Of those surveyed, 93% compared prices before booking and 81% used hotel review sites.

Conversely, only 21% of customers saw the hotel brand as important.

That means savvy hotels should be lowering prices and working towards better online reviews.

Joel Brandon-Bravo, managing director of Travelzoo UK said, “People are becoming much more price-conscious and may base their whole destination choice on finding a good-value hotel.”

Get the full story at Travolution

Facebook is fast becoming more than a customer relationship tool for many independent properties and chains. Many hotels now offer room-booking technology on their Facebook pages, which is leading to incremental sales.

“Over the course of 2009, we saw the volume of direct referrals from Facebook to hotel websites grow. The conversion rate was higher for Facebook than it was for TripAdvisor and other travel review sites,” said Douglas Quinby, senior director of research for PhoCusWright, a travel research firm in Sherman, Connecticut. The conversion rate on direct referrals from traveler review sites to hotel supplier websites ranged from 4% to 6% in 2009, while conversion from Facebook to hotel websites was 8%.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide has provided a booking function within a tab on Facebook for all of its brands and properties since it has been on Facebook.

“Conversion on Facebook is smaller but close to conversion on our brand websites. (Starwood’s Facebook fans) start to see other people’s experiences at the properties,” said David Godsman, VP of global Web for Starwood.

While Starwood primarily uses Facebook to “engage” with its guests, the company’s executives realize the valuable e-commerce potential on the global social-networking site. To that end, Westin Hotels & Resorts in January introduced a “Shop” tab on its properties’ Facebook pages. The shopping widget serves as a fully-contained shopping transaction, instead of working as a link from Westin’s website.

“What we are seeing now is an emergence of technology that that we didn’t see six months ago. There is an opportunity for ourselves and other hotel brands to enable these type of transactions within Facebook,” Godsman said.

Get the full story at HotelNewsNow.com

Another perhaps surprising finding: Corporate travel led the US travel market’s 2009 plummet and is now fueling its recovery, in a dramatic swing that is temporarily disrupting the overall market’s shift to online channels, says the company.
PhoCusWright also projects a restrained recovery through 2011, varying by travel segment and distribution channel.
The U.S. online leisure/unmanaged business travel market will grow by eight percent in 2010 while the traditional travel agency/travel management company (TMC) channel, powered by the business travel rebound, will post a 15 percent gain.
“Corporate travel’s wild ride over the past two years has caused an unusual shift in trend, with online channels growing more slowly than the total US travel market for the first time,” said Douglas Quinby, PhoCusWright senior director of research.

Get the full story at Travelmole

The difficulty for them, and for you if you are responsible for setting prices in your organization, comes in deciding exactly what constitutes a fair price. The question is important for several reasons because:

- Buyers must be convinced the prices they pay are fair if they are to become loyal, repeat customers.

- The front desk and sales staff at a hotel must be convinced the prices they charge guests are fair if they are to be effective salespersons for the business.

- Regulatory agencies must be convinced prices charged are fair or they may be motivated to increase their oversight and control of an industry.

- Actually, while the issue of what constitutes a fair price is pretty interesting, even more interesting is the question of who decides when a price is fair.

Sellers tend to think fair prices reflect their cost of doing business and their profit objectives. Sounds reasonable, but its backwards. That’s because in the long run it is always the buyer, not the seller, who determines the fairness of a price.

Get the full story at Hotel Online

This new capability is part of an aggressive strategy to leverage Facebook’s growing importance in online travel distribution and planning while continuing to drive innovation in an increasingly homogenous travel search market.

“As the only major U.S. travel search engine with its own proprietary travel search technology, deep integration into the Facebook ecosystem makes perfect sense for us to reach the 500 million Facebook users who want to be able to search for travel without leaving Facebook.” said Beatrice Tarka, Mobissimo’s CEO and co-founder.

The recent developments in travel search show the risk of relying on third party technologies for core search. Many travel companies already depend heavily on Google (GOOG) to drive visitors. If the Google-ITA acquisition is approved, travel search companies will be forced to rely on Google for core technology, further increasing their dependence and reliance on Google and reducing their ability to innovate within important new distribution channels like Facebook.

“As ITA has become the dominant provider of travel search technology, companies that rely on it for core search cannot differentiate their content and innovate. Our unique position as the only major travel search engine with its own technology gives us the flexibility to continue to innovate and provide unparalleled access to travel content no other company can provide,” said Tarka.

Mobissimo’s new Facebook travel search is an example of how companies with proprietary technology can continue to drive innovation and differentiation in the travel industry. In addition to the launch of its own search engine within Facebook, Mobissimo is also providing the Mobissimo Facebook travel search protocol to its partners so they can quickly integrate their own travel inventory into Facebook via the application marketplace.

Most importantly, beginning today Facebook users no longer have to leave Facebook to search and plan travel, they simply can navigate to the Mobissimo Facebook application to get instant access to the world’s leading travel brands and the best deals on airfare, hotel, and car rentals, all within Facebook.

Related Link: Facebook Mobissimo

1. Revenue goals: One thing hoteliers forget is to have specific revenue goals for their property that consider not just a number that they would like to achieve, but a number that is made up of components including occupancy throughout the year, and average daily rate that considers not only your base rates, but also your negotiated rates for both weekday and weekend business. If your market is growing in demand, will you be able to utilize additional revenue maximization strategies? Will rate be increasing across your competitive set?

2. Competitive analysis: Know your competition inside and out. What is the condition of their product? Who are their top accounts? What rates are they charging, and what is their volume? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How is their staffing and service? Know the answers to these questions and you will be in a good position.

3. Current accounts: Be sure that you know who is staying with you and at what rate. Have it catalogued. Know who the decision makers for your clients are and have a plan to make sure that you are on top of every account and every decision maker within that account. This is good old-fashioned account saturation. You should also know what your property’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are. It is amazing how one small open issue with an account can leave an opening for one of your competitors.

Get the full story at HotelNewsNow.com

To access Premier Inn’s weekend Twitter concierge service, guests must tweet @PremierInn concierge and simply ask for recommendations on anything from local activities for the kids, karaoke bars in the area, directions to the local theatre and the likes.

Premier Inn has announced it will be introducing an innovative Twitter-based ‘virtual’ concierge service for its guests, shaking up the traditional hotel concierge.

To access Premier Inn’s weekend Twitter concierge service, guests must tweet @PremierInn concierge and simply ask for recommendations on anything from local activities for the kids, karaoke bars in the area, directions to the local theatre or even where to find an emergency dentist.

The weekend Twitter concierge service will initially run as a trial for one month on Friday evenings in October with a view to extending it if it is proved of value to guests.

Steve Conway, who is leading innovation at Premier Inn, said: “We aim to offer our guests great service and outstanding value. We’re very proud to be the first budget hotel brand in the UK to offer guests this unique Twitter concierge service to help them make the most out of their weekend away.”

Ex-air hostess Danielle Lineker has a background in providing quality customer service and will therefore acted as Premier Inn’s first virtual concierge on launch day (1st October). Danielle will offer personal recommendations to guests ranging from family activities, to romantic tips for couples or suggestions for making the most of a girly weekend away.

http://www.hotelmarketing.com/

Savvy travelers have been looking to Facebook, Twitter, Loopt, Foursquare, and other social media sites to find the latest available bargains from airlines, tour providers, cruise lines, hotels, and restaurants. Even convention and visitors’ bureaus have gotten in on the action. They sound too good to be true: $10 flights. $93/night hotels in Miami (including a free night’s stay). $9.99/day weekend car rentals. Half-off trips to Australia. Believe it or not, these were all recently available – but only if you knew where to look. If you haven’t yet gotten involved with social media, now’s the time to start. Savvy travelers have been looking to Facebook, Twitter, Loopt, Foursquare, and other social media sites to find the latest available bargains from airlines, tour providers, cruise lines, hotels, and restaurants. Even convention and visitors’ bureaus have gotten in on the action, publicizing deals and promotions through their respective Facebook and Twitter feeds. Travel providers are using these sites to unload last-minute airfares, hotel rooms, and other unsold inventory

http://www.hotelmarketing.com

According to a new SITA study, there has been a dramatic year-on-year growth in the percentage of passengers using airline websites to book hotels, up from 21% in 2009, to 38% in this year’s survey.

The most comprehensive global survey ever undertaken of passenger use of air transport self-service technology has found popular demand is now reaching out into non-traditional areas of self-service as airline passengers demonstrate their increasing ease with online, kiosk and mobile phone channels.While online booking and check-in are nearing their full potential, there is now a clear demand from the travelling public for self-service on other steps of the passenger journey including automated security checks, which are now acceptable to 70% of respondents compared to 58% in last year’s survey. Similarly, demand for automatic boarding gates is now at 70% compared to 57% last year. Two-thirds of survey respondents would use kiosks for other purposes including booking/changing a flight; purchasing additional services (e.g. baggage fees, meals), printing bag tags; self-transfer; claiming delayed baggage. In addition, there has been dramatic year-on-year growth in the percentage of passengers using airline websites to book hotels, up from 21% in 2009, to 38% in this year’s survey; car rental, 19% to 35%. Similar growth is being recorded in other ancillary revenue streams including purchase of travel insurance, bus and train tickets and duty free items.

Get the full story at SITA

http://www.hotelmarketing.com/

Google’s announcement of the acquisition of ITA signaled the cocking of the proverbial hammer, if you are in the business of 21st Century online booking that is. Now enter Facebook, a very interesting interjection into travel dollars indeed. Facebook announced the buyout of the social network NextStop, or rather the expertise and data therein. What can they be up to? Well, a piece of $120 billion dollar online travel pie.

According to Forrester Research, last year, online travel bookings represent nearly 40 percent of all booking bucks. Expedia, Orbitz, and a very few others have (so far) pocketed the lion’s share. But, in all honesty, just how long did they foresee such a virtual monopoly going forward? Their problem, from my perspective, is not much different from any other huge and profitable company – complacency – even greed. Why? Let me explain a little.

Expedia has proliferated the web with what you might call “satellites of success” – TripAdvisor being the biggest. The original innovation there, was significant – taking advantage of “the crowd” in as far a travel ratings and the vast network of affiliations – of course. But, like so many traditional thinking companies, Expedia only paid lip service to the social element. And then, for the most part they rested on their laurels – opps. What burns me about companies like Expedia? Their almost unlimited resources to create something far better – for you – and for them.

Orbitz? Well, maybe they just don’t have the cash? Despite positive earnings, Obritz seems content to offer Gulf Coast guarantees and traditional price incentives – for the most part any way. I covered their integration with iSeatz, but was honestly overly optimistic. The iSeatz move seemed to signal movement in the space, but like many such associations – there was no prime mover behind the deal. Many online companies fail to understand the need for traction and ongoing news – Orbitz is not alone. Without tipping any hands, I know Orbitz execs are rather closed minded or at best preoccupied with other matters. What burns me about them? The market is wide open for them to move – they won’t or can’t.

Is Microsoft in There Somewhere?

Stagnated development is something I have hammered Google about in the past, but they climbed out of that hole. For Google, direct entry into the travel game, or associative models, do not make that much difference. What they may need to be concerned about is everyone gunning for them – much of this smells like Microsoft versus Google to me. Regardless, Facebook’s most recent move does have its implications. NextStop is about going local, about buying the people who have done it, and about 100,000 or so user submitted reviews. The image below probably reveals who is behind the Facebook deal.