Gentelle Smart Money Hospitality Series - E#1

OCTOBER 2021 EDITION #1 © GENTELLE.COM

8 SURE-FIRE STRATEGIES TO INCREASE DIRECT HOTEL BOOKINGS Add up revenue to your

hotel's bottom line with these 8 tactical manoeuvres!

smart money hospitality series

[Page 5]

LASTING PILLOWS, STAINS & DUSTMITE FAECES.. HYGIENE TALKS. READ INSIDE: How a waterproof pillow protector helps your pillow keep stain free, and last longer PUBLICATION NOT FOR SALE

That, is your pillow.

How a waterproof pillow

imagine never washing your towel, and never

protector helps your pillow

getting filthier and filthier, not to mention

putting it out to dry in the sun. Until it starts

keep stain free, and last longer

smellier, yuckier, and so on, and then you continue using it.

That example is perhaps a teeny bit extreme. But

That’s the gross, disgusting, unpleasant thing you

the fact is, many of us simply dress up a filthy

place your head on every single night. Imagine

stained pillow with a clean pillow case, while the

cuddling that thing tonight. Now that’s blegh.

pillow itself may be just like what you’ve seen.

Let me put that into perspective. Your towel,

The fact is, we’ve probably simply “grown” into...

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October 2021

"Wash pillow covers and sheets about every week or two, and pillow & mattress protectors every 1 to 2 months."

- Asmer Abdul Akbar

The fact is, we’ve probably simply “grown” into

So what next?

using a filthy pillow right from when it used to actually be cuddly, lovely, and appealing..

Well, that’s where the waterproof pillow protector comes into the scene.

But can a pillow such as pictured above be a health hazard? Well we’re not medical doctors,

The waterproof pillow protector simply encloses,

and to say the least, we don’t know. However, a

and zips in your new fresh pillow leaving it

Dr. Karan Raj, known to be an NHS surgeon in the

untouchable to the sweat and oil from your body,

UK explains that pillows need to be changed

or an accidental splash from your cup of morning

every 2 years. And some of the reasons behind

coffee.

this..

“The average person sheds about 4kg of skin every year. Most of that ends up on your bed or pillow – a feast for microscopic dust mites.” - Source: News.com.au

and that, “A build up of dust mite faeces can cause breathing and allergy-type symptoms.”

Now that does sound

And drawn over the pillow, now enclosed in the

a bit of a health

waterproof pillow protector, is the fresh, crisp

concern.. And ABOUT those nasty stains?

Dr Raj also explained the mystery surrounding the “nasty” yellow spots and patches that develop on pillows over time, revealing they’re caused by a build up of sweat and oil from your body.

pillow cover.

Pillow inside Pillow Protector. Inside Pillow Cover.

One week later, you throw the pillow cover in the washing machine, and a month later, throw the pillow protector in the washing machine as well.

“That moisture can breed mould and bacteria,” he said.

- Source: News.com.au

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Yes, an excellent pillow protector can also be washed, which means, that that pillow you cuddle with every night, can remain crisp, pure and...

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October 2021

clean for a long, long time. Without those yellow stains, and gruesome smells – that you’re probably immune to by now – and may take an outsider to tell you otherwise.

To put all that into a nutshell, use a waterproof pillow protector to keep your pillows fresh, clean, and lasting longer, and health-wise, likely better.

So can we stop our pillows looking like that? Yes you can. Here’s where you can get a premium waterproof pillow protector, that’s actually used in leading world-class hotels, so you know you’re getting a substantially, premium product.

Then what about the mattress? Doesn’t that run into the same trouble of stains and such? Yep, here’s the link to get an incredible mattress protector as well. Yes used in leading world-class hotels. Gentelle is a trusted, well reputed brand.

And that matters when choosing what’s best for you.

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Total Rooms Booked

8 SURE-FIRE STRATEGIES TO INCREASE DIRECT HOTEL BOOKINGS

BY IHSAN INFIYAZ Third-party hotel bookings or online travel agency (OTA) bookings are a fantastic channel for obtaining guests signups. But it’s just one channel of revenue for hotels.

ANOTHER great channel of revenue is of course, to increase direct hotel bookings instead of relying solely on third-party platforms and services.

Here are 8 strategies to consider when working on increasing your direct hotel bookings, and thereby adding a revenue stream to your hotel’s or property’s bottom line.

1. A Booking Engine Having a booking engine on your hotel’s website is without a doubt a crucial element. A booking engine is a piece of software that allows visitors on your website to easily book a stay with you, without you having to pay a commission to a third-party like Booking.com to facilitate those reservations.

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"BE SMART WITH CUSTOMER RETENTION. IT CAN BE WAY CHEAPER TO RETAIN A CUSTOMER AND HAVE A REPEAT PURCHASE, THAN SPEND ON ACQUIRING A BRAND NEW CUSTOMER."

4. The Best Price Guarantee Strategy You want to ideally have the ultimate best price on your website. The guaranteed best price. Some hotels would offer the best price on third-party booking websites, while for customers looking to book directly, it would more expensive. This could be a bad strategy! Ultimately, the

2. The Sales Funnel Having a booking engine on the website is crucial. However, what also needs to be

third-party booking site/agency, will take a commission as well.

taken into account is the user experience of the website. A website is said to be the only employee that works 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This means, that by having a badly designed user experience, your hotel would be losing out on advertising funds, when visitors enter through to only quickly leave your site.

Additionally, a mobile-friendly responsive website is incredibly important as you don’t want to drive away probably the majority of users, with a booking engine that is hardly adaptable to mobile screens, and mobile user experience.

If the website’s experience isn’t good, it could mean a goodbye at the door.

3. Discounts. Get Selling.

Part and parcel of a good sales strategy is having timely discounts that appeal to a customer’s sense of a good deal. From “early-bird discounts”, to “multiple night

To acquire and retain customers, allow

discounts”, and “flash deals”. Get creative

them to book directly, but give them a

with customer acquisition and give them

million better reasons to book direct than

more reasons to book directly with you.

to book through a third-party.

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5. The Customer Loyalty scheme

customer. Thereby increasing customer

Acquiring customers is costly. And

retention, and perhaps

retaining those customers you acquired

forecasting the decrease

can be very much cheaper.

in marketing costs.

good times

That means, if it costs you $100 (of ad spend for example) to acquire a single paying guest/customer, if you retain that

& GREAT MEMORIES

customer, and he or she comes back to stay with you just because of the service they received or of some other benefit

6. Email Marketing

you’re offering, well, that would be terrific!

Another strategy of customer retention is email marketing, where emails are sent

With every booking afterwards, retaining

to specific segments of customers that

that customer could be so much more

appeal to their likes and dislikes.

cheaper than trying to acquire another new customer by re-advertising.

Email marketing isn’t about bulk mailing thousands of uninterested people. Rather

One tactical move is the Customer Loyalty

that would be spamming, and can get your

scheme that many thousands of businesses

server, domain blacklisted.

use. For example, Emirates – the infamous commercial flights company – has a

Email marketing is about building

customer loyalty scheme called the

relationships. Start with the reader in mind.

Skywards Miles and Tier Miles.

Who is the reader? What are their interests, etc... Example newsletters a hotel could

The more you fly on Emirates or flydubai

send could be:

flights, you earn these “Miles” which you

Neighbourhood sights – User focus:

can then spend on perhaps an upgrade, a

Tourists, Holidayers, Local families

reward flight, etc…

Recent/Upcoming events – User focus: Tourists, Corporate guests

A hotels loyalty scheme can for example advertise “late check-outs”, or anticipate their likes and dislikes, etc, to make more personalised decisions like for example, how they would like their food and drinks prepared, or what times/days they’d like a cup of coffee in bed.., etc.

Data driven loyalty schemes can set gold

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standards when servicing a particular

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LOVE what

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At the end of the day, the emails have to duhU dijsaM ni swodniW

engage with their specific reader segments. So catering to each segment with what they want to hear, will increase the importance and desirability of your hotel’s emails. Resulting in increased customer retention, increased brand significance, where now we would expect the increase in direct hotel bookings.

Read up on strategies for developing your hotel’s email marketing list.

7. Publishing Great Blog Articles

A hotel’s location may lend the answer to

One method of getting found on search

there could be nature walks, theme parks,

engines like Google, Bing, and so on, is the

markets, trade-shows, basically sights and

publishing of well-thought out, and well-

cities happening in that geography. So

written blog posts.

when hotels write unique content about

that question. Neighbouring the hotel,

these sights and cities, it can lead to Simply copying and pasting content from

getting found on search engines.

other blogs can be very bad, as it can cause your site to become less important when

If people are reading such articles about a

plagiarised content is routinely published.

specific neighbourhood, what we may perhaps understand is that these readers

Rather publishing star pieces of content by

are interested in that particular location. So

terrific writers in that space is what a hotel

either they could be looking to move to

should be going after. But what can a

that location, or understandably they could

hotel write about?

be tourists, or business visitors looking to be in the area sometime soon.

If it were tourists to tour the sights and cities, or business visitors to visit trade shows, now hey, that’s opportunity to get

“I present to you THE LINE, a city of a million residents with a length of 170 km that preserves 95% of nature within NEOM, with zero cars, zero streets and zero carbon emissions.”

Crown Prince and Chairman of the NEOM Company Board of Directors

Mohammed bin Salman

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left, right, and center in front of these highly potential guests/customers.

So publishing such articles out there on your hotel’s website, can result in effectively obtaining targeted traffic, leading to direct hotel bookings.

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8. Live Chat

So utilizing this set of tactics can help

In the hospitality and business industries, that touch of speaking to a human than to a robot can be great.

achieve those hotel bookings directly through your hotel’s website, rather than relying, and commissioning a third-party like Booking.com and

When potential guests visit your hotel’s

other sites to do it for you.

website, you want to make that site instantly “feel” more human friendly. To do this, adding a live chat option to your site, can allow prospective guests/customers to be served instantly, before they get drawn

Are third-party booking platforms and OTAs important? No doubt they are important. They’re also a channel of revenue and customer acquisition.

away to a competitors website. Which may

But they don’t have to be the only

be offering that desirable live chat feature.

customer acquisition, and revenue

Oh yes, that definitely has happened.

stream for your hotel, which could result in them being a monopoly

What’s more, a study by SalesForce found

against you than for you.

that in the UK, 41% of consumers preferred

So make the tactical choice; use these

live chat as their medium of support.

8 sure-fire ways to increase direct hotel bookings!

That, is a big number.

In a nutshell, attracting, and obtaining (acquiring) goal-centric visitors to your hotel’s website, can increase the

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number of signups, and decrease the number of bounces.

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A bounce is where we may see noninterested visitors enter the website and leave without much activity. And

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you don’t want this. You want highly interested visitors to come to the

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hotel’s website, and actually convert to guests somewhere along the line.

You want to increase direct hotel bookings at the end of the day alongside other goals like increasing brand engagement, and brand value.

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