Digital Marketing Directions The Key Trends Driving Your Hotel Marketing Next Year

Tim Peter (@tcpeter)

President, Tim Peter & Associates

“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”

These are “the good ol’ days”

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PKF-HR STR/Tourism Economics PwC

2016 RevPAR Growth

RevPAR forecast strong through 2016

So why aren’t we all happier?

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Mobile isn’t a trend Trend #1:

It’s a way of life

2/3rds US population own smartphones

•  Meet the “Net Set” –  Largest demographic… or

will be by end of this year –  Natively mobile: 86% of

consumers aged 25-32 own smartphones

– More smartphone-owning Millennials expect brands to have a mobile-friendly website or app (55%) than a social media presence (39%)

•  The “Net Set” travels –  32% of US travelers –  Business travel, too: largest

share of workforce (34%) – Approximately 20 million

(~45%) still to enter workforce over next 3-4 years

–  49% “plan/book” on mobile devices

–  Half of Millennials travel with children

50% of 65+ own smartphones

More people own mobile phones than own toothbrushes

You host more devices than guests

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"Price for iPhone 6 Plus" Relative Computing Power

5 year old phone worth around 1/10th its original price

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iPhone 6 Plus Price Relative Computing Power

Verizon testing 5G in 2016 (30-50x faster than 4G)

Makes instant gratification real

Driving huge shift in guest expectations

Who’s meeting those expecations?

Drowning in content Trend #2:

2+ million search queries

204,000,000 e-mails sent

120+ reviews

28,000 photos

30 hours of video uploaded

100,000 tweets

208,000 photo uploads

Competing in the age of the selfie

We’re all publishers now

Disruptive distribution Trend #3:

Predic've  

“Much more importantly than a source of transactions, mobile is a chance to plumb the end-to-end user experience… Say you are looking for an accommodation

on an iPad but then you book on a PC. But, then you show up at

the hotel with your iPhone. All of that is plumbed to an account...” –

Darren Huston, Priceline CEO

“I think of mobile in the short term as a positive to drive

some bookings, but really in the longer term it is

increasing our value to the customer that would be very difficult for an independent

hotel to do.” – Darren Huston, Priceline CEO

Priceline activity •  BookingSuite

–  Buuteeq (hotel websites and booking engines)

–  HotelNinjas (PMS) –  Pricematch (RMS)

•  Rocketmiles (Loyalty) •  OpenTable •  Kayak •  AS Digital (restaurant booking) •  Marriott white-label booking engine (ar, it,

pt-br, ru)

Amazon Local Offers to Prime members

•  What  is  your  company  truly  be7er  at?    

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Google  has  rich  data  sets  about  guests    

Who else has lots of data?

And  growing…  

But, Google feeling pressure too

Happy yet?

“Your margin is my opportunity.” – Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon

Your response

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PKF-HR STR/Tourism Economics PwC

2016 RevPAR Growth

Drive rate, control costs

Content is, was, and always shall be king

Context  is  Queen  

Context is queen

Data is the crown jewels

• Two goals: – Content quality – Content velocity

Snackable

Sharp Shareable

© 2015 Tim Peter & Associates, LLC

“Sights, sound and motion get attention and inspires. A product manager for a prominent OTA told me that despite all the conversion testing they run, the one universal truth is ‘pretty pictures sell hotels.’” - Robert Cole

Action Yes/No? Media channels selected? Media channels align with target customer?

Image? Is it shareable? Headline? Is it shareable? Will it fit in a tweet? Copy? Snackable? Sharp? Hashtag? Shareable? Can hashtag be turned against us? (“Bashtag”)

Mobile? Which social channels are used by target customer?

Monitoring in-place? Tracking in-place? URL shortener?

Social integration scorecard

“Mobile-only” world: Learn from the leaders

•  Why not put them to work for you? –  100 room hotel –  60% occupancy –  1.4 guests/room –  31,000 annual “storytellers”

•  “Treat each one like a VIP travel writer…. because they are” – Adele Gutman, �Vice President Sales, Marketing,& Revenue at Library Hotel Collection

Pricing Power (ADR)

Demand (Occupancy)

Performance (RevPAR)

All +0.8% +0.2% +0.96%

Upscale +0.67% +0.19% +0.83%

Upper Midscale +0.74% +0.42% +1.13%

Midscale +0.89% +0.54% +1.42%

Measured change in pricing power, demand, and performance given a 1% change in online reputation Source: Cornell Center for Hospitality Research

Review quality leads to increased RevPAR

•  Real-world says so too –  Achieved top positions in

TripAdvisor, Yelp, social channels for multiple hotel clients

–  Occupancy index improved to 95-105

–  ADR index improved to 107-180

–  RevPAR index improved to 109-169

–  Growth above comp set –  Reduced or held OTA share

below 10%

Visual  Informa'on  Specialist  Jason  Johnston/U.S.  Army  

•  Key takeaways: –  Invest in content quality

and velocity: Snackable, shareable, sharp

–  Grow your reach beyond Google and metasearch – they’re the same thing

–  Use data to learn and grow

–  Guest experience drives rate and return

Make these truly “the good ol’ days”

Thank You

Web: timpeter.com

Phone: 201-305-0055

Email: tim@timpeter.com

Twitter: twitter.com/tcpeter