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You’ve already committed a sin in the social media world. It’s the personal page vs. fan page debate, and it’s a hot one.

how will your new

fans tag you in posts if they aren’t your “friend”

Social media is one of the most effective ways to attract new customers for any brand, but the travel and tourism industry can leverage it a bit differently.

When consumers look for information regarding traveling, hotels, resorts, restaurants, local activities and more, they turn to the internet, specifically social media.

The best part is the return because social-media marketing can drive the healthiest ROI out of all your online marketing campaigns when executed correctly.

difference between a virtual restaurant and a ghost kitchen

both models are part of an emerging restaurant segment that primarily exists online, with no physical storefront and with a major focus on off-premise dining and delivery.

a recent report by Statista predicted that worldwide

As of January 2020, there are over 3 billion people around the globe actively using social media,

It’s projected that by 2023, the number of users will rise to about 3.43 billion.

The most popular social media platform is Facebook, with over 2 billion active users. Other popular social media outlets include Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.

Articles and Reviews Videos Education and Training News Email Alerts Feedback The Cast About Us Hotel Game Archives Hotel eMarketing and Internet ‘e’volution – Creating an Online Culture at Hotels Posted by JJ on Thursday, March 20, 2008 · 1 Comment  Are you a hotel eMarketer looking for ways to better communicate, educate and develop the role at your property/ies? This article explores some of the issues surrounding these efforts, complemented by a dose of perspective and a generous helping of best practices, all garnished, hopefully, by your own ideas and experiences. By Jitendra Jain

Impact and Perspective: According to the popular statistics site, internetworldstats.com, at the end of 2007, we had 1 in 5 people on the planet already connected to the Internet…and this number is growing fast. While 80% of the world waits to jump onto the bandwagon, the 20% who’re already on it are struggling to hold on for dear life. The Internet is to business today what electricity is to industry and good living…without it there would be chaos! That puts a little perspective on just how reliant we’ve become on this relatively new platform…but also how much we stand to gain from it in terms of breaking down communication, transaction and education barriers. And the pace of development and the evolving uses of the Internet have been dizzying to say the least. Marketers…and your average Internet Joe have been forced to constantly re-learn and evolve.

So the future of e-commerce in the hospitality industry is guaranteed to be a bright one. And the savvy hotel emarketer has a lot to gain, including room to grow, experiment and “wow” (from SEO to SEM, blogging to social networking, there’s plenty to keep the eager hotel eMarketer busy experimenting). But what about those in the industry just climbing on-board, especially employees in hotel operations and those struggling to make sense of the opportunities and challenges presented by the Internet? What can hotel eMarketers do to ensure interest and support at hotels? How do you create a culture of understanding and mutual growth?

the future of e-commerce in the hospitality industry is guaranteed to be a bright one. And the savvy hotel emarketer has a lot to gain, including room to grow, experiment and “wow” (from SEO to SEM, blogging to social networking, there’s plenty to keep the eager hotel eMarketer busy experimenting).

But what about those in the industry just climbing on-board, especially employees in hotel operations and those struggling to make sense of the opportunities and challenges presented by the Internet? What can hotel eMarketers do to ensure interest and support at hotels? How do you create a culture of understanding and mutual growth?

The answer is simple…create interest, excitement and buy-in at your hotels.

3. Enable location-based services and information. A 2014 Ipsos study commissioned by Google showed that 88% of people make local searches on smartphones, while 61% want mobile search results customized to their immediate location. Location-specific offers, driving directions and maps, and localized search results all play a role here. For example, if a person searches “Olive Garden” on mobile, chances are excellent that they are looking for a local restaurant. The brand can win more sales when it ensures that its local stores are in the mobile search results. The quickest way to do this is to buy search terms including location, i.e. “Olive Garden Birmingham AL.” Over the long run, you can boost your local SEO by claiming each location in Google and Bing, and then driving citations and ratings from users. 4. Help people avoid lines. Mobile check-in helps hotels, airlines and car services improve guest satisfaction. The Center for Generational Kinetics conducted a study that found that 40% of millennials prefer purely online customer service, supporting the overall trend that they prefer self-service experiences offered via mobile instead of in person. I recently had a four-day hotel experience in which I checked in, checked out, made requests and ordered room service, all via mobile and without speaking to anyone. It was simply an experiment for me, but self-service is the preferred way of doing business for many. 5. Offer local insight and options. Innovative travel companies now replicate concierge services through their apps. Hotel and airline apps sometimes offer local area guides and activity booking tools. These tools make travel experiences richer and boost loyalty. For example, my team and I recently stayed in a hotel in Philadelphia. We arrived after 10 p.m. and wanted a good nearby restaurant that was serving at that hour. After a few clicks, we had a reservation and walking directions.

E-Booking The first role of the internet in the hospitality industry is online booking. As aforementioned in the past, travel agents were the most common source for booking hotel rooms and other travel components like flight tickets and travel tours. However, the internet has changed this; manual booking and reservations have been transformed to E-booking or online booking via Central Reservation Systems (CRS). As of March 2008, there are over 1.4 billion internet users (Internet World Stats, 2008) and according to the Computer Industry Almanac, this number is assumed to increase to 1.80 billion in 2010 (Clickz Stats, 2005). The Travel Industry Association in the United States stated that in 2002 about 64 million out of 619 million online users were online travelers and used the Internet to purchase travel-related services and products (Zhang, 2004, p.3). "Online leisure travel sales totaled $20.4 billion in 2002 and hotel booked online reached $3.8 billion" (Ibid). In 2005 the online travel revenue reached $27.7 billion in the U.S. alone and has steadily increased (Webmetro, 2005). Now imagine how big these figures would be on a global basis.

Another important role of the internet is the use of it as a marketing tool. Before a hotel can offer e-booking it has to set up its own website. The hotel can apply attractive designs and offer guests a virtual tour of the entire property and show various room types. This strategy is considered a minor but may get a lot of appeal from online users. The internet also allows hotels to reach more customers by using search engine optimization (SEO), which is a tool that helps increasing the traffic and page ranking in search engine results (Hotel Travel Check, n.d.). Another internet marketing strategy for the hospitality industry is electronic customer relationship management (eCRM), which are activities to manage customer relationships by using the internet and web browsers (Hotel Marketing, 2007).

will engage e-marketing experts from all over the world to share their knowledge and experience about e-marketing techniques, such as SEO - Search Engine Optimization, SEM - Search Engine Marketing, online PR, social networks marketing, and online ad campaigns.

-marketing plans contain a variety of policies for short- and long-term demand of the site, which ensures more repeat visitors thereby ensuring an increase in sales. These special techniques are known as “E-Marketing Arts.”

E-Marketing, also called Online Marketing, Internet marketing, I-marketing, web marketing, etc., plays an important role in maintaining hotel revenue as well as occupancy. Several aspects like Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Optimisation (SMO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Email Marketing , Portal Marketing, Mobile App, Mobile Website, Website Maintenance, Future E-Marketing v/s Offline Marketing have been touched upon in this article in order to give an insight into the strategic importance and role E-marketing can play.  

Future of Online Marketing v/s Offline MarketingGrowth of online marketing was low in the initial years due to inhibitions, but it is now growing with extraordinary pace as the confidence of Indian buyers is increasing gradually. Seeing the current behaviour of Indian buyers, online experts estimated that the trend of online marketing will become a basic phenomenon among buyers in coming years. The present and future e-marketers are keeping their eyes on the Indian market trends and studying the consumer behaviour for creating best and attractive deals potential clients.

Portal Marketing: Another form of online revenue sharing consists in people working together and registering online in a way similar to that of a corporation and sharing the proceeds. A third form of revenue sharing on the Internet consists of enticing Internet users to sign up and create content by offering a share of advertising revenue.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. -- Just because a hotel may not have a $50,000+ marketing budget, it doesn't mean that its marketing department can't compete effectively and build a strategic plan that includes website updates, guest reviews, mobile marketing, social media monitoring and management, and reputation management. For a small investment, Lodging Interactive, a full-service digital marketing and social media engagement agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry, can cost-effectively provide hoteliers with these "Top 5" digital marketing elements that are key to building online awareness and maintaining a competitive edge in 2014.

1. Website Updates: So you have a website. Good. When was the last time you refreshed its content? Continually adding new photos makes the website more visually appealing. Is the site interactive?

2. Guest Reviews: A June 2013 Local Consumer Review Study reveals that 79 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

top online marketing trends of 2014

Content Marketing Will be Bigger Than Ever

concentrate on inbound marketing, by producing valuable, engaging content designed for a specific audience

Sales and marketing is also exceptionally challenging because of the potential dilution of established brands, the complexity of building overall brand loyalty, and the risk of management forfeiting their focus on less "cool" brands in the stable in favor of the latest shiny thing.

In their efforts to achieve visibility, hotels compete to incorporate inviting, "Instagrammable" backdrops into their design. Research from Travolution shows 40% of millennial travelers chose a destination based on how Instagrammable it was, bypassing the cost and availability of alcohol (24%) and the opportunities to explore local cuisine (9.4%).

Good reviews strengthen the brand's reputation, regular postings (either by marketers or guests) generate SEO content, and instant chat mechanisms support the decision-making and booking processes.

Here is a summary of the trends in three online distribution channels used in the hospitality industry: websites, Global Distribution Systems (GDS), and online travel agents (OTAs).

The Internet has made marketing more measurable and accountable with different metrics and analytics that show the contribution of marketing to the bottom line. The most critical measures of marketing are the customer acquisition cost (CAC) and the customer lifetime value (CLV), which at times can be difficult to understand and quantify.

The CAC is the price a hotel pays to acquire a new customer, which can have a significant impact on RevPAR performance and asset value growth. The CLV is a prediction of the value a business will derive from its entire relationship with a customer.

It’s important to have a revenue strategy in place to ensure that your total CPA (cost per acquisition) remains as low as possible for all bookings. When it comes down to it, direct bookings are often the key to growing your revenue.

When your customers move online, you need to be there too. Hotels will always be brick-and-mortar establishments (at least until virtual reality gets much further along!), but they still need a strong, active online presence.

The internet is key to growth, and a direct booking strategy is the most cost efficient way to grow online.

Without the power of a brand sales team and the tools that they provide, your independent hotel’s sales efforts need to ensure that they are utilizing the right channels to effectively capture transient demand.

While global distribution system business is mostly pay-to-play, it provides exceptional return on investment in the right markets.

Direct bookings are the most cost-effective business for boutique hotels, so it is always the goal to drive business to our own booking channels. Identifying what percent of business you need from group sales, GDS and online travel agencies is paramount to a successful revenue strategy.

“Being named the best mobile key solution by hoteliers not just once but twice, is a truly proud moment for our company and is especially relevant this year as properties look to digital key solutions to play a central role in their cleanliness initiatives,” said Markus Boberg, Global President- Hospitality at ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions.

Currently in use by properties and hotel brands of varying sizes and backgrounds, Mobile Access provides guests with the ability to sidestep germ risks at the front desk by using personal devices to check-in. Engineered using ASSA ABLOY’s Seos technology, the solution further uses secure communications channels to transmit digital key and room number information to a guest’s device which can then be used to gain entry to guestrooms or other hotel areas.

Online marketing and internet marketing are similar enough, but digital marketing and emarketing are two really different sectors of marketing.

3 Best Free and Open Source Event Management Software

the software had to offer at least the following functionalities: Enable organizers to create an event page or website with details such as location and times. Allow attendees to register for events and/or buy tickets/passes.

Other important event management features include attendee management, barcode/QR scanning, email marketing, and mobile apps. However, these features were not requirements for inclusion in this list.