8 Excellent Hotel E-Commerce Insights: Hospitality Marketing Link Digest

Welcome to May, Big Thinkers! Hope you’re having an excellent day and an excellent weekend. Even more, I hope you’ll appreciate these 8 excellent hotel e-commerce insights, this week’s entry into the Hospitality Marketing Link Digest series. Enjoy:

1. PSFK has a write-up about Hotel Tonight’s digital concierge which “gives guests an experts at their fingertips” and TechCrunch reports the tool offers its in-app concierge service in 30+ cities.
2. Over at Gartner, Augie Ray writes brilliantly about what loyalty means to customer experience. Good read.
3. The tools that Hotel Tonight (and Google and others) have invested in help them gain more data and deeper insights into guest behavior, which then allows them to provide richer guest experiences — and drive greater loyalty. Put it all together and that’s the hidden factor OTA’s use to get between you and your guests. It also represents a significant opportunity for you to build your business.
4. Shifting gears the good folks at Skift offer some pointers on how travel marketers can tap into user generated content to grow their businesses, proving yet again that, for travel marketers, content is still king.
5. Peter Brescia at Koddi looks at ways to incorporate Hotel Booking using the Facebook Messenger Platform, yet another example of why I’m bullish on mobile payments and messaging. And, after all, it’s about time we recognize that it’s Facebook’s world and we’re all just living in it.
6. As Facebook’s prominence — and possibly its dominance — increases, it’s time to ask again whether social is a waste of time for hotel marketers.
7. Another recent post shows that content marketing, along with personalization, ratings and reviews, and overall guest experience represent the four key elements of modern hospitality marketing. Be sure to check out the whole post to see why that is and how to put those elements to work for your property.
8. Finally, to close out our look at , don’t miss these 7 spectacular hospitality distribution and digital marketing posts and these 6 spectacular resources for hotel marketers from the past week from the Hospitality Marketing Link Digest series.

If you’re looking to learn even more about how changing guest behavior shapes hospitality marketing, e-commerce, and distribution, be sure an register to receive a special report I’ve produced in conjunction with hotel marketing firm Vizergy, “Digital Hotel Marketing in a Multiscreen World.” While it’s targeted specifically at hotel and resort marketers, the lessons apply to just about any business. You can get your free copy of the report here.

You might also want to take a moment to review the slides from my recent webinar, “Digital Marketing Directions 2016: The Key Trends Driving Your Hotel Marketing Next Year” here:

Finally, you will definitely want to check out some of our past coverage of the mobile, local, social web and how to make it work for your hotel, including:

• “5 Key Facts About Mobile, Millennials, and Hotel Marketing”
• “How Safe Are Independent Hotels from Airbnb?”
• “The Big Myth About Digital Strategy”
• “Digital Marketing Directions 2016: Key Trends Driving Your Hotel Marketing Next Year”
• “Huge List of Lessons Learned at HSMAI’s Digital Marketing Strategy Conference”
• “Are Hotel Brands Doomed?”
• “Trends in Hospitality Digital Marketing for 2016”