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Gone are the days when guests have to call their travel agents or wait in line in the lobby to get to you. The usual amount of time that you spend on the phone negotiating holiday deals with institutional clients is increasingly getting out of the question as well. Thanks to the mobility-driven Internet technology, online hotel booking solutions allow hoteliers to deal with guests more conveniently, quickly and cost-effectively.

But many accommodation providers still fail to see the possibility of using their websites as a platform where they can interact with their target market. This way of thinking reveals that many hoteliers are not making the best out of their online presence. If you still don’t have an idea about how to make that connection with your guests online, the operative word right now is INTERACTION.

Often, this means rolling your sleeves up and getting ready to talk and discuss things with all sorts of people online in an eye-to-eye perspective – or in your case, keyboard-to-keyboard. Doing so will boost your existing hotel internet marketing and increase your website’s conversion rate. Here are key factors that can help you connect better with your market:

1. Go for a Well-Optimized Website. Always.

For the regular hotelier, it may be hard to imagine that geeky stuff like website optimization will play a pivotal role in connecting with more guests. Since the day you launch your website, website optimization should have been on top of your list. All the promises you heard from industry experts about increased occupancy via online hotel bookings and connecting with guests can only be possible if Internet users can find you in cyberspace.

How does that work? Well, search engines find that some websites are worth showing on search engine results page (SERP) more than other similar sites. Getting listed on top of the SERPs is the Holy Grail for most online businesses. And the best way to get there is through a well-optimized website. In a nutshell, the more enhanced your hotel website is, the better your position will be on search engine listings and the more visitors will be able to find your site and interact with you.

2. Get into the Mobile Market Fast

Getting in touch with the mobile market is the wave of the future. As cellular phone technology continues to advance and the price for smart phones are becoming more affordable, expect that mobile phones will become an important hotel Internet marketing platform where you can connect with more potential guests. In fact, websites are now being tweaked for functionality in mobile phones. The best thing about the mobile market is the fact that anyone with a mobile phone carries it with him all the time, and that’s one step to accessibility that laptops and desktop PCs just can’t do.

3. Gain from Social Media

If there is one thing about Internet marketing that’s hot right now, it’s social media. Essentially, it serves as a tool where web users are able to take part in online discussions about anything under the sun. For businesses, particularly for accommodation providers, that means being able to engage people in conversations that involve their products and services. By tapping into social media as part of your hotel internet marketing, you can foster trust and enhance guest loyalty. Think of social media as a way to collaborate with your guests in building your business.

There are other components that can help you better connect with Internet users. But you can start off with the ones mentioned above. Always remember that interaction is a two-way street, meaning your guests and other users can talk back, and that makes for a more interesting hotel Internet marketing.

Your website is your link to the world. It is the frontline of for your hotel online booking system. As such, your hotel web design should be one that is attractive and convenient for your online visitors.

As more and more hotels make their presence felt in cyberspace, your website becomes not just a tool that provides information, shows pictures and flaunts room rates of your hotel. Indeed, a hotel website has evolved into an instrument that can turn website visitors into firm bookings.

You may think of your website merely as a part of your hotel online reservation system, but in reality, it is the difference between pulling through and falling short in the hospitality industry. In a ruthless, sink or swim enterprise, a user-friendly hotel website can serve as your buoy. So if you are just about to have your website created or you already have a live one, keep in mind the following key pointers that will allow you to make the most out of your website.

1. Make Yours Search Engine-Friendly

Search engines are the gates to the Internet. Through these channels, potential bookers and other consumers are searching for the perfect accommodation or services. So if you want your website to be found by your target market, you need to put hotel search engine optimization in place and ensure that you are listed among the top search results. The way to do this is to improve your website design and content. Try to incorporate the essential requirements that make websites more functional and search-friendly.

2. Speed Has Its Rewards

Ever tried to click on a website that takes forever to load on your screen? Well, it’s simply annoying, especially if one is using a hotel online booking engine. So don’t do that to your website visitors. If your website takes too long to load, visitors will definitely go to other sites and you lose potential guests. Make sure that your website is ready for action in the blink of an eye or within five to ten seconds at most. Ask your web designer how you can speed up your website’s loading time.

3. Always Go for Professional Design

If you think you can put just about anything on your website, think again. All aspects that you see on your screen, from background color and fonts down to character spacing, should match and fit together if you plan your website to be compelling enough for your visitors. As much as possible, you should use complementary colors, clear and concise copy, and easy-to-read fonts among other things. It is also a good idea to keep your web pages short and put all the important information in the first virtual fold of the screen.

4. Don’t Turn Your Website into a Maze

A rule of thumb when it comes to hotel web design: Make it easy for visitors to find the information they need. Here, you can try to improve navigation on your site such that visitors won’t lose their way. Put several links on the homepage and other pages so that online users can go to all your pages quickly and easily. Remember, unlike in a book, online readers rarely visit each web page in the order or sequence that you have designed your website.

A hotel website can truly translate to more sales. But while it is important that your website can attract as much traffic as possible, it is not just about having an increasing number on your website counter. You need visitors to convert into firm reservations. And the only way to do that is have a user-friendly and well-optimized hotel web design.

Give your customers the power to reserve their rooms anytime and anywhere with just a few clicks on your own website. But that is just part of the many advantages of having an online booking engine. The following are ten reasons why you need to integrate direct reservations in your website. So read on.

1. Simplify Your Overall Booking System

With a hotel booking engine, reserving a room will be a lot easier for your guests. Unlike the use of traditional registration cards, filling up forms has never been more convenient with guests typing in personal details and spending a fraction of their time online. The best part is, customer information will be kept permanently online, so guests need not fill the same information every time they check in to your hotel.

2. Provide Hotel Information in Real Time

While face-to-face contact is very important between hoteliers and guests, some aspects like inquiries about availability, room rates, and billings are best handled automatically via online hotel booking solutions. Standard hotel reservation software allows hoteliers and potential guests to view information like room inventory and rates in real time. Minimal or no reconciliations are needed for you to know what is going on in your hotel. Even special offers for specific dates can be tracked in actual time, so no guest will come to you with coupons that have expired already. That’s one less hassle for busy hoteliers.

3. Increase Your Direct Sales

If only hoteliers can have their way, they would never allow agencies to eat a portion of the revenues. But alas, accommodation providers need agencies to help boost sales. By using online hotel booking solutions, hotel owners can lessen, if not eliminate their reliance on reservation and ticketing agents. You can take control of reservations directly via your website while third parties gain less and less involvement in your business.

4. Render Instant Confirmation to Guests

A hotel booking engine is designed to furnish instant confirmation for reservations. So while you are spared from checking your records every time a guest reserves a room, your guests do not have to worry whether their bookings are firmly assured or not. Since everything is done online, instant confirmations are offered to guests from anywhere in the globe, 24/7.

5. Enjoy Prompt Sales Transactions

Hotel online booking allows you to make prompt sales by cutting through communication exchanges via faxes, emails or, worse, telephone calls between you and your guests. As all important information about your hotel is posted on your website and reservation interface, you provide your potential guests with a one-stop inquiry shop that will do all the talking for you. So what’s left for your guest to do is simply click the reserve button.

6. Create Better Opportunities for Your Hotel

Apart from attaining total control of your business, hotel booking solutions allow you to create more opportunities for your property. Here, you can easily change your rates to become more competitive in your market. You can even offer best value packages and hot deals without the need to please travel or ticketing agencies.

7. Effectively Manage Seasonality

Dealing with seasonality is part of managing a hotel. But the changing of particular periods in a year should not translate to zero bookings. Data that can be automatically gathered from your booking engine can allow you to come up with competitive rates based on your locality’s seasonal changes. With a few mouse clicks, you can set your sights to the right guests for the current season. You can even come up with special rates exclusively for online bookings and widen your market categories with multi-tiered pricing.

8. Reduce Marketing Costs

Online booking solution providers often bundle their services with hotel Internet marketing. With online-based marketing campaigns, you can significantly reduce your costs. Imagine your hotel website being viewed by millions of Internet users or potential guests without you spending on expensive brochures and mailing. Because of this you can even aim to compete with bigger hotels in your area without necessarily matching their marketing budget.

9. Become More Visible To the World

Some hotel booking engines come with Internet marketing modules that help promote your hotel using up-to-date online marketing techniques. These allow your website to become more visible to potential guests who are searching for the right hotel. With online marketing techniques, you can say that customers will come to you instead of the other way around.

10. Set Your Business Free

With hotel online reservations, you can set your business free from the burdens of having to allot rooms and fix rates for travel agencies. In fact, you do not need to be bound by long-term contracts with agencies anymore, unless of course you really need their services.

Truly, with all the advantages of having online booking solutions, you have a better chance of gaining guest loyalty and improved revenues. Think of direct reservation software as your tool for revving up your bottom line, without the usual headaches.