Online Merchandising: The Secret to Selling the Hotel Experience Online

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1 Author: Paolo Boni President & Chief Executive Officer, VFM Leonardo, Inc. Paolo has been leading VFM Leonardo s vision and strategic direction since 2001 and is a recognized travel industry expert on subjects relating to online travel marketing, online hotel merchandising and rich media. He is also a contributing member of the HotelExecutive.com Editorial Board. Online Merchandising: The Secret to Selling the Hotel Experience Online Don t let the title of this article mislead you - what hoteliers need to do to sell hotel rooms online is no secret. It s all about better merchandising with content that inspires and motivates shoppers to book. More than just rates, inventory and driving traffic to a booking engine, selling hotel rooms online involves making engaging, detailed visual and written content available to travel shoppers on all the digital channels they use throughout the shopping journey. Online channels are where hoteliers need to focus their efforts. More than 1 billion people use the internet every day and 91% of US online buyers state that researching online makes them feel more confident about their purchases. 1 The internet offers the simplest way for consumers to find and compare hotels. It also produces the best marketing return-on-investment. It s time for hoteliers who aren t exploiting online channels to make that commitment. Visual merchandising needs to be added to every hotelier s online strategy. In addition to online marketing and merchandising activities by chains, brands, representation companies, etc., individual hotel properties and management companies need to add one more thing to their list of online strategies: visual merchandising. A successful online strategy should be focused on both driving traffic to websites, but also converting it when they arrive. SEO, PPC and many Social Media activities are primarily focused on driving traffic and creating awareness online, while visual merchandising is what helps convert traffic and close the sale. As the travel industry recovers, the hotels that will lead the way are the ones that embrace online merchandising now. A webinar we conducted in November 2009, Outlooks for Merchandising Success in 2010, with Henry H. Harteveldt from Forrester Research, revealed some key points that are worth considering. Featured on: This article has been reprinted with permission from HotelExecutive.com is expected to be less bad and more digitally-focused than 2009 US online leisure hotel bookings are currently forecast to increase 7% from 2009 to Content has to work harder to connect with a more hesitant consumer and resonate emotionally as well as rationally p1

2 All of these learnings lead us to one conclusion about what hoteliers need to do to succeed in 2010: Focus on maximizing conversions. How can you do this? By having relevant content available on digital channels to convince travel shoppers of the value your hotel offers. How do travel shoppers know how great your hotel is when they re looking at your online listings? Simply having a great hotel doesn t guarantee that travel shoppers will book with you. They make their judgments based on what they see (or don t see) and read about your hotel online. If your online listings appear drab, undifferentiated and don t articulate why your hotel is so great, you could be losing business. One way to remedy this is by using content to tell a story that highlights why your hotel is great and how it will makes their stay successful. The days of getting bookings by displaying a few still photos and standardized text are gone. Travel shoppers need to feel like they are getting to experience your hotel when researching online. Highquality, large high-definition images, zoom, virtual tours with 360 degree spin and videos emulate the experience of actually being in the hotel. Providing visually-rich experiences and the opportunity to examine details more closely online, helps communicate value and increase confidence in hesitant and wary consumers. Before making a hotel decision, consumers need to be able explore the property and delve into more detail (textual and visual), more closely. 3 This means that in order to encourage travel shoppers to book and feel confident in their decisions, hoteliers need to focus on providing relevant and complete visual information. This includes multiple views and 360 degree virtual tours of the rooms and amenities, zooms on specific details and full-screen viewing options in high-resolution. By delivering the optimal visual experience, hotels can differentiate themselves and increase conversions. All hotels operate in a competitive environment; smart hoteliers take advantage of that. Travel shoppers will look at your hotel and compare it against your competition, so you need to know who you re up against in order to increase sales from your online efforts. Evaluating your hotel against your online competition will reveal ways to improve your position in the marketplace. Start by focusing on the one or two hotels that are your primary competitors and ask yourself: Why are we competing with them? What content do they have available to travel shoppers? What are their strengths and weaknesses? p2 Video has helped justify the value of expensive products by explaining the unique features and benefits. 4 When a travel shopper clicks through to your hotel details on a third-party travel website or visits your own website, what content absolutely needs to be there to grab their attention and convert them? Essential facts and information about your hotel and surrounding area Content that communicates what differentiates your hotel from others in your market Relevant content for different segments and personas

3 In terms of impact on booking decisions, video trumps written reviews and photos posted by guests online. A study by Forrester Research revealed that for 56% of travelers, hotel videos have a positive impact on booking decisions, for 45% traveler-written reviews on thirdparty sites have a positive impact on booking decisions and for 44% pictures taken by travelers posted online have a positive impact on booking decisions. 5 The ultimate experience includes a combination of rich, professional content and guest-produced reviews and visuals. There are different types of videos, all of which are influential on different segments of shoppers and at different stages of the travel shopping process. Professionally-shot videos that promote your hotel and the surrounding area. Attempting to shoot promotional videos yourself and placing them out of context risks making your hotel appear lowbudget. The Hilton Garden Inn Philadelphia City Center has a great collection and variety of media available on online travel agencies as well as video sharing sites. If you do a video search on Google for the Hilton Garden Inn Philadelphia you will find their professionally-shot promotional video on a number of video channels. Hotel produced video clips about special promotions, events taking place at your hotel, nearby dining and shopping, or interviews with guests produced using a digital camera, video camera or flip camera. Guest produced videos and photos are inevitably going to be posted online. But, not all guest videos are created for the purpose of a review or will be detrimental to your hotel s image. When there is a plethora of other content (professional or hotel-produced) available online, travel shoppers may be less likely to make their decision based on guest produced content alone. Search engines index videos and photos, so it s easy for you to monitor the content that guests post online. Their videos and photos can provide you with good insights into the guest experience at your hotel and you can manage your reputation appropriately. Virtual tours allow guests to explore your hotel s features and amenities from different angles and views. Having zoom and fullscreen high-definition images allow consumers to fully explore the details and features your hotel offers. Rich media (simply put, any content that moves) is more influential on hotel booking decisions than still images. That said, having highresolution digital photos of your hotel available online on your own website, your blog, photo and video sharing sites, social media sites and of course, online travel agencies and review sites along with richer forms of media and written descriptions is still necessary. p3

4 Think of OTAs as marketing vehicles versus reservation engines. By not having content, let alone listings on OTAs, hoteliers are preventing themselves from selling more hotel rooms at higher rates through other channels, including their own. A study conducted by Cornell University in partnership with Expedia and JHM Hotels in fall 2009 found that while listed on Expedia, hotels received a % lift in bookings on other channels (call center, brand.com, other sites) and were able to attain higher rates (approx. 2-3%) on those channels. 6 Learn more about it on VTV Channel. This is why ensuring that your hotel is well-merchandised on all digital channels and marketing vehicles is an effective way to sell hotel rooms online. By distributing visual content to thousands of sites and linking to it from your social media accounts, hotels can not only improve their positions in search results and drive more traffic but also increase the likelihood of converting that traffic and increasing reservations. What hoteliers need to do to sell the hotel experience online is focus on better merchandising online by making engaging, detailed visual and written content available to travel shoppers on all the digital channels they use during the shopping journey. Visit for more information about online merchandising or to get started! p4

5 About VFM Leonardo VFM Leonardo is a technology leader in online visual content management and distribution for the hotel industry. VFM Leonardo s VScape and VBrochure products leverage the distribution capabilities of the VNetwork, the most universally accepted and largest online visual content distribution network for the global travel industry. VFM Leonardo offers the most effective digital asset management and online merchandising systems available today with over 1,000,000 visual images (photos, virtual tours and videos) for 90,000 hotels worldwide currently in distribution across the VNetwork. All four global distribution systems (GDSs) - Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre, Worldspan - as well as Pegasus source hotel visual content exclusively through VScape. Tens of thousands of travel-related channels including online travel agencies, travel research and supplier web sites, search portals; Travelocity, Orbitz, Priceline, Tripadvisor, Yahoo! Travel, Kayak, Google and more also source visual content through VScape, many exclusively. VFM Leonardo s VBrochure Online Merchandising System is part of the largest, most universally accepted and online visual content distribution network (VNetwork ) for the global travel industry. VBrochure is a user friendly system that helps you merchandise your properties in their best, most current light, wherever travel shoppers are shopping on the web. For more information, visit VFM Leonardo Head Office 111 Peter Street, Suite 530 Toronto, Ontario Canada M5V 2H1 Toll Free: Tel: Fax: Web: insidesales@vfmleonardo.com VFM Leonardo Global Offices Canada - United States - United Kingdom - Israel - Singapore p5 COPYRIGHT 2009 VFM LEONARDO INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. online-merchandising-hotelexecutive.com-v1

6 References 1. emarketer, The Future of Online Retail Doesn t Look Too Bad, June 24, 2009, Forrester Research, Hotels Will Rely on the Web to Survive 2010, November 3, Adobe Scene7 Viewer Study, What Shoppers Want, January Adobe Scene7, Video: How It s Changing Online Shopping, September Forrester Research, Q4 US Travel Online Survey, Cornell University, The Billboard Effect: Online Travel Agent Impact on Non-OTA Reservation Volume, October p6