Team exercise

Base2Stay

Mélanie and Chloé

Our thoughts by going on the hotel’s website were as follow:

Target customers: young professionals, needing to stay for a few days in a smart and convenience place, with a special taste for design
The reach: family, groups and professional (information gathered the customers’reviews)
Classy but not too expensive (89 pounds)

Avantgardehotels.com
(Present on this reseller site)

Target: sophisticated, People looking for modern and design places to stay at, while being central. Heavy Internet users.
Reach: since there is no review it is very difficult to determine what type of customers end up on this site
Hotel image:
Base2Stay on its website does not sell itself as a boutique hotel but rather as an alternative from these types of hotel. On the reseller site, Base2Stay is categorized as a boutique hotel.
It seems that they are belong more or less to the same category
· Marketing program: It doesn’t seem that there is a marketing program as such. However, the image of this site appears to guaranty a certain type of customers which matches Base2Stay target market
· Affiliate programs: we didn’t find any on this site

Gtahotels.com
(Base2Stay is present on this site)
· Target: family, tourists, groups, middle class. People who not willing to search many different offers. Price driven customers
· Reach: seems to match the target according to some reviews and all the promotions that appear on the site
· Hotel image:
o Base2Stay is sold as a concept hotel in between a boutique hotel and serviced apartments located in a very convenient part of London city, with many tourist attractions next to it.
o All sorts of hotels, but discounted
· Marketing programs (only for customers)
o Best rate guarantee: a 100% of the purchasing price is refunded to the customer finds a lower rate on another website
o Rebate program: a rebate is offered to the customers as a reward for a long stay in one of these site’s hotel
· Affiliate program: They are offered to anyone who wants to place a banner about advertising the hotel and a commission is given for all the referred visitors who finalize a booking. The host of the affiliated programs can also access gtahotels’ database.



ToBook.com
Base2Stay is not present on this reseller’s site

· Target: Price sensitive customers, especially for tourists and groups. Looking for good value for money.
· Reach: we haven’t been able to find the customers’reviews. However, we think that people look at this site in order to get the best value for money and use it as an informative website to see what types of hotels there are around.
· Hotel image:
o If Base2Stay appeared on that website, the hotel would appear as cheap and offering big discounts which would hinder its first image.
o All types of hotels are listed in this website. The condition seems to be that the price of a room should less than 160 Euros
· Marketing program: we haven’t found any. However being present on this type of site will ensure a hotel’s visibility.
· Affiliate program: a 45% commission is sent to the host of the affiliate program
whenever a booking is made through its site/ blog


Conclusion

gtahotels.com and tobook.com do not correspond at all to what Base2Stay is and wants to target in the sense that they gather too many hotels from too many different categories. The main disadvantage being that there is no streamline or coherence among those hotels.

Secondly, the reseller websites that use affiliate program do not fit with Base2Stay as this hotel only has an inventory of 67 rooms. It is therefore too small.

Avantgarde is definitely the best reseller site this hotel could have chosen among the 3 studied. It fits its image and describes well, although it is classified as a boutique hotel

How Facebook will impact the Summer Tourism Season

Remember how all throughtout the year we've been told in our revenue management classes that market segments are dead and that it now more about communities, life style, addictions.... and blogs. Here is an article that is just simply dealing with that matter. The writter is basically saying that because of - or thanks to - facebook.com, she has been able to influence some people about their holliday plans. Amazingly enough!!

What strikes me about those kind of websites is that yes, indeed, you can be part of a community because you have been to the same school or worked in the same firm. However, how many of these people do you actually really know? How can you rely on a total stranger for your travel plans? How can you trust him/ her just because you happen to have maybe done something similar at some point?

I guess that this kind of blog demonstrates that the word of mouth os a very powerful, if not the most powerful tool, within marketing communications. Nevertheless, I would still be very sceptical. Now that firm now that the blog exist and have that much power, I am sure that some will just start posting some false messages. Anyhow, the power of blogs is already starting to be used with Expedia's exponential communication.

Hotel Website Design? It’s not all in the eye of the beholder…

This article deals with the different tips a hotelier should follow in order to design a website that is efficient. Efficient in this sense means achieving the following objectives:

1. Be search engine friendly: the website should come up within the first couple of pages of the search engine
2. Be attractive to visitors so that they actually browse it
3. The ultimate aim being to convert thise visitors into online revenue (i.e. clients)

The first thing to do with the web designer is to prepare and write an online strategy so that both parties ar making sure that they are heading the same way. Obviously, it is about the look and feel of the website which should reflect the concept and the experience the customer will live in the hotel.

The pages shouldn't be too long so that the visitors do not have to screen the whole page to get the information. However, the headlines and keywords they are looking forought to be very straightfoward to find.

Secondly, the navigation should also be fairly easy. The aim is to not frustrate the visitor with him having the impression of getting lost all the time by not finding what he is looking for. Therefore rates, promotions and special offers should appear clearly.

Images are also very important in the sense that they attract the customers'eyes and give them a more realistic idea of what they are to expect for that hotel. Within the same framework of ideas, designers and hoteliers need to pay special attention to whatever is written on the website. Using bold and italic caracters can attract the vistors eye. Nevertheless, they shouldn't be too much text in order for the visitor not to get bored or too much filled in with information. They should keep it simple but informative and attractive. Further, they should also remember that search engines can only read text and design codes. Therefore, these have to be present enough so that the page can easily be found by search engines (eg. the meta data).

Further on, since most of visitors usually arrive on sub pages, it is primordial to have the contact details, address, phone number and so on on each and every pages of the website.

This is a war that has started with the launch of the Internet. It has become for many countries the major tool related to search. Therefore, the concern for businesses has become to be visible on the net. What this areticle is telling us is that visibility is not enough for those businesses to survive. Indeed, they need more in terms of attractiveness, content, navigation in order to turm a visitor into a customer.

Don’t know your Arsenal from your Elephant & Castle?

Active Hotels launches new London location page

This article deals with the launch of a new website called Active Hotel. Basically, this site aims at helping international travellers arrvivng in London to find the best hotel for the best value in accordance with their needs in demands in terms of location within the city of London.

The authors of this site have found out that people traveling to London had no idea how the city was divided, which place to go to or not, its accessibility and its proximity to the capital sight seeing places and night life. With this site, everything is explained and all types of hotels and prices can be found, with, of course the guests' comments.

Once more, this article shows how important the internet has become for international travelers. It also stresses the fact that hoteliers need to be visible at the right places. This kind of site can generate loads of customers if well used.