very carefully. Travel websites and other online intermediaries now dominate the online hotel market with nearly 50% of Internet bookings now coming through them. Because of their commercial power intermediaries can demand substantial discounts on hotel rooms, which they then resell. This has led to many hoteliers losing control of their pricing. Recognize that you are competing with online travel intermediaries and use them only to move inventory that you cannot get rid of any other way. Above all, do not allow online travel intermediaries to offer lower prices than the prices you offer on your own website.

Compete with online travel intermediaries by concentrate on your own Internet distribution channels and learn about How to Use Third Party Intermediaries Profitably.
Use the Internet to market your weddings, conferences, facilities and other hotel business units. People turn to the Internet to research and arrange weddings and conferences and to find information about different facilities and services that hotels offer. Each of your hotel's different business units can and should be marketed separately on the Internet. They will have different keywords and different linking possibilities than your main hotel's online presence and you should register the web pages about your hotel's different business units separately in the search engines. You might even consider buying separate domain names for each of the business units you want to market online.

Treat your hotel's different business units separately when marketing them online. Prepare an Internet marketing campaign for each of them using separate keywords and pay-per-click advertising.

These top Hotel Sales Tips for Internet hotel marketing reflect only the core of what you need to do to make the most of the Internet as your own, commission-free, electronic distribution channel. Browse through the Hotel Sales Online website to learn more and check out the Internet Marketing Services that we offer. And if you can't find what you are looking for, just contact us, and we'll be happy to help!

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