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This article describes a new website created by TheeDesign Studio, a web design agency in North Carolina that specializes in creating interactive marketing websites for companies located in NC. They recently celebrated the launch of a web design project for a local party planner, Jennifer V, a premier event planning company that provides that provides services for any type and size of party, wedding, corporate event and religious celebrations. The new website was built using WordPress to allow the company to easily manage their events gallery, website content updates, blog posts, and track internet leads; all vital items for companies to be successful in this technologically advanced world. The website serves as a valuable resource for potential clients and business partners to learn about the company's event planning services by featuring an on-site blog, lead generation form, and an easy to update events gallery to showcase their portfolio. It is important for companies to have the latest technologies and techniques in web design programming and internet marketing as well as maintain user-friendliness to be ahead of their competitors. I checked out Jennifer's web page and I found it very user-friendly and inviting.

The article I read was called, 'Why the Future of Online Hotel Marketing is Cloud-Based Utility Computing.' In the article, it says that technology is moving super fast these days and companies are trying everything they can to keep up, for example building websites and starting blogs, but they feel that it's not enough. Up until now companies could not manage all of their marketing efforts from one place but now they can and it's called utility computing in-the-cloud. "Utility computing is a broad concept that encapsulates cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS)."Some hotel owners feel intimidated because a website does not seem as permanent as owning something. One example that I really liked that they gave in the article was, "When I rent a movie from Blockbuster, I have a limited selection (whatever fits in the store) and when I'm done with the video, I have to return it and rent it again to watch it again." Compared this to Netflix, where you have access to hundreds of thousands of videos and you can watch them as many times as you want and for any long as you want for no additional cost. When you embrace SaaS, you gain million dollar technology that never grows outdated, compare this to a website that is only built on thousand-dollar technology and can get outdated, and it sounds like a great investment!

Since more people are using smartphone and the number of people using mobile devices keeps rising, hoteliers are trying to focus more on mobile marketing, especially on establishing completed mobile website. Based on a survey, 60% hoteliers are interested in mobile website marketing. More and more hoteliers realize that establishing mobile apps are not that efficient and it becomes an unnecessary expense. Considering cost and revenue, hoteliers have to balance mobile marketing and traditional marketing methods.

With the rapid growth and increased use of the Internet over the past 2 decades, industry professional Andrey Smirnov gives 7 tips to other industry leaders on maximizing their presence in e-commerce and in consumer minds: (1) make your website quick to download and easy to find; (2) organize content by prioritizing information; (3) when offering promotions, clearly reflect it with a call to action; (4) distribute 'fresh' content on different channels (i.e., photo galleries, press releases, etc.); (5) maximize on mobile marketing; (6) embrace social media; and (7) continually improve by testing new things.

The internet is constantly changing, the way we communicate and they way we do business. The hospitality industry is always quick to capitalize on new technologies. However, the e-commerce growth in the hospitality industry has created an urgent need for simple changes to companies' presence online. So when every hotel is involved in e-commerce, why is it so important today? It is simple. Today, the internet is the lowest cost hotel-booking channel. As well as now, most travelers are searching and making hotel reservations online. Lastly, social media and online hotel reviews are increasing and have made an important decision factor. Now, hoteliers need to keep focus on what information customers are seeking and what they are looking for online. There are a few basic strategies that will help drive usage from the internet world. Some of those are: vave a search-friendly website, focus on usability and conversation taking a holistic approach and prioritize information, and lastly make websites compatible for mobile phones. If hoteliers can use the full potential of the internet, they will maximize their return on investment in e-commerce. The hospitality industry needs to constantly learn and look for ways to use the new developments and trends.

Andrey Smirnov in his article "E-Commerce for the Hospitality Industry highlights how the internet has changed the way business is done not only in the hospitality industry but as a whole. He stresses the importance of e-commerce in the hospitatlity industry and why hoteliers must utilise strategies to ensure they make the most of the marketing and sales opportunties the internet provides. There are a few things that hoteliers must do to make the most of what the internet provides. They include: (1) Search Friendly Website Design - "site download speed is one of the most important ranking factors in organic search" says Smirnov therfore hoteliers must ensure that their site is properly designed and compatible across any browser, any items that causes the site to perform poorly shoud be eliminated as internet users similar to hotel guests tend to only visit sites where they can receive the best experience yet. (2) Improve conversion and Usability - content on website must be properly organised and users must not be bombaded by information. (3)Search - Hoteliers must focus on Paid searches as well as Real time search to increase traffic. Paid searches ensure that your targeted traffic are directed right to you. Whereas with a great web design with strong content that is also timely the natural ranking of the oranisation website can be increased thus increasing tracffic to it. (4)Mobile - Mobile devices have become a popular means of conducting e-business related activities for consumers therefore the hotel that ensures that their online services are accessible from mobile devices will be putting themselves ahead of the game. (5) Embracing Social Media - According to Smirnov 93 percent of social media users expect companies to have a social presence and 85 percent of social media users want companies to interact with them on social sites. With this being said one can see why a social media presence is one that cannot be overlooked. It is important that co

As technology advances so does the way consumers buy products and services. In order to keep consumers happy the hospitality industry has adapted itself to be more mobile and convenient. Mobility and convenience are two very important factors when making a website or app for E-Commerce. Many hotels and restaurants have created apps for cell phones and tablets so that guest can have convenience and mobility when booking a reservation or ordering a meal. E-Commerce profitability is maximized by using digital marketing. Two major sources for digital marketing are search engines and social media ads. Through digital marketing companies can constantly advertise to consumers anywhere at anytime in a cost efficient manor. Search engine marketing allows companies to increase the number of visitors to their website by putting them at the top of search engine results.

To summarize this article, it mainly discussed how the layout of digital marketing within the hospitality industry is constantly changing and highly important. This is something that is a challenging task for most hospitality businesses, especially hotels. It was said that there are many factors/questions to consider when approaching digital marketing such as " How much does it cost to acquire a new guest and how do we encourage this new guest to book directly through a brand's website?" Websites are plays a vital role in digital marketing are one of the main starting points. Hotels and other hospitality businesses should be frequently updating websites with useful information that compliments more visuals such as images and videos. In addition to that, it was even mentioned how making sure that the website is easy to navigate and readily accessible to customers is essential. After carefully reading more into article, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) was mentioned. This is more like an assessment in a way and a method to show where a hotel or business stands as a brand. For example, if your were to simply google the word hotel, brands such as Marriott and Hilton would most likely be at the top of the list. That is actually good and will benefit those brands greatly in the aspect that there reputation, which possibly stems from online review sites and social media platforms, is well known. These online review sites are capable of monitoring and responding to customer inquiries/comments. The article also touched basis on how the demand of social media presence is vital and should not be overlooked. Social media proves to be cost effective and efficient. Simply using hashtags with either the brand name or keywords can attract prospective customers which in return will generate more revenue. Overall, the article was clear that as far as the hospitality industry goes, digital marketing is something that has evolved in so many ways and can generate good revenue if the plan

Digital marketers in the hotel industry are adapting to the changing climate for OTA's guest expectations, advertising, and competition. Hotel Websites must be clean, low text, and image based with opportunities for guest to comment or ask questions. How to guests find you online? How can we create strategic links from the website to a brand's social channels for increased retention? Business owners will need to learn search engine marketing (SEM) to ensure that sites appear high on listed results of search engines. Paid advertising and Geo-targeting advertisement will be essential in offering the right products to the right markets. Markets must set measurement goals to monitor performance at different stages of ad campaigns and decided if ads should be adjusted. Lastly, the social media craze is still going strong, and being aware of current trend such as Instagram and hashtaging will be crucial in for current success.

On my previous article about Oraculo, the world's first predictive algorithm for hotels, I described how personalization in hospitality is no longer a trend but an obligation. By posting this new article I wanted to dig a little deeper into tailoring guests needs through e-commerce. In 2015, American Express Travel reported that 83% of millennials would not object to have their habits tracked if they get a more customized experience. This strong message has prompted the hotel industry to develop and implement website personalization technology that suggests, intuitively, specific room categories or packages to online lookers. Since building loyalty is an investment, improving the direct booking ratio is now the main goal of the industry. From experience, when I travel I try to stay at the same hotel and book directly from the hotel website. The most important thing to me when I shop around is furniture and bathroom. Although these are not generally specified in detail in room descriptions, the brand I'm loyal to is usually very consistent with my needs. If new technology would give me a more personalized stay somewhere else I would definitely change my membership. I have friends who don't travel much except for vacation and long weekends. They are lookers who go to online travel agencies (OTA's) and bounce from site to site trying to find the perfect place. The article explains this newer technology will be crucial to prevent lookers from bouncing to other websites, and encourage them to book directly from the hotel and avoid OTA's. The idea is to make it so personalized that it will be appealing on the spot. These new technologies not only can tailor room types and resort packages based on IP addresses, but it can customize your TV programming based on your web history. Personalizing the guest experience during the stay is no longer enough. Data shows that in order to build loyalty and make the customer return, personalization has to begin in the booking pr

This article describes how personalization of eCommerce can bring better profits, because it is helping guests personalize how they would like their stay. This is more efficient for the guests because it is ensure they get what they want, like if they want to be around certain theme parks, or if they want their rooms a certain way. They even have options where you can fit guests language barriers, like if they speak only spanish they can change the language so spanish speakers can also ensure they have their preferred stay.

This article explains the importance of website personalization. Here, vital information is stored for current and future use of consumers. It is important for industry professionals to have access to this information but protect it from reaching outside entities.

The article covers a great deal of the technology products in all of the hotel aspects. it also focuses on the fact that hotels are investing a lot in offering technological tangible services to the clients where must shift its focus a bit and invest more in the guest engagement technology to close the gap between them and OTAs.

Hospitality is being transformed into a 100% digital technology-enabled industry; however, it is very challenging to maintain. Employees are overwhelmed by the amount of technology they need to lear to do their job efficiently

This article focuses on the fact that technology is now being used in almost every aspect of the hotel industry. This is because hoteliers are beginning to understand that guests are expecting to enjoy the same level of technology used in the comfort of their homes when they are at hotels. Therefore, hotels that are more technologically advanced are more empowered to satisfy guests' technological needs, but the information collected by the hotels' systems also enables the hotels to acquire new guests, engage current guests and retain past guests; as such, there are benefits to both the hotels and guests when the level of technology offered is updated.

Marketing and E-business for tourism industry A good marketing plan is important to the success of businesses. There are several guidelines and ways to use electronic medium to stay competitive. A business has to always take care of the existing customers and their needs without forgetting to attract new customers. Tourists are using internet to shop for new destinations so an online presence is very important for consumers so they will be able to find out information about the business. There are several guidelines to consider: * Promptness people expect to get a response within a reasonable time. * Quality means that your website should be able to compete with other websites on the internet and this means that it should have good quality photographs and professional tone to the websites. * Consistency means a good consumer service and a professional image. There are many ways to promote services online: email newsletters and promotion, building traffic by working with other websites, offer deals, get involved in discussion sites about the industry you are in. During an off season bookings, simplicity of booking should be a priority. Tourism operators should join travel and tourism "mall" to offer their products and host their site and use these low cost services. Companies can also promote their products online by offering auction style sales that helps consumers have some kind of control over the prices of the different services in tourism. One of the perks of online shopping for travel services is the price transparency and the fact that costumers have choices of different prices in front of them. Company should Increase a web marketing pull by offering different services and also advertising with other companies. Promote and minimize the costs of the services by adding "do-it-yourself" features. A list such as: A FAQ, maps of location of other area attractions and local guides for rental outlets. To improve the way you market your products and

Twitter is one of the leading social network websites for communication, millions of people view this website daily to find information about all different things over the world, and to communicate with people you know and also don't know. It is not only used by people who rely on it for expressing different things, it is also the darling of the developer community. Each day people are updating this websites and links from this website to make it a fun and effective experience. There also different apps from twitter where people can access pictures, information, news, etc R a faster pace.

In today's society, online booking is definitely a major form of reservation in the hospitality industry. Thus I think it will be profitable for the companies to understand why some customers booked and others just visited their website and left without booking. These kinds of information can be achieved with the aid of software, as shown in the article. This article is related to software utilization in monitoring the user journey on websites. Hotel chain Villa Plus decided to increase its properties by 40%, and because of this, Villa Plus began to implement IBM's sophisticated analytics software, instead of Google Analytics they had used. With the IBM's software, Villa Plus can track and understand customer needs and behavior across its website. These understandings help the company to advertise the right properties to the right people on the websites. Villa Plus is expecting this to result in high occupancy rates as well as a great return on investment.

I like this Villa Plus, I think it can help customers as much as possible to get what they want and filter what they don't want, it can save time for valuable customers because they can get what they want at one time instead of searching from different websites or even leave without reservation. I also use online booking every time, I think this Villa Plus also can help me a lot next time when I book online again.

Nowadays, online booking is very popular. But hotels still face with low occupancy rate. I think this IBM software is good. It can help solve this kind of problem. Advertising the right properties to the right people on the websites and result in high occupancy rates as well as a great return on investment.

The article talks about how to process validate information on a website page. When you're assessing information that you found on the internet, it's important to implement the information through research because it can be a waste of time reading information that is not accurate on a site. Also, validation ensures the website is accurate for more accessible people to browse and read; remember become a smarter user when reading information on the internet that can be misleading.

Hotel du Collectionneur in Paris broke away from the Hilton chain in 2013 and became the largest independent hotel in the city. Without the Hilton brand, the property needed help creating brand loyalty and foot traffic. The property's marketing department teamed up with a company called "Flip.to". This company was to help bring in newer people to their website and target a new group of customers. Flip.to used e-marketing to enhance the hotel's website traffic and create brand awareness on social media. Additionally, by increasing website traffic the property saw an increase in direct bookings. We can see the benefits of using a company like Flip.to to increase profits and create awareness. If we look at this from the perspective of a large chain hotel, they have the resources to market their properties through their corporations. We can see that Hotel du Collectionneur had to go in this direction of hiring a third party company to meet their goals and they can see if paying off today.

This article pertains more to small accommodations providers, boutiques, and small private hotels. This article provides information on how to increase the traffic follow on websites for these particular entities. The article emphasis how photograph and the outline of a website can effect the response of the consumer viewing. It provides points that would enhance the layout of a website, and how to in-trig the consumer to view and book directly on a businesses site. Third parties are mentioned if direct contact can not be accessed from the businesses site, which comes with a cost for convenience. This article implements the various resources available to small business in order to enhance their websites and web searches. I would highly recommend this article to be read by those who are just starting with online marketing or would want to increase their customer viewing.

I find very interesting this article as well some of the point you mentioned really made sense in terms of marketing. Pictures are huge , huge tool for marketing. Often lodging firms failed to realize how much is important for the prospective customer to has good pictures and not deceiving ones. You want to picture the reality of your business , of course you make it look the best but it needs to be in concordance with the reality as well.

The pros of using the mobile apps for meeting are a lot. It could provide the location-based services and push messaging. Using the mobile apps is not wholly dependent on a Wi-Fi connection. It makes possible to obtain a large delegate list and content without downloading because those are already on the app. Additionally, security and privacy are also much better with an app. On the contrary, mobile websites can be advantageous because they need fewer resources to develop that differs from mobile apps. The mobile websites are easier because there's no writing code for different operating systems such as iOS, Android and Win- dows Phone. For a website, the coding is done once, and users don't have to wait and download it; it just happens automatically. For smaller properties,having a mobile app wouldn't be as useful as trying to communicate with a large group of people. It could benefits more on the large size of groups.

This article highlights the user side of mobile apps for hotel reservations. Especially at the end, the author highlights the need for a booking engine easily accessible from the mobile app or website. This can be relevant for prioritizing a mobile PMS software rather than the traditional PMS, which may be more compatible with mobile use and implementation

This article is meant to show the different types or e-marketing for the hospitality industry. It also goes on to explain how they can be used in the industry. I also enjoyed the most popular ways to use these tools. With technology moving at a fast pace, e-marketing is the next best way to market and to attract customers.

E-marketing is a tool used by nearly all businesses nowadays. It is through this form of marketing that we are able to spread our word across the globe. When E-marketing, it is important to invest in search engines so that your products, in our case our restaurants and resorts, appear first. Our marketing can appear in the form of ads and pop ups, but also in emails. A big one is using social media platforms such as twitter, youtube and instagram.

Interestingly this article is back from 2014 and back then there was a different perspective on the capabilities of e-marketing as it was rather new to the world of hospitality. Comparing this article to the present just shows how much the experience has brought us and how much e-marketing truly benefits and expands our industry. Through e-marketing we can reach customers we never thought or even imagined of reaching out to.

Marriott hotel launched the second part of their website for their club members. With this new website club members are able to access personal information such as set up their fitness programs and track their own personal fitness goals. With this new development clubs will be able to stay in touch with their members.

Just as a website can be the online brand identity, the ecommerce website enables the entrepreneur to successfully display information about their products and services.

The hospitality industry along with the resourcefulness of the Internet has allowed the Russian hospitality industry to benefit and grow with the technology of e-commerce. E-commerce is defined as "the buying and selling of products and service by businesses and consumers over the Internet". This technology is significant due to its beneficial factors of lowering costs, accessibility, decision-making, and media exposure. As well, the article provides for methods and advice regards effective strategies to utilize the Internet. Primarily, the speed of the website's functionality is essential, along with providing compatibility of browsers, thus, allowing for a better experience for users. The information in the website should be efficient, allowing for real time search whether using a mobile phone or a computer. It was informative to read the multiple functionality, that social media is playing in the hospitality industry regards the exposure and marketability. E-commerce has change the market of goods and services, from a tangible experience to digital experience, through the use of online shopping estimated at $228 Billion in 2010, a third derived from the purchase of travel and flight websites, thus, demonstrating the importance of the Internet in relation to consumerism.

E-commerce has become more and more important in our daily life, because many customers today prefer to use internet to help them make decisions. In hospitality industry, e-commerce also plays an important role, as internet is a very cheap and convenient booking channel and many people use the internet intensively. There are many e-commerce strategies for hoteliers, such as making friendly web site design, embracing social media, etc. As e-commerce has so many advantages, I think e-commerce is an opportunity for hoteliers to grasp. It is important for hoteliers to use different strategies to get the best from the internet world.

    This article introduced the function of ecommerce and the ecommerce effect for the hospitality industry. The author listed some important reasons about why hotel ecommerce is so important:1)Accelerating Internet usage worldwide.2)The Internet is the lowest cost hotel-booking channel. 3) Most travelers research hotel reservations on the Internet. 4)Social media and online hotel reviews are an increasingly important decision factor. 5) The web is the preferred media source for travel information, favored 17:1 over television and 6:1 over newspapers and magazines. This article also listed some basic e-commerce strategies that will help hoteliers to take advantage of ecommerce from the Internet world. 1) Search-friendly web site design.2) Improve conversion and usability 3) Paid search. 4) Real time search - natural ranking.5) Mobile.6) Embracing social media. 7) Test, test, test. Top e-commerce sites are continually testing new things.      In a summary, the author suggest smart hoteliers need to keep a sharp focus on the fundamental shift in ways customers are seeking information and channels that drive maximum return on investment. Moreover, hoteliers have to constantly learn and look for ways to harness the power of new developments and trends.

This article is talking about Bookt, the leader in cloud-based solutions for lodging industry, announced to launch mobile websites for all InsraManager FLEX clients. Nowadays, more and more people would prefer to use mobile devices to check emails, search information and visit websites. The mobile web will be the top two travel touchpoints in 2013. That means mobile websites will be a large platform to search and share information. And that is also the reason to launch mobile websites for InsraManager FLEX to make it convenient for client's booking success. Mobile web would help customers search, check availability, book, and get confirmation via their Smartphone. People could check their room status anywhere and get any room confirmation number whenever. The mobile web is designed to be faster load and built exactly for the smaller screens.