Author: AVI ARYA

YouTube is a home to billions of interesting and informative videos. Lots of people across the globe, including me, spend hours every day exploring new videos over the largest video-sharing website. Ever since I started internet marketing, I started getting questions from hoteliers about the role of a YouTube channel in a hotel’s online marketing strategy. So I finally got around writing about the link between a YouTube channel and growth in a hotel’s popularity as well as revenue.

A few years ago when digital marketing wasn’t vital part of a hotel’s promotion strategy, small hotels in the hospitality industry used to avoid locking horns with big hotel chains directly. But with increased involvement of the Internet in our life and improved technology, businesses of all sizes have received equal opportunities to compete and grow.

Today, hoteliers use different online marketing strategies to reach their audience and lure them with attractive offers. Where social media websites get special attention of marketers, YouTube is usually neglected. You may be surprised to know that YouTube is the second most popular website worldwide, after Google. As per the website’s claim, it is visited by more than 1.5 billion new users every month. Its online video traffic generates more than half of the Internet traffic. More interesting about YouTube is that five billion videos are watched daily here and 300 hours of videos are uploaded every minute. These figures are increasing day by day, and YouTube is speedily becoming a powerful tool and a brilliant platform for business to promote their services with video content.

Why Your Hotel Needs YouTube?     

With billions of daily users, YouTube has become a video marketing tool that allows you reach the hospitality industry’s biggest audience, attract them and drive viewers into making room bookings. According to Forrester Research, more than 60% guests are social travelers who explore different social media platform for hours in search of best hotel booking deals. Many among them prefer watching videos on a property instead of reading content. Through your hotel’s official YouTube channel, you can show YouTube users your hotel rooms and other amenities, and turn them into potential customers. An interesting and informative video can be shared by users across different social media platforms, which further can promote your hotels to a wide audience. Your strong presence on YouTube can:

• Popularize your hotel online
• Increase traffic on your hotel’s official website. The rising number of visitors on website could be future guests
• Increase your brand’s visibility online
• Develop personal connection with guests and local businesses
• Save money on marketing
• Earn extra through YouTube ads

How To Set Up YouTube Channel?

You can sign into YouTube the same way you logged into your any digital media account. Using the gear icon on the site’s top right side, you can set up a business channel to upload videos of your property.

Once you are done with creating the channel, fill the ‘about’ section with description of your hotel. While optimizing the YouTube channel, you need to:

• Link your hotel’s official website and pages on different social media websites
• Put right as well as interesting cover image for your channel depicting your property

While sharing a video, make sure that it is short, interesting and to-the-point. Its description should be compelling and with well-researched keywords.

Get Maximum Out of YouTube

Setting up a YouTube channel isn’t enough to draw attention of users. You need to monitor it and must respond to comments. Apart from that, you can also create and share a list of videos showcasing your favorite parts of the city, its attractions and local businesses. It will serve as an opportunity to develop a connection with local businesses and restaurants which further can help your business grow. You can make the most of video sharing site by crating video content keeping your audience in mind. There are countless content creation options, like your property’s highlights, chefs preparing a dish, guest travel stories or activities you offer.

YouTube is all about posting interesting videos and engage with users. When it is about promoting your brand and its services over the platform, all you need to do is make continuous efforts to fit in ‘what travelers want?’

If you want to learn and grow your business with the help of social media, join this thriving community for interesting discussions: 
https://www.facebook.com/internetnetarchive/ h

To beat the biggest competitors and stay ahead in the fierce industry, modern businesses are using different strategies in unique ways. These business tricks keep on changing with the change in technology and requirements of consumers. But to lure people- online or offline- it is necessary to understand them.

In the gym, I have noticed many times how trainers talk to a person to understand their health goals before suggesting right exercises and a diet plan to follow. This way of communication not just helps the person, but makes it easy for the trainer to schedule exercises. Similarly, hospitality industry also needs to understand guests to cater what they expect from their hotels during their stay there.

During an event on digital marketing, I was having a conversation with hotelier who believed that hotels should focus on young travelers and their needs while making marketing plans on accommodation amenities. As I have been in hotel industry since a long time and work on digital marketing strategies related to the hospitality field, I thought about making the hotelier aware of true facts of generational marketing.

Hotel guests comprise of four major categories: Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980), Generation Y (Born between 1980 and 2000) and Generation Z (Tech savvy people who grew up around smart devices).

Understanding Multi-Generational Travelers

From my experience, I believe different travelers have different hospitality requirements. But there are some amenity-requirement differences that differentiate a generation from others. It’s easy to make assumptions about generations, but it can also affect a hotel business. For example, you can easily assume that baby boomers don’t like to travel or they are not financial stable as they are not working anymore. But the truth is that baby boomers have enough money and time to spend on trips. Plus, they are loyal guests who, if like your hotel’s services, will be your customers for a long time.

Although the hotelier looked convinced with the fact, there was more necessary information to tell him on Generational Marketing.

What is Generational Marketing?

All kinds of people love to travel and collect beautiful memories. Apart from events and outdoor activities, they admire accommodation services of a hotel. It is essential for a hotel to plan its services in a manner that they could fulfill requirement of all travelers. When it is about reaching right audience online and luring them with digital marketing strategies, hotels are required to design social media campaigns in a manner that they could grab attention of users of all ages.

Through Generational Marketing, audience can be divided into different segments based on their age group. This helps the digital marketer in understanding what type of content and graphics can attract people who share habits and preferences.

How To Reach Multi-Generational Travelers Through Digital Marketing?

Once you identify preferences of different generational travelers, you can design online campaigns for each group of guests.

• How to reach Baby Boomers: Not all of them are active on Snapchats or Instagram, many in this group still use social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. Social media campaigns can be launched on them. Plus, they can be approached directly through email.
• How to reach and attract Generation X: A guest in this category will be of around 40 years old. Such individual is super busy, but still has some time to spend over social media websites. Instead of fancy ads, they can be attracted through simple and to-the-point content.
• How to lure Generation Y: Also called Millennials, they are young people obsessed with technology and spend hours exploring different social media sites. They are also the people who like to share their experience online. You can grab their attention through creative and funny content. If they like your social post, your content will be shared by them.
• How to attract Generation Z: People of this group are also known as Generation I. They are still growing and love to spend time on smart gadgets. They could be attracted through engaging content that works well on all kinds of devices.

Every generation has its crucial role to play in the growth of hospitality industry. Paying attention to all of them can make a lucrative deal, while neglecting any of them may do the damage. A family trip brings all generations together, so you cannot afford to ignore any of them. Being thoughtful about these multi generations can help your hotel business grow and gives you a strong base of loyal customers.

If you want to learn and grow your business with the help of social media, join this thriving community for interesting discussions: 
https://www.facebook.com/internetnetarchive/ h

In the hospitality industry, customer loyalty is a key to success for a hotel of any type. There are several ways to lure and win new customers, but it is important to give importance to loyal guests who always choose your hotel over other brands and speak your name to people they know. They impact your hotel’s growth in a new way and help you have more guests.

To make travelers come back to your hotel, they should be given something extra than your competitors. Even if they aren’t frequent visitors, they must be provided a memorable stay experience so that they prefer your hotel in future. Plus, they can recommend your hotel to their friends who are planning their trip to your city.

To avail all these benefits of pleasing guests through hospitality services, it is important for you to figure out what extra or unique you can offer your guests to turn them into your loyal customers. You can start loyalty program.

A few days ago, I met with an independent hotel’s owner in a wedding. According to him, hotels should stick to basics of hospitality as it is easy for hotel staff to cater all basic needs of the guests. When I asked him about starting loyalty programs, he called them risky and time-consuming. Many may have a hunch about loyalty programs that they aren’t much effective, but they work really well if applied in the right way. Here’re some points on designing loyalty program trends that I shared with the hotelier:

Easy To Avail Reward Programs  

Reward program is an effective technique to grab attention of many potential travelers and make them use your hotel’s services. But a reward program with plenty of conditions or a long time to avail advantages can result in lost interest of guests, especially the infrequent travelers. To lure many potential travelers, a hotel’s loyalty program should include reward programs where all types of travelers can take part in.

Short term reward program can be an innovative method to gain attention of those guests who couldn’t make use of previous reward program started by the hotel.

Variety In Accommodation     

In addition to rewards and discount in stay services, additional benefits can be offered on other independent hotels in different locations. By joining hands with other independent hotels, guests can be allowed to use their points while booking accommodation in them. For example, an independent hotel in city A can work with an independent hotel in city B to allow its guests to use their rewards while booking accommodation in city B’s independent hotel.

Instant Reward Benefits    

A hotel’s loyalty program should be designed in a manner that loyal guests can avail the benefits whenever they want, or as soon as possible. Apart from that, extra benefits can be provided with reward benefits. They could be free drink or off on a dish.

Make Loyalty Program Interesting And Addictive  

It doesn’t matter how much time or funds a hotel has been spending on its customer loyalty program, it is considered successful only when many guests are actively engaged in it. The best technique to make guests take part in the loyalty program is by presenting the program as a game. It can be made more interesting by offering bonus points to guests. It will not just motivate guests to participate in your hotel’s loyalty program but can gain attention of more potential guests.

Easy Access To Loyalty Programs

Various kinds of technologies can be used to notify guests about their participation in loyalty programs and rewards. For example, guests can be told about their balance points via email. This method can be combined with other marketing campaigns of your hotel to promote its services.

After a detailed conversation on right way to design customer loyalty programs, the hotelier was convinced with their benefits and showed interest in using such program to promote his hotel.

While applying customer loyalty program trends, make sure they are available online. In today’s digital era, a hotel of any size can compete with big brands when it is making the most of digital marketing.

In a world with fast-growing sectors, travel and tourism is booming at an indescribable pace. The year 2017 witnessed record bookings, making the sector account for around 10% of global GDP. Many hoteliers worldwide easily reached their targets and generated more revenue than previous years. The increasing number of travelers not just offers new opportunities to brands and independent hotels to earn more, but it also leads to tough competition among hotels.

While some hoteliers are still enjoying their past year’s success, many have set targets for this year. I believe hotels that have prepared themselves for future challenges are going to perform well this year. This is because 2018 will be tougher for hospitality industry than previous years, although traveler numbers are going to rise this year too. Hotels will have to focus on improving their services, while keeping a close eye on competitors.

If you think these are only perils of the growing hospitality industry, there are new players who have entered the sector to compete with hotels. They are short-term lodging service providers and service apartments. Although they are new in the sector, they are going to be a threat to hotels. I have studied the growth of Airbnb and found that the short-term lodging service provider, which offers accommodation facilities including apartments, holiday cottages, homestays and others, have experienced a splendid growth in the recent time. There are high chances that many like Airbnb will emerge and compete with renowned named of the hospitality industry.

Apart from Airbnb-like competitors, hotels currently experiencing new heights of success may observe revenue drop due to the entry of new hotels this year. Many modern-age guests do not go after big brands or famous independent hotels due to their reputation in the past. They choose a hotel if they find it suitable and equipped with modern facilities. The Internet and several effective online marketing tools enable hotels of all kinds to impress people online through their offers and services, and convert them into their guests.

I have studied PWC report and some other researches of last few years which indicate how immensely hotel room numbers have grown in India, the United Kingdom and the US. For 2016, a PWC had claimed that 16,500 rooms will be added in the US. The numbers were expected to grow 7-9% for India and 1.4% for the US in 2016. If we consider figures for 2016, they show that the expectations were pretty accurate. Many new hotels observed new trends in hospitality industry and tried taking advantage of it, resulting in thin fair-share for hotels.

Traveler numbers are rising, then why hospitality industry is still competitive? It is not just because hotel numbers are rising, but because hotels have ditched traditional methods of catering and added flexibility in their services. When it is about accommodation booking, hotels have started offering rooms on the basis of time, instead of rooms for nights. This trend has affected accommodation trends of all types of hotels. Apart from that, hotels have been using new techniques and online marketing tools to stay ahead in competition. They observe their competitors and design strategies to overcome them.

All these developing trends in the hospitality industry give a clear indication that 2018 and upcoming years are going to be tough for hoteliers who have to work hard and smart to achieve their objective and generate more revenue than their competitors. For that, hoteliers should make the most of digital marketing and collaborate with marketers to develop new strategies to gain attention of travelers of all generations and turn them into guests for a long time.

Chris Preston, CEO and founder of Preston Media and Success Diaries joins me today for an interesting conversation about social media. We learn some expert tips to increase followers and engagement on Instagram.

Chris enlightens us about his own journey and how he has been able to acquire success on social media. He says first and foremost you focus on changing your profile picture and keeping it constant on all platforms. Next, setting a particular strategy and using a similar font and color in the posts will create personal branding and your account will be recognized anywhere. Not being random in your posts makes a lot of difference. For personal branding, one should also try taking more interviews and videos.

My next question to him – What are some of things you found on social media along the way that have helped you in increasing the reach?
– Staying to up to date with new trends.
– Being a part of various groups and engaging with people over there.
– One of the most important strategy Chris understood is – CROSS PROMOTION

Resharing posts of other people and tagging them helps in making connections and increase your network. Sending people a DM and asking them if they would be interested in collaborating also helps a lot.

– Don’t repeat the same hashtags. Try and use different hashtags in every post and using hashtags like “#like4like” can put you into the spam list or get you banned.
– Building a community and genuine connection is very important.

Chris also tells us how his wife has been supportive of him all throughout his journey and is truly proud of his success. She’s always believed in him and his vision.

And I think that’s the most important part of anyone’s success – to surround yourself with people who support you and love you.

If I were to explain what transformation means, I would love to take you to the example of the changing face of travel in India. Yes, I am referring to the revolutionary Digital India campaign that has converted an average Indian into a travel freak. Until the past couple of years, pleasure travel was no less than a distant dream for an average Indian. It was hard to find the Indian blood travelling to countries abroad for vacations. Caught in the daily 9 to 5 grind, a majority of my friends in India would rarely take the pains of visiting a travel agent to find answers to all their travel related queries. A travel plan was a herculean task for their families and it remained confined to either those who were super affluent, NRIs or were sponsored for business trips. But, not anymore! Connecting the dots with a mere introduction of online accessibility to enquiry and bookings, Digital India Campaign has revolutionized the face of travel within the country. While digitization of payments is one big factor converting Indians into travel freaks, the rise of Online Travel Alliances and social media marketing are other agents contributing to this change. Let’s talk about some of them in detail here:

1) Informed Travel Choices: By now, this has become needless to speak about how internet has changed lives across the globe. However, in context of the travel face of the Indian population, you might have much more to uncover, realise and be delighted about. Statistics reveal that Indians aged between 26 and 40 extensively search the internet for all their business and leisure travels, comparing merits of destinations vis. a vis., finding the perfect hotel choices that are pocket-friendly as well as quality driven. Well, why this amazes the world so much is the velocity at which this transformation showed up. Information or rather in-depth details of destinations, both domestic as well as abroad, keep pouring in the moment you key a search. Ah! Isn’t that just so awesome?

2) Online Travel Alliances: The online travel alliances or the OTAs such as Trivago, TripAdvisor, etc., have been the biggest boon to the Indian travel industry. We all want to fall back at someone who is responsible enough for handling all our tedious stuff. This, even when it may cost a little extra. That’s exactly how it has worked for the travel industry in India. These OTAs assure you that they will take care of everything that falls within your sphere of requirements while promising to keep you informed about every bit of it. Right from booking your air tickets to organising a stay, food, local travel as well as shopping, etc., they aim at being your companion in a destination, which is otherwise alien to you.

3) Social Media Marketing: Much before you begin to search about a destination or even a hotel choice, you may end up seeing a suite of options on your social channels. Have you experienced this too? You last searched for Malaysia and your Facebook wall shows you much more about Malaysia as well as Thailand the very next hour…. Well, I am not just talking about the ads, I am referring to the recommendations as well. What makes it even better is that most of this information is driven by genuine reviews and experiences of past travellers. And, why not, after all, this info walks down to you automatically, without you even asking for it. In addition, when you travel to a destination, you are mostly up for providing a feedback about it – whether good or bad – you wouldn’t mind rating your experience if someone asks you. Social media, that powerfully manages communication between friends, strangers and not-so-strange people, has emerged as a change agent too for the Indian travel sector.

4) Digitization of Payment: Given all of the above change agents leading to the digital revolution in the country and awakening a generation full of well-informed, net savvy travellers, it is pertinent to take into account the role of online payments too. The digitization of payments via several payment wallets, forget about cashless transactions even, is one huge factor altering the travel economics in India a big way. The demonetization conundrum that surfaced in 2016 was a big boost to the eWallets like Paytm and others.

The face of travel in India is now a blend of technology, dream realizations, stress relief and a status symbol. Indians never thought of travel in such an uncomplicated way as a majority of them do now. The digital India campaign has empowered travel decisions by enabling Indians choose faster and travel more.

Exponential growth in technology has entered a new trajectory where businesses can incorporate advanced innovations into their business strategies to experience new heights of success. One obvious example in hospitality industry of new effective technology is virtual tour. It is a tool to attract more travelers to encourage them to make hotel bookings. But, what exactly is virtual tour and why hotels are creating virtual tour?

With so many hotels-independent as well as hotels belonging to chains- competing to gain more customers than others and stay ahead in the competition, it becomes necessary to take advantage of technology to lure travelers by making them aware of the luxury accommodation and modern services the property is offering, and turn them into loyal guests.

Being a hotelier, I have observed that guests spend a long time online searching and comparing hotels before booking accommodation. They want to make sure that the hotel they are choosing for their stay is clean, spacious and equipped with all modern facilities. Although most hotels have their official website where they mention everything about the property, including information on accommodation, services and their pictures, many hoteliers have started offering hotel virtual tour on the website.

Hotel virtual tour is a powerful method that hotels can use to provide their website visitor an opportunity to explore their property through 360-degree walk-through. Rather than hotel images, people can move within the hotel rooms and other area of the hotel while sitting miles away from the place. It not just provides transparency but also satisfies travelers about a hotel before making bookings.

Text is powerful and a picture speaks thousand words, but a virtual tour offers much more than that to a hotel.

Benefits of Hotel Virtual Tour

There are benefits behind the method that makes it immensely popular among hoteliers.

Increases view time on website: According to a recent survey, hotel websites offering virtual tour have 5% to 10% longer view time than the sites without a virtual tour option. It has also increased the hotels’ revenue by more than 135%. The study also revealed that hotels have experienced more than 40% sales after applying virtual tour on their websites.

Save guests’ time and boost bookings: More than 90% of modern-day travelers say 360-degree view of a hotel saves their time and satisfies them about the hotel’s services. Instead of going through every section of a hotel’s website to know if it has all the facilities that you are looking for, a virtual tour takes you to a particular area of the hotel to ensure your preferred amenities. For example, an individual on business tour can virtually visit the conference of meeting room section of the hotel to check if it’s suitable to hold a business meeting.

Increased direct bookings: In OTAs-dominated world, hotel virtual tour can take potential guests towards official website of a hotel to make bookings. It is because virtual tour facility increases traffic on the website and make visitor stick to it for a long time. When they spend some time on the website, they prefer booking accommodation through the same medium.

Gain attention on social media: Virtual tour of hotel’s official website can be shared on social media to reach many potential guests at one time. It will differentiate your hotel from others and engage people in a new way.

How to Create Hotel Virtual Tour   

• You should use high-tech tools with ultra-wide-angle lens to generate panoramic images of the hotel.
• Virtual tour software should be used to make it look professional. Among different virtual tour software, pick one based on reviews and your requirement.
• Before you start creating virtual tour, decide the hotel locations to show. In addition, determine the areas to be highlighted and how they should be presented to online viewers.
• Incorporate virtual tour with text to make guests aware of all hotel services and amenities.

With so many people traveling to different areas for different purposes, it becomes essential to lure them with attractive services. Hotel virtual tour is a way to tell them the property is clean, spacious and luxurious. It will not just help your first impression on customers, but may also result into high conversion rates.

Samir Kuckreja, Founder and CEO of Tasanaya Hospitality Pvt Ltd. joins me for an interesting take on how the hospitality industry and restaurants can become more tech savvy. We also talk about their presence on various social media platforms.

He puts forward valuable and quantitative points as to how to properly optimize the costs and be patient when it comes to marketing a new restaurant. We discussed an important question everyone would be interested in – If you are a young entrepreneur who is passionate about opening a new food outlet in your hotel, what should be your main focus?

Samir suggests to focus on the basics and start with tech at the back-end for optimizing cost, menu analysis, staff productivity and various other aspects. Marketing your product on Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn is also an essential part of the whole process. Zomato is one of the most successful platforms to start with when it comes to the food outlets even for the hotel industry.

Learn more about the technological aspects and new advertising trends for entrepreneurs in this episode.