Marketing Musing for Hotels & Resorts - Panetiere Marketing Advisors

This section is devoted to what we consider to be the core principle of marketing and sales for hotels: the creation of the environment for hotels and resorts. This is the foundation, the core. All the rest is compensation. But that never does mean that “If I build, they will come.”

We still need to communicate what it is that was built and what are its values to each audience.

But, of course.

Last month - Feb 08, Carol Verret was kind enough to ask me to join her in a sales training for a client; she needed an extra hand who could train in a way that complemented her style and needs for her client and to her own fine level. I was fortunate enough to get the nod from Carol. This is where she talks about her hotel sales training >

She and I worked through her training procedures and we set out on a 2 day training in Miami for small group of hotels - about 10. Carol worked the DOS’s and NSO’s, while I worked with all the Sales Managers and the Directors of Sales who were at Limited Service properties: 18 in all.

Carol’s purpose is to enrich, enthuse, and empower during the hotel sales training. She has incorporated some superior ideas that got me and the team “going”. The ideas were brilliant; the training wrapped up, after just a day and a half, with my group of 18 splitting in half and, as a “tournament”, going out and finding, even booking actual, real live business.

And business they did:
one team found a solid $10K plus for one hotel, created and sent a Powerpoint of pertinent benefits and were ready to go to contract. The other team did the same but found and went to tentative contact on a sequence of business that had revenues of $75K to $125k over a year and the potential for many years.

2 hours. That’s team work. That’s the power of team work

I was in awe. Am in awe. That is some training program, Carol. How to connect with the under 30’s and then show them a future.

Thanks, Eric

We are new participants in NetFlix and — like Amazon and e-bay, it harnesses interactivity, to produce a browsable ( is there such a word, can we “create” it?) list of similar titles that would/might hold value for the looker. The looker here, being both Sandy and me.

Some of us ponder, how we can use these tools to benefit web design for our clients.

Here is a sample of a simple system assembled for Joie de Vivre hotels for their San Francisco properties. We think that their idea of “Guest Fit” are brilliant and that there is so much more that can be built out from this idea. Congratulations to Joie de Vivre. Have a look here: http://www.jdvhotels.com/california_locals_talk/

back to the movie - in designing websites, I take a directors view of focus, movement and light - that’s what I did for 16 years so that is inevitable culture brown paper bag that comes along with me to every project. In “Closer” the camera movement, focus and then, the cutting constructed the telling imagery that carried the weight of the Pinter-esque script.

As I start on two new web projects, I am moved to think even more deeply about eye-shift and focus. The start of one project — here I am blanking and shifting eye focus to an alternative position. A little radical - but the point here is to reveal the idea of “new Meeting Space” - so I am using a technique to “reveal” that it is new and ” well designed”.

The start of a meeting planner home page sketch

Then we morph this at reading speed into

Finally we us ethis as a basic page set to hold the information that will pull in the meeting searches for Chicago:

Or we take another tack that emphasizes new design through obvious signifiers”

And then we morph into:

Please add your own comments into this discussion. We’ll start and you, please, pile on with comments.

Don’t be timid about having a rant or two about Marketing and Sales Issues. It is your rright. You are likely involved in hotels. Let’s help each other out, if only to vent.

Vent, Discuss. Join.

Your moderator, Eric Starck

Why is it that hotel and resort websites have so few pages…why is so little going on within their sites?

Our own thoughts on this are that the nature of the web is misunderstood.

Web pages are not adverts.
They must be useful to the user not satisfying to the owners and management.

They are not ads but a whole, huge discussion. Why does Tripadvisor thrive?

Eric