Louisville, Kentucky Nearly Doubles Year-Over-Year Event Volume, Hits 94.9 Percent Growth in July
Knowland | August 21st, 2024
Social Media and Email Marketing Integration
Denise Cooper | March 10, 2014
by Denise Cooper Recently a colleague in the hospitality industry asked for my thoughts on integrating social and email. While I generally took for granted that most hotels were doing this already, additional research proved that was not the case. Given the myriad definitions in the industry of what it means to integrate social media into current email platforms/strategies/tools, I thought the most useful approach would be to offer a few basic ideas and tactics. Social Content Sharing: First and foremost the ability to share the content of an email in a multitude of different ways not only via traditional "forward to a friend" technolog...
jlnpr Launches Affordable PR Package for (Travel) Businesses on a Budget
jlnpr | March 5, 2014
March 5, 2014 – Toronto, ON – This week, jlnpr, a full-service PR and marketing agency dedicated to the travel and hospitality industry, launched a new public relations service for businesses who don't have the budgets to afford a full-time PR person or agency: the DIY (do-it-yourself) PR package. The package makes PR accessible (and affordable!) for every business – no matter their size, goals or budget – by providing all of the information and the step-by-step instructions necessary to execute a successful campaign, start-to-finish, without the significant investment that outsourcing PR can sometimes require. For a low-cost, o...
The Industry Has Spoken: Adaptive Web Design is the Winning Strategy
the Author and HeBS Digital | March 5, 2014
by Max Starkov At the recent HSMAI Digital Marketing Strategy Conference in New York, a panel of distinguished industry leaders discussed the prevailing two "schools of thought" regarding Responsive Website Design: Responsive Web Design (RWD): The "old-fashioned" way of fitting the same website into small or large screen sizes, and Adaptive Web Design aka Responsive Design on the Server Side (RESS): serving the right content to the right device from the same Content Management System (CMS) RWD vs. RESS: What is the Difference? The main difference between RWD and RESS/Adaptive Design is the type of web content served on the different...
5-star Hotels in India Focus on Fine Dining Venues as F&B Revenue Growth Outpaces Room Revenue
Flip.to | March 5, 2014
March 05--NEW DELHI -- In September 2013, when Indian Hotels opened Maritime by San Lorenzo, an iconic Italian restaurant from Knightsbridge, London, at Taj Lands End, Mumbai, it became the latest "destination restaurant" to come up at an Indian five-star hotel. Every hotel chain worth its name -- ITC, Taj, Oberoi, Hyatt, Hilton, Holiday Inn and Radisson, to name only a few -- is focusing on opening new specialty fine dining restaurants. Many of them are franchises of well known global restaurant chains, but many others are being created in-house by these hotel groups. "Food & beverages (F&B) contributes around 45% of our total ...
GCommerce Announces Partnership with Historic Connecticut Resort
GCommerce | March 3, 2014
Saybrook Point Inn & Spa celebrates their 25th anniversary by collaborating with digital marketing agency, GCommerce PARK CITY, Utah - GCommerce, a hospitality digital marketing company, announced today they have a new client in Old Saybrook, the historic Saybrook Point Inn & Spa. This 4-diamond New England property is a refreshing waterfront and sea escape for the east coast area, including Boston and New York. The family owned hotel is celebrating their 25th anniversary. With this milestone Saybrook Point Inn & Spa has engaged GCommerce to create a new website presence and digital strategy to showcase their amazing propert...
The Digital Direction: Hotel Marketing Budgets and a Digital 101 for Hotels – Part 1
The Authors | February 24, 2014
by Leora Lanz, Lindsey Pete, & Erin S. Bagley This article is Part I of a two-part series analyzing the landscape of digital marketing for hotels and motels in 2014. Part I reviews the fundamentals of digital marketing and why it is vital hotels understand current trends. Part II will investigate the future of "earned content" marketing. Time is precious; more and more people are booking travel on the go and they want fast response times and 24-hour access.[1] These needs have caused a fundamental shift in the channels consumers are using to book hotel rooms. The Q3 2013 Travelclick update shows that 60.3% of individual business and...
Passkey and Flip.to Launch an Industry First
Flip.to | February 14, 2014
Helping Hotels Turn Their Group Guests Into a Dynamic Marketing Force ORLANDO, FL - FEBRUARY 14, 2014 - Passkey and Flip.to today announced the successful integration of their platforms and launch of a new online toolset that allows hotels for the first time to turn their group guests into trusted brand advocates, creating a new marketing force for every event. These marketing forces create a significant, measurable impact for both the group and leisure business of a hotel. "For years, Passkey has been helping hotels maximize revenue from their groups," noted Sam Fahmy, Senior Vice President, of Corporate Development and Marketing. "The...
Sugar Bay Resort’s Digital Marketing Goals Surpassed with 18:1 ROI
Sugar Bay Resort and Spa | February 7, 2014
Vizergy® Helps Property Transition from Branded to Independent; Earns HSMAI Adrian Award Jacksonville, FL (February 7, 2014) - Sugar Bay Resort and Spa partnered with Vizergy in 2011, and sought to improve website traffic and search engine rankings, create a more user-friendly booking process across all screens, and realize a steady incline in direct online revenue. The property has seen continued success in their online marketing efforts, including an 18:1 return on their investment in 2013. As a result, the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) has recognized Vizergy - Digital Travel Marketing with a sil...
Crestron’s Industry-First End-to-End 4K Matrix Switching and Large-Scale Distribution Solution
Crestron | February 4, 2014
To be Demonstrated for First Time at ISE 2014 4K DigitalMedia™ upgrades will bring the highest available resolutions to both professional and consumer applications Rockleigh, NJ, February 4, 2014 - 4K Ultra HD TV is here and Crestron DigitalMedia is ready. At Integrated Systems Europe 2014 in Amsterdam, February 4 - 6, Crestron will for the first time demonstrate its complete range of 4K DigitalMedia switching and video distribution devices. "4K displays are quickly establishing a strong foothold in both professional and consumer markets. However, up until now, video distribution technology was not available to transmit 4K content thr...
Milestone Internet Marketing Founder Named One of HSMAI’s Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality
Milestone Internet Marketing, Inc. | January 30, 2014
Santa Clara, CA - January 30th 2014 - Milestone Internet Marketing, Inc. announced today that its Founder, Benu Aggarwal, was honored by The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI), naming her one of the Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Hospitality Sales and Marketing for 2013. Milestone is a leader in digital marketing and social media software and services for the hospitality industry. This is Milestone's second year in a row achieving the "Top 25" distinction with last year's honor going to Milestone's CEO, Anil Aggarwal. The 11th annual "Top 25" award recognizes the best of th...
Content Marketing 101: An Introduction to the Newest Marketing Tool for Businesses
Jennifer Nagy | January 28, 2014
By Jennifer Nagy The traditional marketing methods that businesses have used in the past are becoming outdated and uninteresting to consumers, leading to low conversion rates, decreased website traffic and lower ROI (on a company's marketing spend). Today, many companies are choosing to implement new and creative marketing strategies with the end goal of establishing their company and key executives as experts in their industry. Not only does this increase a company's overall credibility, it also helps to shorten the sales cycle drastically. The most effective thought leadership campaigns use content marketing to educate readers (potent...
Flip.to Helps Guests of Acme Hotel Company Share Travel Adventures with Their Friends
Flip.to | January 24, 2014
ORLANDO, FL - JANUARY 24, 2013 - Flip.to, the brand advocate platform for hotels, is helping Acme Hotel Company create an online diary for their guests. The hotel is using Flip.to to help guests share their travel adventures into their own social networks, thus boosting brand awareness and earning new guests from the social networks of their most trusted, untapped marketing source - their guests. Since going live with Flip.to in November, guests of the Chicago based property has reached almost 25,000 of their guests' closest friends, relatives and colleagues. Flip.to has helped 24% of Acme's guests share a branded message into their per...
5R’s of Digital Marketing and Social Media Engagement: Renew, Review, Repute, Replace and Respond
Lodging Interactive | January 22, 2014
Lodging Interactive says Websites, Review Sites, Reputation Management, Content Marketing and the merger of Social Media & Mobile should be top priorities for hotel marketers in 2014 PARSIPPANY, N.J. - JANUARY 22, 2014 - Hoteliers who didn't pay much attention to digital marketing and social media engagement last year will be playing catch up this year, as 2014 is looking to be the year of "Internet Everything." Experts are predicting "Millennials will become the core customer within the hospitality and travel industries over the next five to 10 years," and "global travel to the U.S. will begin to rise dramatically." These travel tr...
The Top Trends in Search for 2014
Milestone | January 21, 2014
By Benu Aggarwal Founder and President of Milestone Internet Marketing First and foremost we wish our readers a happy and prosperous New Year. In 2013, searchers evolved the way they sought information on the Internet, and towards the end of the year, search engines released their updates to better meet modern queries such as voice and conversational search. In 2014, we will clearly be able to see the effects of these new ranking methods. Social outreach, conversational intent, authority of the site, relevancy of the content to query and overall content quality will significantly impact the way your websites perform. Some key changes in...
The Brown Hotel’s New E-Commerce Strategy Delivers 31:1 ROI
The Brown Hotel | January 21, 2014
Vizergy® Wins Gold HSMAI Adrian Award on Behalf of The Brown Hotel Jacksonville, FL (January 21, 2013) - The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) has recognized Vizergy - Digital Travel Marketing with a gold Adrian Award for digital marketing excellence for its work on the Brown Hotel. Vizergy recommended that the Brown invest in a new custom website design to achieve higher rankings on major search engines, increase website traffic and deliver a higher percentage of relevant and ready-to-book guests. Since going live with their new site in June of 2013, the Brown Hotel has already seen significant year-o...
3 Ways to Get Heads in Beds for Your Hotel
Hotel Success Now | January 3, 2014
Hotel owners of 2 and 3 star hotels find standing out may be a challenge. Many consumers believe that there is not much of a difference in the economy to mid tier segments because they are considered "cookie cutter" hotels. The truth, is that hotels in their respective tiers have many ways to differentiate themselves. I will mention 3 ways to make your hotel standout thus presenting you with the advantage when competing for bookings increasing Average Daily Rates (ADR) and Revenue Per Available Room (RevPar). 1. Consistent Online Presence, you hear about this all the time from your brand about updating your photos, videos and descriptio...
Smart Hotelier’s 2014 Top Ten Digital Marketing Resolutions
the Authors and HeBS Digital | January 2, 2014
By Max Starkov & Mariana Safer Whether you've experienced digital marketing success this year, or have continued to struggle with your direct online channel strategy, now is the perfect time for reflection and planning ahead. 2013, a year of growth in our industry, has also been a year chock full of major industry developments. A few examples include the explosion in meta search travel websites, the continued growth of the mobile and tablet channels, the fall of keyword-centric SEO due to the rise of Penguin 2.0 and Hummingbird, and new technology advancements that have allowed us to achieve unparalleled heights in hotel distributio...
Travel Tripper Helps Hotels Earn New Guests in a Trusted, Natural Way with Flip.to
Flip.to | December 30, 2013
Orlando, FL — January 2, 2014 — Flip.to and Travel Tripper announced the beginning of a strategic partnership that includes a seamless integration between the Flip.to brand advocate platform and the RezTrip Central Reservation System (CRS). "We were early proponents of Flip.to - our customers were among the first to sign on. Based on the outstanding results those hotels had, we wanted to pursue a deeper partnership for the benefit of all of our customers." Gautam Lulla, Chief Operating Officer for Travel Tripper, commented. "We have always recognized the value of a compelling booking experience, as well as the value of a guest beyon...
Tambourine Reveals What Hotel Marketers Want for Christmas; The Answers Might Surprise You
Tambourine | December 23, 2013
Monday, 23 December 2013 What do hotel marketers want for Christmas? Before we break for the holidays, we asked our staff, client GMs, revenue managers, hotel owners and partners to tell us what's at the top of their professional holiday wish list. The answers might surprise you! - A sympathetic ear: Many of the hotel marketers we surveyed asked for something very simple and poignant: they asked to be heard. Too often, decisions are made by owners or more senior execs without asking the opinion of the sales and marketing team actually responsible for revenue goals. The most common complaint? Budget mandates being passed down with no say...
HeBS Digital Once Again Authors Top Article of the Year
HeBS Digital | December 23, 2013
Summary: HeBS Digital reemphasized its status as the hospitality industry's leading full-service digital technology and marketing firm by contributing to HotelMarketing.com four of the site's most read articles of 2013, including the top story of the year. NEW YORK, NY December 23, 2013 - HeBS Digital once again claimed a strong presence in HotelMarketing.com's list of its most popular articles in 2013. The industry's leading full-service digital technology and marketing firm contributed the most popular article of the year - "How Hotel Marketers Can Shift Bookings From OTAs to the Hotel Website" - as well as the ninth-ranked story and ...
Pershing Hall (Paris) Selects FastBooking GDS Services
FastBooking | December 19, 2013
Paris—January, 2014—FastBooking, the world's leading provider of digital marketing and technology solutions to increase hotel direct online reservations, announces the signing of a long-term contract to provide Pershing Hall hotel with GDS services to optimize high-end corporate accounts and top-tier leisure business. Consortia and Corporate Care program accounts and top-notch GDS technology. Pershing Hall is looking to build its Pershing Hall is in the heart of the Golden Triangle in Paris, where luxury fashion brands and the most prestigious hotels are located, and is one of the city's trendiest night spots. It is an architectural...
EventBoard from Flyte Systems Goes Live at John Q. Hammons Houston Marriott South at Hobby Airport
Flyte Systems | December 17, 2013
EventBoard Provides Guests with a Convenient Single Point of Information for Property Way-finding, Meeting Schedules and Rooms, VIP Greeting, and Real-Time Airport Flight Information CHICAGO, IL - December 17, 2013 - Flyte Systems, the leading provider of airport travel information displays and digital signage content for the hospitality industry, convention centers and related businesses, announced the installation of its newest EventBoard service at the Houston Marriott South at Hobby Airport. The property is operated by John Q. Hammons Hotels & Resorts. Click here to request information on Flyte Systems' airport travel and guest ...
Milestone Wins Prestigious Awards for Website Design, Internet and Social Media Marketing Strategies
Milestone | December 17, 2013
Santa Clara, CA - December 17th, 2013 - Milestone Internet Marketing, Inc. announced that it has earned several prestigious industry awards for excellence in website design, internet marketing and social media marketing strategies in 2013. Milestone garnered several top honors, including Internet Advertising Competition Awards for outstanding websites and social media campaigns, Interactive Media Awards (IMA) and WebAwards. Milestone Founder and President Benu Aggarwal was named one of the Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Sales and Marketing at HSMAI's Adrian Awards, which recognizes inspiring people in sales and marketing for the hosp...
Flip.to to be Honored by HSMAI with a Silver Award in 57th Annual Adrian Awards Competition
Flip.to | December 10, 2013
New York — December 11, 2013 — Flip.to, the brand advocate platform that helps hotels turn their guests into advocates will be recognized by Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) with a Silver Adrian Award for Social Media Marketing excellence for its winning entry in the 57th annual Adrian Awards, the largest and most prestigious travel marketing competition globally. This year's contest attracted more than 1,200 entries from around the world, with entries judged by top executives from all sectors of the industry. On Feb. 24, 2014, HSMAI will pay tribute to Flip.to during the annual HSMAI Adrian Awards...
