Web Marketing Investment for the Hospitality Industry

How much should you spend on it? Do you know?

Even tough a right number could not be set, you have many ways to figure out a good number, and 20-10 rule is one of the ways.

Recent studies show that 20% of a property's revenue should be generated from web commerce. To achieve this ROI (return on investmen), an investment of 10% of your marketing budget is necessary on web commerce alone.

We can not deny that now-a-days more and more people are going online for their travel needs as opposed to the more traditional channels.

By Information Week magazine: Online travel revenue was expected to reach $85 billion in 2006, increasing by about 50% in five years, JupiterResearch said. By 2011, 38% of travel revenue will come from the Web. Read more: http://www.informationweek.com/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=194300162

Misconception between search engines and revenue generation in the hospitality industry

Even though search engines are the leading when generating visitors to any corporate or private website, most likely they do not generate direct revenue when visiting your independent hotel website. In other words, within the travel industry there are many ways of, for example, making a hotel reservation. It can be done by going to any online travel agency, any travel portal such as Expedia, Travelocity, Hotels.com, and so on, any online corporate brand website for the hospitality industry, or directly to a hotel website. The only way that any search engine could be credited for generating revenue would when the user goes from any search engine to the online corporate brand reservation system with no stops, and no stops meaning any other site in between the process.

So let’s explore our options and understand why search engines can not generate direct revenue, and how search engines generate direct revenue.

For starter, you could search for a travel agency, any travel portal by using any of the search engines available today, but when going to the travel agency website, the travel agency becomes the revenue generator for the hotel offered within their website, the same goes for any travel portal, and for an independent hotel website with a link to the corporate brand reservation system.

Even the Travel section offered by some of the search engines are powered by an independent travel portal, making the travel portal the revenue generator.

Website is as important as a phone number

Website is not only a nice page to see...your visitors no longer go to your website to just look at a nice logo, or a picture, for your information, they are there to collect as much information as possible, such as how to contact you, to use your services, and for the hospitality industry, to book a room, or to decide right at the spot where to stay, so don't let then walk way.

Save your money, if you didn't figure out yet that we all need a website.

And if you do think you need a website, don't do it yourself, and don't hire a basement company. Those types of websites usually drive visitors away, wrong information, outdated information, broken links, mismatches, and the list goes on and on, and you end up in a deeper trouble because now not only you need a professional website to restore your image but you need to fix the damage already created, the truth is that you probably will never bring those visitors back... Instead, do a little research, spend your money wisely.

Having a website is basically a requirement in today's hospitality industry.

If you haven't developed a website for your hotel yet, this could be a good time to start. Your competitors may already have one in the works.

If you have questions about any of this, feel free to contact us or visit us at Simpleware Computer Solutions or iWebHospitality.com.