U.S. Accommodation Businesses Embrace Internet Marketing ...

By Anna Johnson on July 5th, 2011

Where do U.S. hotels, bed and breakfasts (B & Bs) and innkeepers spend most of their marketing budgets these days? If you?re involved in the travel industry ? or have recently researched or booked travel ? you?ll know the answer: on the Internet!

Of the three biggest marketing expenses among accommodation businesses, the biggest expense is online advertising and the third is online travel agency commissions.

Based on TripAdvisor?s recent poll of 770 U.S. accommodation businesses, the three biggest marketing expenses are:

1. SEO, SEM and banner advertising (31 percent);
2. Dues and subscriptions (16 percent); and
3. Online travel agency (OTA) commissions (12 percent).

More accommodation businesses are also embracing social media, believing that it carries such benefits as the ability to:

• Post deals/special offers (cited by 54 percent);
• Answer customer care questions (48 percent);
• Promote events (40 percent);
• Share general industry news (26 percent); and
• Promote contests (18 percent).

In terms of how U.S. hotels, B & Bs and innkeepers are using Internet marketing to promote their accommodation deals, the top 5 tactics for promoting offers were:

1. Their own property website (76 percent).
2. Email marketing (52 percent).
3. Social media (44 percent).
4. User-generated review sites (25 percent).
5. Online travel agencies (21 percent).

During the 2011 U.S. summer travel season, accommodation businesses cited the top five deals they planned to offer as:

• Discounts on rooms (56 percent);
• Special amenities (43 percent);
• Free parking (33 percent);
• Rewards points (26 percent); and
• Deals on nearby attractions (23 percent).

Overall, hotels, B & Bs and innkeepers are optimistic about marketing their accommodation services in 2011. A majority (83 percent) of accommodation businesses say their marketing budgets are the same or more in 2011 compared with last year:

• 34 percent say their overall marketing budgets have increased;
• 49 percent say their budgets have stayed the same; and
• 17 percent say their budgets have decreased.

Of the hotels, bed and breakfasts and innkeepers planning to increase spending on online marketing this year:

• 63 percent plan to increase SEO, SEM and banner advertising;
• 39 percent intend to increase their investment in social media;
• 27 percent will increase mobile advertising;
• 22 percent plan to spend more on email marketing (22 percent); and
• 17 percent intend to spend more on paid listings on user-generated review sites.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011 at 2:35 am and is filed under Ecommerce, Email Marketing, Kikabink Lab, Market Research, Online Advertising, Search Marketing, Social Media, Traffic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.kikabink.com/news/u-s-accommodation-businesses-embrace-internet-marketing/

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