New York, NY – October 12, 2016 – A hotel website needs to be so much more than a pretty face for the property; it needs technology powering it that is built to drive direct hotel bookings. A successful hotel website must incorporate the right balance of excellent design, state-of-the-art website CMS (Content Management System) technology, robust merchandising capabilities and engaging visual and textual content, while providing optimum user experience from top to bottom. Created by HeBS Digital, The Complete Guide to Choosing the Right Website CMS provides hoteliers with concrete ways to evaluate this crucial website technology, including what features and functionalities to look for that are essential in driving direct bookings and selling the overall hotel experience.
The Complete Guide to Choosing the Right Website CMS Technology includes:
- Big picture factors to consider such as whether the CMS has been designed around hotel direct distribution and marketing needs and if the technology plays a role in the overall marketing mix to fuel the path to a booking.
- Hospitality-specific capabilities and modules to drive direct bookings, including real-time automated targeting with dynamic promotions for website visitors, full content control (visual, promotional, textual) of every page plus ability to create unlimited content, promotional, group and marketing landing pages and content sections; ability to have multiple website designs and page layouts to showcase your products and services, etc.
- Merchandising capabilities that should be evaluated to present the hotel product and value proposition directly to the online travel consumer and is centered on communicating the unique features of the property (hotel services, meeting & event space, latest promotions and special offers, local attractions, and more), allowing the hotel to “sell on value” as opposed to “sell on rate” alone.
- Integrations that need to be considered with booking engines/CRS, PMS, RFP and loyalty programs, technology vendors, spa and dining reservation technologies, Social Media Feeds, Weather feeds, etc.
- Technical capabilities that need to be included that are in line with SEO best practices.
- Top ten questions to ensure your property website success.
- Checklists to determine must-have technical needs and property business-needs the CMS technology must take into account.
- Evaluation checklist for choosing the right website CMS technology.
“The real long-term cost of choosing the wrong CMS for the hotel website is a dramatic loss of direct revenue, increased distribution costs and increased dependency on the OTAs. Without the right technology powering the hotel website, hoteliers not only fail to engage, retain and acquire past and future guests, but seriously jeopardize direct revenue in this time of flattening occupancy rates and increased distribution costs” said Max Starkov, President & CEO of HeBS Digital. “We created this guide to help hoteliers evaluate the right website CMS technology for their hotel that will decrease OTA dependency and increase direct website revenues and customer engagement.”
A major consideration when choosing a property website CMS is finding a technology solution that is tailored to the business needs and operational needs of the hospitality industry. Find more advice on choosing a Content Management System to power your hotel website by downloading The Complete Guide to Choosing the Right Website CMS Technology.
