Brett Thoreson
5 Guest Personas and What It Takes to Convert Them Into Loyal Direct Bookers That Spend More
Brett Thoreson | June 15, 2023
By Brett Thoreson, co-founder and CEO of CartStack/RezRecover In the world of the hotel industry, where the rate of travelers abandoning their reservations can be significant, hoteliers are constantly searching for ways to optimize their establishments and increase conversions. The ultimate goal is to engage guests during their initial visit, whether it's through signing up for newsletters, receiving personalized notifications, or making direct bookings. Despite continuous improvements to their websites and booking processes, many hotels still struggle to retain a significant portion of their guests. This challenge seems to persist year...
The 33 Definitive Hospitality Industry Statistics You Need to Know For 2023
Brett Thoreson | November 22, 2022
By Brett Thoreson As of today, we are only weeks away from 2023. It’s almost hard to believe after the trials and tribulations that largely defined 2020, 2021, and the beginning of 2022. In some ways, the last two and a half years were a whirlwind, but, at the same time, the world came to what could be best described as a prolonged, collective standstill. For industries like hospitality, that standstill was especially pronounced – as an industry that exists to provide an in-person experience to global travelers, the COVID-19 pandemic proved to be one of our greatest obstacles. Our proverbial liferaft during this time was the promise of...
How Changes at Google Are Impacting the Hospitality Industry
Brett Thoreson | November 2, 2022
By Brett Thoreson Google has won the metasearch war, and hotels are looking to the online search powerhouse to drive more direct bookings Jimmy Wales once said, “If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist.” In many ways, Wales was correct – Google is, after all, often viewed as the ultimate gatekeeper of the internet. If we want to know the answer to a question, the lyrics from a song, the date of an event, the location of a business, the public rating of a restaurant, or the details of a travel destination, we Google it. The platform is as much a noun as a verb. Its utility is inherently baked into our personal and professional ...
Online Booking Trends and Stats Every Hotelier Should Know
Brett Thoreson | October 19, 2022
By Brett Thoreson In less than 85 days, 2022 will come to a close as we usher in 2023. It’s hard to believe the speed at which this year seemed to pass, a stark (but welcomed) contrast to the two years spent in relative stillness due to the pandemic. For most of us, this past year felt like a breath of fresh air – an opportunity for social and economic redemption after one of the most challenging experiences of our time. For industries like hospitality, 2022 represented a long-awaited period of recovery, a finish line to the pandemic, and a starting line to a new landscape and a new wave of travelers eager to make up for lost time. ...
How to Win Guests and Influence Booking Behavior
Brett Thoreson | October 4, 2022
By Brett Thoreson Hotels can unlock 15-25% more revenue on each booking when they identify better strategies for communicating with and connecting with their guests Since its initial release in 1936, Dale Carnegie’s timeless book, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 15 million copies. The book has become something of a bible for individuals looking to excel in their personal and professional lives, built around the sentiment that dealing with people is no easy task to master. Often, it’s the biggest problem we face. Throughout its chapters, Carnegie outlines six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to...
The Top 5 Reasons Why Hotel Guests Look But Don’t Book
Brett Thoreson | September 14, 2022
By Brett Thoreson We are all familiar with ‘buyer’s remorse’ – but what about a buyer’s hesitation? The moment a consumer stares at their digital shopping cart, consumed with quiet contemplation before making the final decision to purchase. As a consumer, we’ve all been there, but as a hotel brand, this moment represents a critical obstacle. Within the hospitality industry, in particular, booking hesitation is incredibly high; in fact, conversion rates for hotel websites average between 1.7% and 2%. Although the travel industry spends billions of dollars every year driving traffic to their websites, 81% of visitors reporte...
The Damaging Effects of Online Booking Abandonment Go Beyond Lost Revenue
Brett Thoreson | August 23, 2022
By Brett Thoreson Think about the last time you found yourself window shopping. Perhaps you were walking back to your car after lunch with a friend, and while passing by a storefront, something in the display catches your eye. You stop at the window, cupping your hand over your forehead to shield your eyes from the sun and get a better view into the store that spans out behind the display. Now, if it was an item of clothing that you hoped to purchase, and you went into the store, engaged with the sales associate, tried on the item, and brought it up to the cash only to run out the door the moment you were asked for payment – that might s...
“We Love Working with Hotels and Delivering an ROI of 40×1”: An Interview with Co-Founder and CEO of Booking Abandonment Platform RezRecover
Alan Young | August 4, 2022
Brett Thoreson shares his journey from successful e-commerce startup to solving the $10B lost bookings problem for hospitality By Alan Young, Hospitality Industry Advisor, Influencer, and Co-Founder of Puzzle Partner We’ve all been there. After many minutes, or perhaps even hours of combing through a website and painstakingly adding and removing items from the shopping cart, we glance at the proposed subtotal, rake our eyes back over the items in the cart, and decide we will ‘sleep on it’ before making a final purchase decision. That abandoned digital shopping cart often becomes a graveyard of almost-purchased items, long forgotten ...
