THE 4 MOST IMPORTANT HOTEL MARKETING TRENDS FOR 2015

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Thanks for downloading!

When 2014 was coming to a close, we started looking at the
key trends that shaped the year and the ones that would impact
hotel marketing in 2015 and we gave you an eBook filled
with insights to market your hotel better online in the new year,
including advice from marketing experts at citizenM, Naman
Hotels, Expedia, and more.
To help you further, weve compiled this snackable version
of the eBook which includes the four most important hotel
marketing trends to watch for 2015.
Continue reading to check out the most important predictions
of the year and let us know how your hotel plans to navigate
these changes. You can also join the conversation on Twitter
#LeoeBook.
Regards,
Darlene Rondeau
V.P. Best Practices,
Online Merchandising
Leonardo
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Content Marketing

In our daily diet of online news

from the likes of HotelNewsNow.
com, Tnooz and Skift, it wouldnt
be surprising to read the
following headlines as we drink
our first cup of joe at home, take
the train to the city, or scan the
news on our smartphone while
were stopped at the red light
enroute to the office (not that we
condone texting while driving ).
Our predictions are organized into the
four main areas we believe will be top
of mind for Hospitality Marketers next
year. Additionally, well share practical
takeaways that will help you prepare for
the next 12 months.

Content, But Not For The

Sake Of Content

1888 Hotel

When visual storytelling works it conveys

impressions and invokes memories; when
it works well, it makes us feel. Thats
what content marketing is: creating and
telling your story online, to reach your
prospective consumer, with an emphasis
on helping (informing), rather than just
selling. And its what smart marketers are
turning to in 2015. In fact, more than half
of B2C marketers plan to increase their

content marketing budget over the next

year.
There are a lot of bright hotel marketers
out there who already have the recipe
for the secret sauce and understand that
people dont want to be sold to any
longer. This is particularly true of the
Millennials, a generation solidly grounded
in the workforce, and they are traveling
a lot. This group can smell a spin from
a mile away so authenticity is essential
to a successful marketing program, but
theyre in good company this sentiment
transcends all demographics in todays
society. Good content is the stimulus
that leads enquiring consumers through
the shopping journey on their road
to purchase, not an afterthought that
surrounds the booking engine.

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Shopping Journey

Could It Get More Complicated?

Yes, and it probably will, but there is a light in this tunnel, and its
called visual storytelling. In 2015, visual storytelling will become
even more important for hoteliers who want to navigate the
complex shopping journey and stand out online.
Lets review the stages of the shopping journey which by most
travel marketing standards consists of five steps. What theyre
labelled varies from company to company, but the approach
is consistent: Inspiration & Awareness, Consideration, Intent,
Decision, and Post-Purchase (reviews & sharing).
Now, look at the growing list of options consumers have to wade
through just to figure out the right choice for their travel needs.
Property websites, hotel brands, corporate booking tools, GDSs,
airlines, holiday and destination planning sites, review sites, metasearch, and mobile and social channels top the list. There are
literally hundreds of thousands of travel channels.

Whats most interesting about the combination of the shopping

phases with the complex digital landscape is the important role
visual storytelling plays. It wasnt that long ago when a travel
site (pick one, any one), had a listing of hotels, with a large price
point and a thumbnail image of the property, usually the exterior.
Increasingly, wise marketers have moved from the boring textheavy presentations at the turn of the century to websites that are
dominated with rich media, like big, bold images, short, snackable
videos and descriptive text. This approach transports viewers to
their place by showing what its really like and according to MDG
Advertising, content with images gains 94% more total views than
non-visual content.1
The right picture can go further than just telling your story
visually, it can make you feel emotions, evoke memories and even
make you act differently, which is an essential motivator to move
people along the path to purchase.21

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The Power Of Social Media and Mobile

The Social House That Mark Built

Sure, Mark Zuckerberg wasnt the first to build a social network,
but he took it to an entirely new level 10 years ago when he
initially developed Facebook to give fellow students a visual of
their classmates and a way to connect with each other. Today,
social marketing is used by hundreds of thousands of companies
to build customer relationships in a nuanced
and sophisticated way.
Consumer behavior has dictated what,
how, and when they want to interact with
companies, and with each other. Its pretty
clear that people are looking for good
storytelling on hotels social channels.
Humans are curious creatures. We love
conversation and comments. We want to be
heard and understood.
Our definition of social networking has expanded over the last
several years, whereas it may have started with Facebook, now
it includes platforms that support video or image only sharing,

location based services, conversations with the suits, news

aggregators, group buying and selling, along with micro-and
blogging sites. And multi-media is the common denominator
for the leading social marketing companies. Its woven into the
experience whether its your bio picture or company graphic
on LinkedIn or a video on how to carve a Halloween pumpkin on
Pinterest, todays social communication is dominated by visuals.
And thats a good thing because in our busy,
busy world, where time is the new currency,
visuals are processed much, much faster
than words. In fact, people have drawn for
32,000 years, while weve only written for
5,000; and in todays society, pictures help
pull us out of our noisy surroundings to
provide transparency and context.
Though storytelling has always thrived
on property, it really hasnt been until
recent years that our marketing tools and
technologies have given us the ability to source, curate, publish
and amplify these stories in todays multi-screen, multi-channel
universe.
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The Power Of Social Media and Mobile

Mobile Takeover
In 2010, Steve Jobs predicted that
tablets would eventually takeover PCs.
His prophecy will become true in 2015.
Gartner predicts a total of 320 million
tablet sales, versus just 316 million PC
sales (desktops and laptops).3 However,
this is small potatoes compared to
mobile. Next year, Gartner predicts ~
1.95 billion mobile phone sales around
70% of which be smartphones.
Now, imagine this scenario. Friends are
sitting around, talking about where to
take their next vacation. Everyone in
the discussion pulls out their tablet or
phone and someone grabs the laptop
that is already on the table. Ideas are
starting to flow and the group decides
to head to San Francisco for a long
weekend. The million dollar question:

where to stay? Nob Hill, North Beach or

the Mission District? So many choices,
where do I start? 57% of leisure travelers
and 64% of business travelers will start
the shopping and booking process with
search and then go from there.
Eventually this crowd converges on the
Mission District because of its nightlife,
cuisine and coolness. Now they need a
place to stay. Fingers are flying over the
keyboards. Jennifer, on the laptop, is the
first to come up with a great selection of
options and directs the rest of the group
to the website to continue shopping.
Uh, oh. Of the three hotel choices she
can clearly see on her device, two of
them are not optimized for mobile and
therefore Jessica and Rachel, who are
using their tablet and smartphone, cant
see the entire picture the way Jennifer
does. 61% of mobile users abandon nonmobile optimized websites. From here,
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The Power Of Social Media and Mobile

you can probably figure out the rest of the story.

Consumers expect to see great visuals, even on the smaller
screens of their smartphones and tablets because it helps them
imagine the experience they could have at your property.

watching movies on their tablets. This double-pronged solution

for the mobile traveler provides a good shopping experience
and gives their target audience an effective and impactful visual
presentation of the anticipated experience.

The mobile market is booming as travelers are turning to their

smartphones and tablets throughout the shopping journey.
Mobile traffic has grown 125% in the last year,4 and this growth is
expected to continue. This increase drives the need for your hotel
to create an optimized mobile website that offers an easy-to-use
shopping experience. Additionally, Googles 2014 research shows
that only 23% of those who have encountered a mobile site that
wasnt optimized actually pushed through. Thats a lot of money
left sitting on the table. Its time to ramp up your mobile marketing
strategies.
Savvy hotel marketer citizenM is totally mobile optimized for
hotel shoppers, but what is also notably clever is that they
accentuate the I get the mobile message in their marketing
strategy by showing their guests in a variety of situations using
their portable electronic devices; lying on the bed checking texts,
sitting in the lounge updating presentations on their laptops, and
citizenM Hotels

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The Power Of Social Media and Mobile

Make sure your hotel story is told on all the devices travel
shoppers use to search for travel by having smartphone and
tablet optimized websites that automatically reformat to fit the
users screen. Alternatively, you could create a single responsive
website using the same CSS files. You can also develop an
adaptive website using the same CSS, giving you the ability to
choose which content goes where (this comes in handy if you
want to create special offers unique to shoppers searching for
travel via their mobile devices).
To respond to the mobile trend, eCommerce marketers are
adopting responsive design implementations which automatically
render and function appropriately according to the device being
used. This may be more time consuming in development, but
ultimately gives the consumer the best experience as they travel
across screens and increasingly shop, book and interact with
your hotel throughout their day. The multi-device movement will
increase in the coming years. According to a Hudson Crossing
study, by 2018, 91% of travelers will own a smartphone and 89%
will own a tablet.5
Consumers are uber mobile pun intended. People on mobile
devices have a much shorter attention span compared to desktop

(or even tablet), so its important that videos be snackable and in

mobile-friendly formats.
According to HeBS, the majority of mobile bookings in 2014
are coming from the voice channel, so a key element of your
mobile website design should be a clearly visible call button.6
Also, embed a map of your location with easy to access contact
information.
How has the cross-device, multi-screen behavior impacted
hoteliers and what can they do to ensure that their hotel is
telling a consistent story across all devices?

We all know that customers are using multiple devices,

at different times and stages of inspiration, shopping and
booking. The trick is to 1. Be everywhere throughout
the process
and 2. Where
Adam Anderson
possible, make the
Director, Industry Relations transition between
screens easy for
Expedia
your shopper.
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Targeting

The web is moving to a very

personalized medium. More
and more, youre going to see
content tailored to your interests
its already happening on
social sites and across the web
(notice that ad for a shoe sale

pops up, just after youve visited

the shoe stores website), but
we predict it will continue to
evolve further as companies
learn to better personalize their
content to the right consumer
and this is especially true for
hotels.
To stand out in 2015,
hoteliers need to deliver
the message appropriately
for your market. To tell a
story that impacts your
ideal travel shoppers,
first you must understand
what stories resonate with
them. Millennials, business
travelers, leisure travelers
and event planners are all
The Four Seasons and Resort

searching for the right hotel property,

but their requirements are very different.
This type of targeting gets more
complicated as you expand this definition
to include the variety of growing travel
markets around the globe like Asia.
Understanding the characteristics,
preferences and behaviors of your ideal
audience, backed by reputable data, will
help you efficiently expand your reach.
Did You Know?
The web will continue to evolve further as
companies learn to better personalize their
content to the right consumer.

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In 1938, Aldo Gucci said, The story and

experience is remembered long after price is
forgotten, and 76 years later, that adage still holds
true. Each day, as hotel staff walk through the
lobby & hallways, and back-of-the-house alcoves
and hideouts, they come across anecdotes told by
guests and fellow teammates.
Take these stories and stitch them together with the hard-wired
elements of your property like your clean and comfortable
breakfast area, lively sports bar or proximity to the theatre district.
Use the Lopez family reunion last fall as the backdrop to describe
the hotels ability to host and cater special occasions for large
groups. Perhaps you have the ideal location to mix business
with pleasure. Walk through the neighborhood, pretend youre
your own guest, and notice the little things like the park across
the street, a nearby subway station or dinner theatre. All of the
content ideas you need are right at your doorstep and inside your
building.

Attend a 45 minute educational webinar that promises practical

tips you can put into action, download an eBook and read a
section each morning with your coffee, take 60 seconds to read
that infographic that just arrived in your inbox. Of course, you
also have the support of your brand, management companies,
technology partners and industry associations at your disposal.
Todays travel consumer is in charge. They choose how and
when they will shop for hotels. They decide what device is most
convenient to conduct their research. They often prefer to solicit
input from strangers on social channels rather than taking the
brands word for it. The booking decision rests squarely on
their shoulders and their selection is based on how well we can
engage, inspire, and inform.
This is just a snapshot of our top predictions and trends for 2015
dive even deeper and get ahead of the competition by checking
out the full eBook Show, Share, Stand Out: The Most
Important Hotel Marketing Trends to Watch in 2015.

Most hotel marketers will readily say that things are changing so
rapidly, its hard to stay on top of it all. Keeping current will help
you focus on the actions that are right for you to make things
more manageable.
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About Leonardo
Leonardo is a technology company serving the global hospitality industry. We provide e-marketers
at hotel brands, management companies, hotel properties and travel websites with technology
solutions that improve the way they present their hotels online to travel shoppers.
Our core products include Vizlly, a cloud-based Multi-Channel Digital Marketing System that
makes it easy for hotel marketers to create and publish websites, mobile websites, social media
apps and digital brochures for third party travel websites; VScape Digital Asset Management
System, an enterprise-level digital asset management and distribution tool that helps hotel chains
better source, manage, organize, store, and publish media assets to direct and indirect online
channels; and MediaConnect, advanced connectivity for travel websites to access the industries
definitive source of hotel certified visual content. Key to all products is our extensive connectivity.
Using our VNetwork, the largest travel website network in the global hospitality industry including
GDSs, Meta Search sites, OTAs and more, hoteliers can publish their content and stories to
millions of travel shoppers all over the world on the channels, devices and platforms they use to
shop for hotels online.
For more information about Leonardo, visit www.leonardo.com.

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SOURCES 1 MDG Advertising http://www.mdgadvertising.com/blog/its-all-about-the-images-infographic/ 2 NewsCred 3 Extreme Tech http://www.extremetech.com/computing/185937-in-2015-tablet-sales-will4

5
finally-surpass-pcs-fulfilling-steve-jobs-post-pc-prophecy
Leonardo http://www.leonardo.com/knowledge-center/checklists/maximizing-your-mobile-presence-total-optimization-checklist-for-hotels/
Hudson
6
Crossing http://www.hudsoncrossing.com/previewing-our-new-research-report-travels-mobile-centric-future/
HeBS Digital http://www.hebsdigital.com/blog/mid-year-review-the-rising-tide-of-mobile-bookingshow-hoteliers-can-stay-afloat/
Leo_eBook_2015_14.0251

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