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SHA841:	
  Hospitality	
  Demand	
  Management	
  with	
  New	
  Media	
  Marketing	
   ©	
  School	
  of	
  Hotel	
  Administration	
  
Research	
  Project	
  Template	
  
	
  
Part	
  I:	
  Research:	
  Find	
  a	
  Hotel	
  Room	
  
To begin, imagine that you are a consumer interested in traveling to New York, New York (Manhattan) for
a Friday-and-Saturday-night stay. The date of travel should be approximately one month after your
course completion date. You are searching for a four-star hotel. Please use whatever tools you would
normally use to find a suitable hotel room. Document your process and your result, including room type
and rate. Include any comments you'd like to make. The goal here is to decide which hotel you would like
to stay at.
IM: I start my search on Google.com. I typed “4 star hotels in manhattan” First, I scan through the first
page only from top to bottom to decide what sites to explore. I eliminate direct hotel links as I do not know
which hotel and which area to stay. My eyes automatically looked for booking.com as this is the only
website I use for my hotel bookings. I already made up my mind to visit booking.com, however before I
leave, I look at few links. I click on “Maps for 4 star hotels in Manhattan” I thought to myself is a good
source to have an idea about the area I want to stay in. After looking at the map, I decide to stay within
Times Square & Central Park Area. I have a quick glance on the left side for the hotels list pinned on the
map, even though most hotels listed on the map were 5 star, I notice The Westin’s rate at USD 250
seemed very reasonable for my budget for the area I want to stay in and as I am quite familiar with The
Westin service. So, now I have a bit of an idea which area I want to stay in and at what rate.
I browsed back to my search page and I click on to the next link I had in mind. “Hotels in New York on
Google” to compare hotels based on reviews and prices. When I clicked on the link, the page I came on
to gave me the options for check-in & check-out dates. I set the dates to 4
th
October to 6
th
October. I sort
the relevance from Price-Lowest first. Once the list is sorted, I skip through the list of the hotels until I see
the hotel with the rate of USD 250. I look at few hotel properties within upto USD 280 as there are not
many options for USD 250. I then identify three properties within my extended budget of USD 280 and the
area they are located fits my search. I take a note of Hilton Manhattan East New York @ USD 269,
Hudson New York @275 and The Mansfield @ USD 276. I look no further and browse back to the search
page. I have already spent 45 minutes by now and I am in the middle of thinking to move on to
booking.com without looking any further. Then I scroll down on the page once more to decide what to do
and I see booking.com on the right hand side with the title Luxury Hotels Manhattan. Since I was not
looking for luxury hotels, I did not pay attention earlier and was going to visit the site directly. So I once
more looked at the page and eliminated a few more like Travelocity, wotif.com, hotels.com because of an
unfinished explanations with … at the end as well as crowded wording with “Save Upto 70%..., etc.”
These type of descriptions are not certain for me. This is the reason why I always feel comfortable with
Booking.com is because I have a clear message in my mind getting the “lowest price guarantee” so why
look further.
Then Finally, I clicked on my most favorite link for my travel bookings and I insert my dates, filter by stars
and the price range from USD 200 to USD 270. I look through the first page again to look for the hotels I
noted earlier, but I can’t find them. Instead my attention is caught on to Mayfair New York Times Square
@ USD 260 rate. I looked at the reviews and I see that the location was perfect but there were a lot of
noise, so I was taken a step back. I then go back to search and look for the hotels I noted earlier. Among
the 3 properties, Hilton Manhattan was within my budget, within the area I was looking to say in and good
score in review. The second hotel Hudson NewYork was not available. The third The Mansfield seemed
SHA841:	
  Hospitality	
  Demand	
  Management	
  with	
  New	
  Media	
  Marketing	
   ©	
  School	
  of	
  Hotel	
  Administration	
  
the best in location and quality review, it was more expensive than what I noted earlier. So I decided to
book Hilton Manhattan East Newyork @ 260 per night.
Part	
  II:	
  Research:	
  Find	
  a	
  Hotel	
  Room	
  II	
  
When you have completed this assignment, submit your work to the course instructor. 	
  
As we established in Topic 1, you are a consumer interested in traveling to New York, New York
(Manhattan) for the weekend (Friday and Saturday nights) approximately one month from your course
completion date. You are searching for a room at a four-star hotel. Use one or more of the tools
discussed so far, including social media tools, to find a suitable hotel room. Document your process and
your result, including hotel name, room type, and rate. Also note the names of the hotels that seem to be
this hotel's major competitors. This time, were you able to find new options for those dates in New York,
or did you get the same information? Describe any differences in your research experience. If you did
notice differences, how do you think they came about? Include any additional comments you would like to
make. If you were to choose a hotel, would that purchase decision be different now than in your first
attempt?
IM: I started my search on Foursquare since it is the first social media platform for places to go. However,
I could not find anything related to hotels, choices were on food, beverage and entertainment related. I
then went on to Facebook. Searched as hotels in Manhattan, Newyork. No results show rather than
individual hotels. But it gave me an option “hotel in New York”, so I clicked on the link and got a list of
hotels without any star classifications rather rating stars. I quickly scanned through the list which hotel has
been liked the most and I refined my search by ‘Visited by My Friends” I had only 4 hotels listed which
were The Plaza Hotel, The Standard High Line, Gansevoort Park, Dream Town. Among the 4 properties,
I was only attracted to The Plaza Hotel and before I clicked its page, I went to see the visitors who get an
idea about the profile of the people visited the place. By looking at the people’s profile who has visited
who were mainly on executive level positions, I had a good feeling that it should be quite a nice place.
Then I visited the hotels own FB page, I was not very impressed. I was looking to see posts related to
hotel room, F&B and its amenities, but the posts were rather about historical data or who came to perform
at the hotel, Oscar poll or JFK’s new airspace lounge which I found irrelevant and I looked at the general
engagement, which was very minimal. It was mostly likes to the posts but less comments and shares.
Since I was not impressed I did not go on further. I then visited Times Square, New York Page and went
straight to see what they liked to see the list of hotel they liked in the area and I saw, Interncontinental,
Hotel Mela, Crown Plaza, Paramount, W Newyork, Casablanca Hotel and Hilton Times Square. Among
these hotels, I eliminated Intercon, Crown Plaza, W Hotels since I knew they were not the match to 4 star
category . I decided to have a quick look at the rest, sine Hilton was also my choice of hotel on the first
search. I first visited Hilton Times square and clicked on their “Fan Rate” tab. I put the dates and checked
the availability with FB Rate. There was no room available. I then realized Hilton Times Square was not
the same Hilton I looked at previously, so on Hilton’s page I went to see Hilton Manhattan East. However,
there were no rooms available either on the days I wanted to stay. So I moved on to the remaining hotels
on my list. Visited Casablanca hotel next and found very positive guest comments on the page and went
to check the rates immediately, While I was looking for the rates, there was a virtual tour of the hotel’s
interior which I liked very much but the rates were USD 449 which was way more than my budget, so I left
and jumped on to Hotel Mela, again, not many comments except the location of the hotel was mentioned
ad superb but no tab to check the rate and availability. However, I made a note to myself to check the
rate on full information OTA and I left and jumped on to Paramount again nothing was interesting and no
option for room availability. Finally I could no find anything interesting and just wanted to try my luck with
Twitter, on twitter it was mostly OTA messages were available, however I came across another hotel The
Pearl Hotel New York City which had a great review with 9.3 rating out of 2k guests, so I checked their
SHA841:	
  Hospitality	
  Demand	
  Management	
  with	
  New	
  Media	
  Marketing	
   ©	
  School	
  of	
  Hotel	
  Administration	
  
rate on their site and it cost USD 510 per night which was way over the price I wanted pay, since I was
getting a brand name hotel at half the price. However, since I was very curious of the rating I made a note
to check it out on OTA site. So left the twitter as well and went on to booking.com to check the rates of
the 2 hotels. First I looked at Hotel Mela which had a very good review indeed but the price was double
than what I was paying for. The Pearl Hotel was also with the best review but cost USD 500 per night. So
I decided to go on with Hilton Manhattan East hotel as was my first choice.
As my general opinion, facebook nowadays is not the most powerful social media platform as it was used
to be before. All the hotel FB pages I visited were quite boring and not enticing enough or encouraging
enough to book the hotel since companies do not do much competitions or give anyways or offer fan
discounts as they were before. Twitter on the other hand is a good listening tool for companies incase if
the customers comments anything negative. People mostly comment negative feedback than positive on
social media. However, on the other hand OTA websites provide a better review and rating information
about the properties. According to me from the customer point of view OTA’s are much better platform to
get the real feeling of the hotel based on thousands reviews than social media from my circle of friends
and or hotel’s facebook page where I might see posts that are not so relevant to the hotel services and
amenities but general posts with high likes which does not entice me to stay there. However from the
hotels point of view it is very important that hotels put a listening tool in place to learn and hear what is
being said for them so they can take a corrective action or send an appreciation back where otherwise
would have been unknown.
Part	
  III:	
  Research	
  Project:	
  Search	
  for	
  the	
  Hotel	
  
When you have completed this part of the assignment, submit it to your instructor for grading. 	
  
Imagine that you are the marketing manager or revenue manager at the hotel you chose in Module 1. In
your capacity as manager, you are trying to make sure that consumers, when using search engines, can
find your hotel.
Create a list of five keywords or keyword phrases that you think a typical consumer would use to to
search for a hotel like yours. Perform searches using these keywords. For each search, document the
page and position your hotel is listed on. Investigate both paid and organic search results. Make a note of
where your main competitors are located.
How does your hotel stack up against its competitors in the search world? Consider both other hotels and
OTAs. In your comparison, present some examples and potential explanations.
My Chosen hotel is Hilton Manhattan East New York
Key Words/Keyword Phrases
1- Hotels in manhattan
a. Page: 14 through living social
b. 3
rd
position
2- Manhattan hotels
a. Page: 17 through living social
b. 4
th
position
3- 4 star hotels in manhattan
a. Not visible on any page
4- hotels in manhattan nyc
SHA841:	
  Hospitality	
  Demand	
  Management	
  with	
  New	
  Media	
  Marketing	
   ©	
  School	
  of	
  Hotel	
  Administration	
  
a. Page: 7 through the hotels own website hiltonmanhattan.com
b. 9
th
position
5- downtown hotels manhattan
a. Page:13 through the hotel’s own website Hiltonmanhattan.com
b. 9
th
position
Throughout my searches with the key words I chose below table exhibits the paid and seo listing
PPC &
SEO
Hotels in
Manhattan
Manhattan hotels 4 star hotels in
manhattan
Hotels in
manhattan nyc
Downtownhotels
manhattan
PPC 1
st
Booking.com Booking.com Hotels.com Roomhopper.ae Hotels.com
PPC 2
nd
Google sponsor Hotels.com Starwoodhotels.co
m
Hilton.com Booking.com
PPC 3rd Google sponsor Google sponsor Roomhopper.ae Google sponsor Google sponsor
PPC Right
Handside
Roomhopper.ae
Marriott.com
hotels.com
Hilton.com
starwoodhotels.com
Roomhopper
Accorhotels.con
hotels.com
Hilton.com
starwoodhotels.com
parkcentralny.com
hotelscombined.com
besthoteloffers.com
Booking.com
Hilton.com
Accorhotels.com
Hotelscombined.c
om
Tripadvisor.com
Fourseasons.com
Agoda.com
Marriott.com
Hotels.com
Expedia.com
Accorhotels.com
Hotelscombined.c
om
Agoda.com
Onefinestay.com
Fourseasons.com
Marriott.com
Hilton.com
Roomhopper.ae
Starwoodhotels.com
Accorhotels.com
Hotelscombined.com
Tripadvisor.com
Fourseasons.co
SEO Expedia/hotels.com/
tripadvisor/kayak.co
m/booking,com/later
rooms/orbitz/choiceh
otels.com/frugaltrav
eler.com
Expedia/hotels.com/
tripadvisor/kayak.co
m/frugaltraveler.com
/midtownmanhattan
hotels.com/lateroom
s.com/orbitz.com/affi
nia.com
Hotels.com/exped
dia.co.uk/tripadvis
or/Travelocity/carlt
onhotelny/wotif.co
m/fivestaralliance.
com
Expdia/hotels.com
/booking.com/tripa
dvisor/frugaltravell
er.blogs.nytimes.c
om/comfortinnma
nhattan.com/choic
ehotels.com/hotel
guides.com
Expedia/booking.com
/tripadvisor.com/mr&
mrssmith.com/orbitz.
com/hidowntown-
nyc.com/conradnewy
ork.com
According to this current situation, OTAs dominate the both paid and organic optimizations. Hotel brand
names are limited to the right handside. I see that even though my hotel is not specifically listed in any
one the search words, Hilton brand is consistently on the first page by PPC. When I click on the link, the
landing page gives me the list of all the brand hotels located in Manhattan. This is an efficient way of the
brand promoting itself by directing the customers on the right landing page with the list of properties
located based on the search word. On the other hand OTAs are listed with broad keywords to offer
customers a wide selection of hotel properties. However since it is a fact that OTA offer a more
competitive rates than the hotel’s brand site, eventhough the customers reviews the rates of the hotel on
its website, he/she will go back to OTA for the final booking. For instance Hilton Manhattan East Neywork
was listed with USD 299 on Hilton.com but booking.com offered at USD 260. If the ultimate aim is to
encourage the booking on the brand.com the rate parity should be consistent with the brand.com and
OTA sites.
SHA841:	
  Hospitality	
  Demand	
  Management	
  with	
  New	
  Media	
  Marketing	
   ©	
  School	
  of	
  Hotel	
  Administration	
  
Due to the ever going OTA vs. hotel paid search, many hotels seem that they have restricted OTAs to bid
keywords on their brand names.
For example, under the keyword “hotels in manhattan nyc”, brand website was on first right hand side
PPC position paying the highest bid to the second, whereas tripadvisor(below) used the brand Courtyard
by Marriott Newyork Manhattan keyword in their SEO optimization and got the placement on the 1
st
page
5
th
position, so in a way Marriott Brand paid the advertising for tripadvisor for a client that is looking to
book in Courtyard by Marriott who would directly click on the specific link and make the booking rather
than going through the hotel’s brand site where he would have to scan through the list of other all Marriott
properties.
Courtyard by Marriott New York Manhattan / Times Square South ...
www.tripadvisor.com › ... › New York City › New York City Hotels
Courtyard by Marriott New York Manhattan / Times Square South. 3.5 of 5. 114 West 40th Street, New York City,
NY 10018 (Manhattan). Hotel website.
In the past where the digital world was not as sophisticated as it is today, hotel companies could not
foresee that offering their unsold inventories to OTAs at quite a discounted rate would change the whole
dynamics of the OTA segmentation taking up to 60% of the online booking today. It would take a really
long time and big budgets to divert people from their existing hotel booking habits from OTA to brand
sites, therefore rather then bidding high for low conversion rate due to full pricing on brand sites, hotels
should bid for value added keywords such as “free hotel stay” to attract customers to book directly.
I think, Marriott & Hilton has taken the right steps in the value added offerings as seen below when “free
hotel stay” Marriott & Hilton reward points come in handy appearing on the first page organically with a
higher CTR rate for the brand site getting the chance to transact with the customers directly.
By Inci Malik
14.09.2013

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E-cornell - Hospitality New Media Project

  • 1. SHA841:  Hospitality  Demand  Management  with  New  Media  Marketing   ©  School  of  Hotel  Administration   Research  Project  Template     Part  I:  Research:  Find  a  Hotel  Room   To begin, imagine that you are a consumer interested in traveling to New York, New York (Manhattan) for a Friday-and-Saturday-night stay. The date of travel should be approximately one month after your course completion date. You are searching for a four-star hotel. Please use whatever tools you would normally use to find a suitable hotel room. Document your process and your result, including room type and rate. Include any comments you'd like to make. The goal here is to decide which hotel you would like to stay at. IM: I start my search on Google.com. I typed “4 star hotels in manhattan” First, I scan through the first page only from top to bottom to decide what sites to explore. I eliminate direct hotel links as I do not know which hotel and which area to stay. My eyes automatically looked for booking.com as this is the only website I use for my hotel bookings. I already made up my mind to visit booking.com, however before I leave, I look at few links. I click on “Maps for 4 star hotels in Manhattan” I thought to myself is a good source to have an idea about the area I want to stay in. After looking at the map, I decide to stay within Times Square & Central Park Area. I have a quick glance on the left side for the hotels list pinned on the map, even though most hotels listed on the map were 5 star, I notice The Westin’s rate at USD 250 seemed very reasonable for my budget for the area I want to stay in and as I am quite familiar with The Westin service. So, now I have a bit of an idea which area I want to stay in and at what rate. I browsed back to my search page and I click on to the next link I had in mind. “Hotels in New York on Google” to compare hotels based on reviews and prices. When I clicked on the link, the page I came on to gave me the options for check-in & check-out dates. I set the dates to 4 th October to 6 th October. I sort the relevance from Price-Lowest first. Once the list is sorted, I skip through the list of the hotels until I see the hotel with the rate of USD 250. I look at few hotel properties within upto USD 280 as there are not many options for USD 250. I then identify three properties within my extended budget of USD 280 and the area they are located fits my search. I take a note of Hilton Manhattan East New York @ USD 269, Hudson New York @275 and The Mansfield @ USD 276. I look no further and browse back to the search page. I have already spent 45 minutes by now and I am in the middle of thinking to move on to booking.com without looking any further. Then I scroll down on the page once more to decide what to do and I see booking.com on the right hand side with the title Luxury Hotels Manhattan. Since I was not looking for luxury hotels, I did not pay attention earlier and was going to visit the site directly. So I once more looked at the page and eliminated a few more like Travelocity, wotif.com, hotels.com because of an unfinished explanations with … at the end as well as crowded wording with “Save Upto 70%..., etc.” These type of descriptions are not certain for me. This is the reason why I always feel comfortable with Booking.com is because I have a clear message in my mind getting the “lowest price guarantee” so why look further. Then Finally, I clicked on my most favorite link for my travel bookings and I insert my dates, filter by stars and the price range from USD 200 to USD 270. I look through the first page again to look for the hotels I noted earlier, but I can’t find them. Instead my attention is caught on to Mayfair New York Times Square @ USD 260 rate. I looked at the reviews and I see that the location was perfect but there were a lot of noise, so I was taken a step back. I then go back to search and look for the hotels I noted earlier. Among the 3 properties, Hilton Manhattan was within my budget, within the area I was looking to say in and good score in review. The second hotel Hudson NewYork was not available. The third The Mansfield seemed
  • 2. SHA841:  Hospitality  Demand  Management  with  New  Media  Marketing   ©  School  of  Hotel  Administration   the best in location and quality review, it was more expensive than what I noted earlier. So I decided to book Hilton Manhattan East Newyork @ 260 per night. Part  II:  Research:  Find  a  Hotel  Room  II   When you have completed this assignment, submit your work to the course instructor.   As we established in Topic 1, you are a consumer interested in traveling to New York, New York (Manhattan) for the weekend (Friday and Saturday nights) approximately one month from your course completion date. You are searching for a room at a four-star hotel. Use one or more of the tools discussed so far, including social media tools, to find a suitable hotel room. Document your process and your result, including hotel name, room type, and rate. Also note the names of the hotels that seem to be this hotel's major competitors. This time, were you able to find new options for those dates in New York, or did you get the same information? Describe any differences in your research experience. If you did notice differences, how do you think they came about? Include any additional comments you would like to make. If you were to choose a hotel, would that purchase decision be different now than in your first attempt? IM: I started my search on Foursquare since it is the first social media platform for places to go. However, I could not find anything related to hotels, choices were on food, beverage and entertainment related. I then went on to Facebook. Searched as hotels in Manhattan, Newyork. No results show rather than individual hotels. But it gave me an option “hotel in New York”, so I clicked on the link and got a list of hotels without any star classifications rather rating stars. I quickly scanned through the list which hotel has been liked the most and I refined my search by ‘Visited by My Friends” I had only 4 hotels listed which were The Plaza Hotel, The Standard High Line, Gansevoort Park, Dream Town. Among the 4 properties, I was only attracted to The Plaza Hotel and before I clicked its page, I went to see the visitors who get an idea about the profile of the people visited the place. By looking at the people’s profile who has visited who were mainly on executive level positions, I had a good feeling that it should be quite a nice place. Then I visited the hotels own FB page, I was not very impressed. I was looking to see posts related to hotel room, F&B and its amenities, but the posts were rather about historical data or who came to perform at the hotel, Oscar poll or JFK’s new airspace lounge which I found irrelevant and I looked at the general engagement, which was very minimal. It was mostly likes to the posts but less comments and shares. Since I was not impressed I did not go on further. I then visited Times Square, New York Page and went straight to see what they liked to see the list of hotel they liked in the area and I saw, Interncontinental, Hotel Mela, Crown Plaza, Paramount, W Newyork, Casablanca Hotel and Hilton Times Square. Among these hotels, I eliminated Intercon, Crown Plaza, W Hotels since I knew they were not the match to 4 star category . I decided to have a quick look at the rest, sine Hilton was also my choice of hotel on the first search. I first visited Hilton Times square and clicked on their “Fan Rate” tab. I put the dates and checked the availability with FB Rate. There was no room available. I then realized Hilton Times Square was not the same Hilton I looked at previously, so on Hilton’s page I went to see Hilton Manhattan East. However, there were no rooms available either on the days I wanted to stay. So I moved on to the remaining hotels on my list. Visited Casablanca hotel next and found very positive guest comments on the page and went to check the rates immediately, While I was looking for the rates, there was a virtual tour of the hotel’s interior which I liked very much but the rates were USD 449 which was way more than my budget, so I left and jumped on to Hotel Mela, again, not many comments except the location of the hotel was mentioned ad superb but no tab to check the rate and availability. However, I made a note to myself to check the rate on full information OTA and I left and jumped on to Paramount again nothing was interesting and no option for room availability. Finally I could no find anything interesting and just wanted to try my luck with Twitter, on twitter it was mostly OTA messages were available, however I came across another hotel The Pearl Hotel New York City which had a great review with 9.3 rating out of 2k guests, so I checked their
  • 3. SHA841:  Hospitality  Demand  Management  with  New  Media  Marketing   ©  School  of  Hotel  Administration   rate on their site and it cost USD 510 per night which was way over the price I wanted pay, since I was getting a brand name hotel at half the price. However, since I was very curious of the rating I made a note to check it out on OTA site. So left the twitter as well and went on to booking.com to check the rates of the 2 hotels. First I looked at Hotel Mela which had a very good review indeed but the price was double than what I was paying for. The Pearl Hotel was also with the best review but cost USD 500 per night. So I decided to go on with Hilton Manhattan East hotel as was my first choice. As my general opinion, facebook nowadays is not the most powerful social media platform as it was used to be before. All the hotel FB pages I visited were quite boring and not enticing enough or encouraging enough to book the hotel since companies do not do much competitions or give anyways or offer fan discounts as they were before. Twitter on the other hand is a good listening tool for companies incase if the customers comments anything negative. People mostly comment negative feedback than positive on social media. However, on the other hand OTA websites provide a better review and rating information about the properties. According to me from the customer point of view OTA’s are much better platform to get the real feeling of the hotel based on thousands reviews than social media from my circle of friends and or hotel’s facebook page where I might see posts that are not so relevant to the hotel services and amenities but general posts with high likes which does not entice me to stay there. However from the hotels point of view it is very important that hotels put a listening tool in place to learn and hear what is being said for them so they can take a corrective action or send an appreciation back where otherwise would have been unknown. Part  III:  Research  Project:  Search  for  the  Hotel   When you have completed this part of the assignment, submit it to your instructor for grading.   Imagine that you are the marketing manager or revenue manager at the hotel you chose in Module 1. In your capacity as manager, you are trying to make sure that consumers, when using search engines, can find your hotel. Create a list of five keywords or keyword phrases that you think a typical consumer would use to to search for a hotel like yours. Perform searches using these keywords. For each search, document the page and position your hotel is listed on. Investigate both paid and organic search results. Make a note of where your main competitors are located. How does your hotel stack up against its competitors in the search world? Consider both other hotels and OTAs. In your comparison, present some examples and potential explanations. My Chosen hotel is Hilton Manhattan East New York Key Words/Keyword Phrases 1- Hotels in manhattan a. Page: 14 through living social b. 3 rd position 2- Manhattan hotels a. Page: 17 through living social b. 4 th position 3- 4 star hotels in manhattan a. Not visible on any page 4- hotels in manhattan nyc
  • 4. SHA841:  Hospitality  Demand  Management  with  New  Media  Marketing   ©  School  of  Hotel  Administration   a. Page: 7 through the hotels own website hiltonmanhattan.com b. 9 th position 5- downtown hotels manhattan a. Page:13 through the hotel’s own website Hiltonmanhattan.com b. 9 th position Throughout my searches with the key words I chose below table exhibits the paid and seo listing PPC & SEO Hotels in Manhattan Manhattan hotels 4 star hotels in manhattan Hotels in manhattan nyc Downtownhotels manhattan PPC 1 st Booking.com Booking.com Hotels.com Roomhopper.ae Hotels.com PPC 2 nd Google sponsor Hotels.com Starwoodhotels.co m Hilton.com Booking.com PPC 3rd Google sponsor Google sponsor Roomhopper.ae Google sponsor Google sponsor PPC Right Handside Roomhopper.ae Marriott.com hotels.com Hilton.com starwoodhotels.com Roomhopper Accorhotels.con hotels.com Hilton.com starwoodhotels.com parkcentralny.com hotelscombined.com besthoteloffers.com Booking.com Hilton.com Accorhotels.com Hotelscombined.c om Tripadvisor.com Fourseasons.com Agoda.com Marriott.com Hotels.com Expedia.com Accorhotels.com Hotelscombined.c om Agoda.com Onefinestay.com Fourseasons.com Marriott.com Hilton.com Roomhopper.ae Starwoodhotels.com Accorhotels.com Hotelscombined.com Tripadvisor.com Fourseasons.co SEO Expedia/hotels.com/ tripadvisor/kayak.co m/booking,com/later rooms/orbitz/choiceh otels.com/frugaltrav eler.com Expedia/hotels.com/ tripadvisor/kayak.co m/frugaltraveler.com /midtownmanhattan hotels.com/lateroom s.com/orbitz.com/affi nia.com Hotels.com/exped dia.co.uk/tripadvis or/Travelocity/carlt onhotelny/wotif.co m/fivestaralliance. com Expdia/hotels.com /booking.com/tripa dvisor/frugaltravell er.blogs.nytimes.c om/comfortinnma nhattan.com/choic ehotels.com/hotel guides.com Expedia/booking.com /tripadvisor.com/mr& mrssmith.com/orbitz. com/hidowntown- nyc.com/conradnewy ork.com According to this current situation, OTAs dominate the both paid and organic optimizations. Hotel brand names are limited to the right handside. I see that even though my hotel is not specifically listed in any one the search words, Hilton brand is consistently on the first page by PPC. When I click on the link, the landing page gives me the list of all the brand hotels located in Manhattan. This is an efficient way of the brand promoting itself by directing the customers on the right landing page with the list of properties located based on the search word. On the other hand OTAs are listed with broad keywords to offer customers a wide selection of hotel properties. However since it is a fact that OTA offer a more competitive rates than the hotel’s brand site, eventhough the customers reviews the rates of the hotel on its website, he/she will go back to OTA for the final booking. For instance Hilton Manhattan East Neywork was listed with USD 299 on Hilton.com but booking.com offered at USD 260. If the ultimate aim is to encourage the booking on the brand.com the rate parity should be consistent with the brand.com and OTA sites.
  • 5. SHA841:  Hospitality  Demand  Management  with  New  Media  Marketing   ©  School  of  Hotel  Administration   Due to the ever going OTA vs. hotel paid search, many hotels seem that they have restricted OTAs to bid keywords on their brand names. For example, under the keyword “hotels in manhattan nyc”, brand website was on first right hand side PPC position paying the highest bid to the second, whereas tripadvisor(below) used the brand Courtyard by Marriott Newyork Manhattan keyword in their SEO optimization and got the placement on the 1 st page 5 th position, so in a way Marriott Brand paid the advertising for tripadvisor for a client that is looking to book in Courtyard by Marriott who would directly click on the specific link and make the booking rather than going through the hotel’s brand site where he would have to scan through the list of other all Marriott properties. Courtyard by Marriott New York Manhattan / Times Square South ... www.tripadvisor.com › ... › New York City › New York City Hotels Courtyard by Marriott New York Manhattan / Times Square South. 3.5 of 5. 114 West 40th Street, New York City, NY 10018 (Manhattan). Hotel website. In the past where the digital world was not as sophisticated as it is today, hotel companies could not foresee that offering their unsold inventories to OTAs at quite a discounted rate would change the whole dynamics of the OTA segmentation taking up to 60% of the online booking today. It would take a really long time and big budgets to divert people from their existing hotel booking habits from OTA to brand sites, therefore rather then bidding high for low conversion rate due to full pricing on brand sites, hotels should bid for value added keywords such as “free hotel stay” to attract customers to book directly. I think, Marriott & Hilton has taken the right steps in the value added offerings as seen below when “free hotel stay” Marriott & Hilton reward points come in handy appearing on the first page organically with a higher CTR rate for the brand site getting the chance to transact with the customers directly. By Inci Malik 14.09.2013