Small Independent Hotels and Unsolicited Emails

I’m prompted to write about this topic because client hotels regularly ask me for my opinion on approaches by companies trying to sell them web-based services or products. They forward me the email messages and I try to provide a well-considered response. I have to say the 99% of the time, I advise against any involvement.

The latest approach was from a video production company that was proposing a video for the hotel supported by statements like, “…we first gain a true understanding of the property we are going to work with in order to distill the USP.” Note “the property we are going to work with” and not the name of the hotel. Furthermore, the hotel in question has a series of videos on its website, so these people obviously hadn’t looked at it. Also, “…distill the USP”? What garbage!

Most of these approaches are from ‘luxury’ websites trying to persuade the hotels to be featured thereon in return for an annual fee and/or a commission on all bookings. Too many hotels are persuaded to subscribe because their own websites are not attracting the necessary traffic and are not converting what traffic they have into bookings.

Often the approach emails will state that an hotel’s website is not on page 1 of Google for the most relevant search phrases. These emails are spam and are written as a ‘catch-all’. No-one has spent any time researching the relevant search phrases for every hotel targeted. They simply don’t know.

It’s so easy to set up a luxury hotels website, simply by hooking up to one of the major booking engines. I could do it tomorrow. I could then spam hundreds of hotels with an irresistibly tempting offer and, because their own websites are not producing the bookings, several might well bite.

So, take control. Make sure you know how well your website is performing. The simplest way is to ensure your site is hooked up to Google Analytics, then you’ll know. You should be looking for over 2,000 search phrases per month finding your website and you should be checking which paid for sites are sending traffic, and how much, to your website. If you’re not happy, do something about.