ҹɫֱ²¥

Transcript

Introduction
 
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another Matt talks. And this time, I wanted to go back to a topic that I have covered before, which is hotel websites. It's a it's your online business card, and it's one of the most important things for, I think, for a hotel to get business through the door.
 
But unfortunately, it's an area that hotels often under invest in. I last time talked about my experience from doing this and being in the industry, but actually there's people that know way more about websites like Michael Fitzsimmons, who I asked to join us. Michael has joined our business a couple of months ago, and he's he's done this building a digital strategy for other businesses. But I'll let him explain what his background is and why he actually gets to have an opinion about this.
 
Yeah. No. I I appreciate that that you've welcomed me on, and I'm I'm very excited, and happy to to talk to the group. And, also, you know, in my first three months at ҹɫֱ²¥, it's been awesome. So I'm I'm energized by it.
 
So, yeah, I I joined ҹɫֱ²¥ not with a ton of background in the hospitality industry per se, but, I spent ten years at WeWork. So understand real estate businesses and physical space businesses and, you know, the importance of creating experience, in a physical environment and then scaling that brand globally around the world.
 
And then I also I joined ҹɫֱ²¥ most recently.
 
For the crazy times. Right? The real scale up of WeWork.
 
Yeah. I joined WeWork when it was just fifty people. And so I stayed for ten years. And and at one point, we were thirteen thousand people.
 
Yeah. We a lot a lot of growth and and a lot of learning. So, you know, both both positive and and things that, you know, I do differently. But and then I also I I joined ҹɫֱ²¥ from WeTransfer.
 
So no relation to WeWork, but WeTransfer is a consumer SaaS business with over eighty million monthly visitors. So, you know, website was a huge part of our growth strategy. And while those businesses are are much different than, you know, independent hotels or even large hotel brands, I do think that there's some, you know, foundational best practices that are universal for creating a strong digital experience. So happy to talk about those with you.
 
And and so when you book personal travel, what's your journey? Like, where do you start and what are like, do you book direct? Do you book through an OTA? Like, what's your journey?
 
Yeah. You know, it's I think being at ҹɫֱ²¥ now for three months, I try to go direct just to to try to, you know. That's the right answer. Yeah.
 
Because I know I know how important it is for hotels to build that relationship with with customers directly. So my habits have evolved over time. Look, I think booking a hotel for me personally is one of the most important decisions when thinking about a trip, whether it's business or leisure. And I'm married, so it's it's it's a joint decision.
 
It's, I involve my wife in in the in the vacation decisions. And it's kind of about what what kind of trip do I want? What kind of experience do we want? Do we want no vacation where we're just staying at the hotel, we're not leaving?
 
And so things like food and a gym and wellness experiences are more important. Or are we gonna be exploring the city all day, and we just need a comfortable place to be in and out of, and location's more important.
 
Trip and that experience. And so I'm looking for the hotel's website to give me that information as fast as possible so I can make that decision on my own.
 
But how do you get to the hotel website? Do you Google? Do you use AI? Do you use Tripadvisor?
 
What's the way to get even into the hotel website?
 
Yeah. So it it depends. Actually, sometimes, I'll do personal recommendations. So I'll ask, friends and family who have been to the places that we're traveling, and they'll sometimes make recommendations. I'll look at third party sites, that that talk about hotels, whether it's, like, a tabloid or mister and missus Smith in the US, and globally. Or or I will look at, you know, best hotels in in a particular neighborhood. And so that's where I think SEO becomes extremely important, a big opportunity for hotels.
 
I like that you called up Mr. And Mrs. Smith specifically because it's such a niche for young urban couples that are looking to to have a stay. And it's almost like a curated version of the Internet already that you're getting and you know that they have deeply thought about the hotels before you start looking through the entire Internet of hotels and things like that. Internet of hotels.
 
Exactly.
 
And that's where these platforms do a really good job, I have to say.
 
Hundred percent. Yeah. I know. It's it's, you know, you trust recommend you trust people with recommendations. And then I think, mister and missus Smith has a persona that almost feels like a trusted friend that I that I go we go to.
 
So So as an objective bystander, if you're looking at a hotel business and the way that we search for, you know, where to book our holidays, you can probably book.
 
You can do the discovery through AI, through Google. You can probably book a hotel really well and book in a common Expedia. Why does a hotel still need a website? Does it need a website, do you think?
 
Yeah. I mean, absolutely. I I think the role of websites is evolving, I think, in any industry, and I'm sure that the same applies for hotels. Okay.
 
I think it one, it's just it's a way to differentiate. So if we continue to use OTAs and and even AI platforms for recommendations, I still might, and I imagine people are going to hotel websites directly to make a final decision. And so if they're choosing between three hotels, a a website is an opportunity for those brands to stand out and communicate why they are the best choice for those travelers. And so I I still think it is extremely important to have a strong point of view on why your hotel is the one to stay at.
 
And it will be still an important part of the buying journey, whether that's later in the process than it used to be because there's so many different tools that you can use to now aggregate options. So absolutely still important.
 
And do you feel that the the the primary goal of the website is to close the booking or to just be an informational source for travelers?
 
Yeah. I mean, I I think I do still think that, you know, the website should be the the primary goal is to convert visitors to guests. I think that is important to understand that users are going to be in different stages of that journey. And so it needs to serve specific purposes along that journey.

Chapter
Conversion vs. information
 
So I might be very early in planning my trip or, yeah, I might be planning a trip that's months away. So I'm not ready to book yet. I'm just doing evaluation. I'm gonna make a list that I'll then decide on later.
 
In that case, it's important that I do have the information around, you know, how what's the gym like? Can I, you know, book a massage or or what kind of treatments do they have? So all of that is important for me in my ultimate decision. But, you know, when I go back months later, it should be very easy for me to to search for a room and and convert.
 
So I do think removing friction to to purchase is always the primary goal of a site.
 
And so you talk about this long process and it is that. Right? It isn't someone who just comes in the website and, like, great. I'm ready to book and I'm I'm converting.
 
Sometimes I am. If I'm on business, I've gotta make a room and I'll book it. But if it's leisure, I go back to talk to my husband. I'm like, are we sure about this hotel?
 
And this is where cookies come in. Right? So when you come into the website, that cookie banner actually matters. And the UI on the cookie banner matters because you want people to accept the banner.
 
Because now we get to inspire you in the next few months as you make that purchase decision downstream.
 
Absolutely.
 
What's the, so what's the advice on on cookie banners and and and advertisements? What would you do? Yeah.
 
Yeah. Certainly. So I I even think also you you bring up a really good point just about how the experience of a hotel website can mimic the experience of being at the hotel. And what I mean by that is just personalization and understanding information about the user or the guest that can help you tailor that experience in the best way.
 
And cookies allow you to do that. They allow you to understand, you know, who the user is based on past behavior, what they're looking for, and then kind of serve up personalized experiences for them over time. Now with privacy and regulation, it's important that, you know, users opt in to that to to accept cookies. So I think it's just, how can you do it in a way where whether it's through language or through the UI, where it removes friction, And it also is positioned as a way for the site to help provide a personalized experience.
 
Certainly, there's there's only so much about that language that you can change, but I do think it should feel part of the the website experience, not preventing you from getting where you need to be.
 
And that's something that we also think about on our own website.
 
Like and so so we had this discussion the other day about the banner that you see on websites. If there's just is it if it's too easy to decline, people will just decline.
 
And Exactly.
 
That makes it really hard to make sure that you service this customer with the right advertisement at the right moment. So look at the user interface of the banner. It genuinely matters because we just ram it out there. But actually, you wanna make sure that people accept the cookie banners because they wanna keep in touch.
 
Because what happens is if you've done your search on booking dot com and Expedia, and then you somehow get to the hotel website after you've done the discovery part, Booking and Expedia will retarget you with ads to come to Amsterdam. We'll book you in Amsterdam. They won't retarget your hotel specifically. Whereas you as your hotel, you are retargeting the experience of your hotel.
 
So you're competing directly with Booking, who's retargeting you as a guest to the destination, whereas you're targeting the hotel. So the cookie banner does really matter.
 
And then the advertisements that you run behind it then matter because that's a continuation of the brand on the website.
 
The consistency that you don't have in the ads really matter downstream as well.
 
Absolutely. The the website is one part of the the user journey, and that evaluation process is going to take place across many different channels. So the more that hotels can personalize that and understand and empathize with that journey, I think the stronger, you know, performance will be because they're able to tailor that experience accordingly. And I I also would just emphasize something you said, which is those details matter. Every single detail on the site is important. And so nothing's a throwaway. And absolutely, when it comes to to cookie opt ins, that's definitely something to pay attention to and optimize.
 
So if you so so I'll take a step back because I have so many questions that I wanna go down with because I I'm fascinated about this topic, but let's think about a hotel. And generally, hotels don't have the budgets that we as a tech company have to build a massive digital team. Often you have a budget for one person that will run or build the the website or you outsource this to an agency. But if you had a budget for one person, what would the profile of that person be that you would hire?
 
Yeah. I think I'd start with, as a hotel, what is the competitive advantage that we have over other hotels around us so that that we compete with? And try to communicate that strength and what they are best in the world at in the website experience. So let's say that is, a really personalized guest experience.
 
I think hiring someone who can really who really understands the guest and who can communicate what that experience is going to be like on property in the website is is may maybe where I would start. So I guess, like, I think if you have one person, I think hotels are what they have is they're excellent storytellers. They understand how to create an experience. And so what they might lack in sure, a a major performance marketing budget or digital budget, they gain and really understand and understand who their customer is and what they want.
 
And so that's I would always start from a position of strength. And then for the things like, you know, running paid search or paid social campaigns, you can hire contractors and freelancers to do that. But it's really hard to outsource your identity and who you are as a as a hotel to to people on the outside. So I would really if I were running a hotel, I would hire someone who really understood the brand and the experience that we were trying to create.
 
So like the UX person, basically. Someone who understands the experience you're trying to create and everything, the platform and how you build it. You could you have there's people for that or there's even platforms that can do that. But unless you have a person who can tell the story, you know, you're gonna have someone who's gonna build it, but what are they gonna build?
 
Yeah. It's exactly. It's it's impossible to know, you know, the the last a hundred guests at a hotel. What were the who are the ones that had, like, the best experience? What was it about our hotel that made that experience? How can we highlight that in in the decision making process so that we stand out and continue to attract people who get value out of out of staying with us and who wanna return? You know, that that's impossible to outsource because that that knowledge sits with, you know, people who are on on premise and who really understand the guests.
 
And then, you know, you've got the person in house. You gotta think, okay. I wanna build, a website on a platform. Like, are there specific platforms that are super easy to use for someone who isn't super digitally savvy? What would you recommend?
 
Yeah. I mean, there's there's tons of kind of off the shelf websites right now that have easy to use CMSs. So things like Webflow, things like Wiz, Squarespace, you know, it's it's there are these very intuitive, easy to use site builders now that I think you you can use, but not a lot of digital experience. And it depends on how complex and big your business is. Certainly if you're have a couple properties, you can get started in in a day even building site.
 
And genuinely, like, with AI, like, when you get stuck, just ask the dumb questions to AI and it's pretty good at telling you what to do.
 
Completely. Yeah. No. I and that's, you know, I I also would say that that's why I I go back to hiring people who have skill sets or strengths that cannot be replicated by AI.
 
So, AI likely won't know what the experience and feel of a property is, and they won't know what the last a hundred guests felt. But it can write pretty good copy and it can design a pretty good site architecture for you and, and, and give you a recommendation for what the user journey should be. And so it's, it's actually never been easier to create a digital presence or a website, but it's, it's harder to stand out. And, and that's actually why I would, I would push anyone to go look for skills that cannot be replicated by AI tools.

Chapter
How AI impacts web traffic
 
And we've talked for years about SEO, you know, the structure of the websites that drives search engines to be able to discover your website. And And then suddenly there's AI. And I don't even use Google anymore today. I genuinely have AI set up on my phone as the primary default search method.
 
Absolutely.
 
Does it matter for the website? Like, what has shifted in this this this thing? Are we still doing SEO?
 
No. Yeah.
 
So I I do think for virtual optimization.
 
I just assume that everyone knows this, but maybe people don't know that.
 
Yeah. Yeah. So I what you're saying, right, just historically, if you're looking for a hotel, I would go to Google or Bing and say, you know, search for best hotels in in, you know, Athens. But now I might do that using ChatGPT or Cloud or Perplexity, and and those tools are great.
 
And, you know, from our perspective, we do see, an increase in referral traffic from LLMs and a decrease in referral traffic from SEO. And what that means for us is we have to measure website performance through KPIs that go beyond traffic because we assume that organic traffic is traffic now is not going to come from search engines anymore. It's going to come from LLMs. And so we have to find ways to measure.
 
Okay. So how are we optimizing our site experience to make sure that we're showing up in the results for LLMs? And I think the same will be true for for hotels. The the good news is that a lot of the best practices for SEO apply to AI search optimization.
 
So having, you know, like, strong technical SEO, good page load speed times and site performance and a clean site architecture. So creating a a website that is easy for a search engine to navigate will also be beneficial for AI platforms. I think that the it it's just it is important to know. Right?
 
Like, so how do these LLMs, you know, surface results? What are the inputs? Is it Reddit threads? Is it review sites?
 
And then making sure that as a hotel, you are active and present in those inputs as much as possible.
 
How would you discover that? What the topics are that relevant to travelers?
 
So there there are tools that, you can there are more and more tools now coming out that help you optimize your presence on AI platforms. And happy to share them so we we can, you know, show them out once the episode goes live. But we're we're looking into that ourselves. Right?
 
How do we make sure that we're we're ranking properly? But I think also it's it's asking your guests. Where do you where do you search for hotels? But when you travel, what sites do you consult?
 
Do you do you look at Reddit? And then that's, you know, kind of qualitative feedback that you can apply, to optimizing that journey.
 
Yes. And so so now I've built my core website and I started loading content in there. And then a month later, there are barely any bookings coming through the website. Where would you begin solving for that?
 
Like, where would you start because you have the same problem. You've just joined news three months ago. I'm like, we need more traffic on the website. That converts really well.
 
And I'm sure you've gone through the same journey. But, like, if you would take that into a hotel mindset, where would you start?
 
Yeah. So if I launched a website and I wasn't getting traffic. Right? Yeah. Where where would I start?
 
Well, you might get the traffic, but it just isn't driving actual bookings through.
 
Yeah. So I would look at engagement rates on the site. So, like, what what do bounce rates look like?
 
What, like, what is time spent on page?
 
Booking.
 
Bounce rate. I come in. I'm I'm I'm staying on the page for one second, but I'm leaving because, you know, that would be an indication for me that the content on that page isn't relevant, or it's not hooking in the user enough to get them to convert. Same thing with other metrics like time spent on page.
 
So, you know, you can easily use AI tools to to ask what's a great benchmark for bounce rate or time spent on page and just see how you're measuring up to those metrics and then, you know, kinda extrapolate from there. So you might say, okay, people are are coming to the site. They're interested in it, but we're not able to move them through the purchasing journey. What what could we do on the site to accelerate that?
 
Is it our photography? Is it the messaging? Is it the actual, like, placement of the CTA? Is it the, the purchasing process?
 
Yeah. This PPP page. CTA. Sorry. The call to action. The the button just to say, like, purchase, but but book a room.
 
The most important button on your website that needs contrasting color everywhere.
 
Exactly. Exactly. Right? And that's what that's what we've done on on our side. We see in certain regions where traffic increases, but the conversion rate is lower in in a specific region.
 
So we want to investigate why, you know, what's different in that region versus others. And I think the truth a lot of times is in the data. So that the more that you can look into that and find insights and figure out what that data is telling you, then you can act on it.
 
And it's okay. Try to analyze your website today and see whether it can tell you what's wrong with it?
 
Yeah. You can. I mean, you can you can actually use you can go to ChatTpT today and and send it your website and say, can you analyze this? Like, what what do you think of it?
 
Where could it Have you done that for Muse when you I have.
 
I have. Yeah.
 
Did you uncover anything interesting?
 
Yeah. I think it it pushed us to investigate some technical SEO improvements. So and that's, you know, things like page load times and just overall site speed. Right?
 
Mobile optimization, things that we will improve over time. And then I asked, you know, Chad TPT, like, if you were looking for a PMS, like, would would Muse give you the information that you need? And in some ways, it it did, and then I would push it to I pushed it to say, well, how could it be better? And it it gave some recommendations.
 
So like you said earlier, it is a good sparring partner and source of inspiration, and and it's free. Like, it it's it's, available for everybody.

Chapter
Aesthetics vs. functionality
 
So is it more important what the hotel looks like or how it functions, you think? The website? Like, UI or UX, I guess, is the question.
 
I think it depends on the hotel. Right? So I think if if it's a, let's I mean, again, I'm new to the industry. So if I'm wrong here, you you'll tell me. But if I have a, like, a luxury property and it's about attracting a guest who wants to pay a higher rate for a room, the look and feel and some of those intangibles might be more important than, like, CTA placement because I'm I'm I'm selling an experience or a vibe, and I'm attracting a certain type of buyer. For a hotel that primarily serves primarily serves, like, a business traveler and it's about volume, then I think performance matters more and more. So, yeah, I think it depends on the property.
 
Like, one of the challenges that I find with hotel websites often is that you get this great user experience on Booking dot com and Expedia, and they serve you up all the information that I'm looking for is it's super clear. I know where to go. Like one of my challenges, I want to know if the hotel is a gym. And on booking, I know exactly if there's an icon of the dumbbell, I'm like, great, I'm covered.
 
And then I go through the gallery to find a photo of the gym, if it's the gym that I would like. And if I do that in the hotel website, then you go to the gallery and then there's five galleries. One is the rooms, one is the public facilities, one is the wellness. There's never a gym, option.
 
And the user experience is so bad that I leave the hotel website, go back to Booking dot com to make my booking. And that's the problem that they will have probably already been to Booking. They didn't find the information there. And then they come to the hotel website to actually uncover some of this.
 
And the user experience is really critical. Like, the gallery, it's my biggest frustration with hotel websites. There are less images on the gallery of the hotel website than on booking dot com. Your website should have unique content that others don't have, and it should be more content and it should be easily discoverable because there's a reason why they're spending time on the website.
 
And we get this so wrong, unfortunately.
 
You said the CTA, the call to action. When I speak to Atelier sometimes, they say, I just just think it's so ugly to have this contrasting color button on there. I wanna make it really pretty. And I'm like, yep.
 
Remember, ultimate goal is to convert a booking. So whenever they're ready to buy, button needs to be there ready to purchase. So it needs to be in your top navigation bar at all times. So wherever they go in the website, that that call to action needs to be visible.
 
And, unfortunately, this is a a thing that we often get right in in hotels.
 
Yeah. No. A hundred percent. I mean, there's nothing wrong with with making a sale or asking to make a sale.
 
Right. You're you're you're offering an experience to someone, so you shouldn't be shy about it. And I think that's how we feel with Muse. Right?
 
Like, it's okay to push someone to book a demo with us because we we believe we have a a product that will help them. So we shouldn't apologize for it. But, yeah, you're absolutely right.

Chapter
Influencers in hotel marketing
 
Do you like, so how do you feel about bloggers and these travel influencer? Are they are they things that we should be doing? Or is it just it's a static website with just as much information that you built once and then you're done. Is that enough for a hotel?
 
Look. I I think and you brought it up earlier. It just it depends on on what your budget looks like and what your resourcing looks like. I I do think what we talked about earlier is that the website is one very important part of the user journey, but it's just one piece of it.
 
So if if we're thinking about how to build the brand or build the business online, I think experimenting with influencers and writers and trusted third parties to build credibility around your brand and ultimately drive traffic to your site is is a good investment. So so and and then that speaks to when you drive people there, you wanna make sure it is ready to capture them and engage them and then convert them. And so I think it's always nothing's in a vacuum with marketing. It's always there are always pieces connected to every channel, and so it's best to think about that holistically.
 
Yeah. So I'm probably gonna kick down an open door, but, like, how much should the the brand on the website reflect the experience in the hotel? Like, is there a real direct linkage between them, or are they can they be two very separate things?
 
I think my my instinct is that they should be connected. I think that, you were wanted it is a way for you to kind of introduce a potential guest to what that experience is going to be like for them when they visit the property. And if you could have continuity and consistency in the offline and online experience, I think that that could result in a stronger relationship with that guest over time where they wanna stay with you again because they I think people generally like when their expectations are met and and when there's consistency. So, yeah, I I think it's important. I also think, like, to the point I just mentioned, misaligned expectations aren't I don't think are a great experience. And so if you if you sell sort of this luxury, clean, calm, you know, aesthetic on your site, but then you you show up on property and it's entirely disconnected from that Yeah.
 
I don't think you're you're setting yourself up for a It's a wide angle lens photo of the swimming pool and the roof, and then you get there and it's a bathtub, that we have to share with many people. And I'm like Exactly.
 
Exactly. And you know what? I think people are also becoming smarter. Right? Like, we've we've like, we're not this isn't thirty years ago where we're just getting used to the Internet.
 
Like, I I think people know when tricks are being played and, you know, they they wanna trust who what where they're staying with. So I don't think it's good to trick people. It's better to be honest.
 
Yeah. I agree. And then you've got your frame of a website. You get the content right.

Chapter
How chatbots can help
 
You've got your beautiful photos. You maybe have a blog going as well. Do you believe that you should add a chatbot? Does it add or does it distract from the sale?
 
I think if if the chatbot, is going to be active and it can engage in a conversation with the user, then it is valuable. And the reason for that is, like, what we see with our site is people even though we have a navigation and we have product pages, people still use our search bar. So they that might be their preference to go to a website and just search for the exact topic they're looking for. And that's where a chatbot can be really helpful.
 
You can you can engage with it directly and say, hey. I just do you have a gym? Right? I can't find on your site.
 
I wanna spend time doing it. Can you just give me that answer very quickly? And if I get that answer immediately, great. You have a gym?
 
I'll book. And then I don't have to navigate off-site and potentially, you know, lose that sale through an OTA. So I I do think if done correctly, it definitely is additive to the experience and can improve sales.
 
And I think the thing you said there is if done correctly Yeah.
 
A lot of our telesops have implemented these bots that were never great. And bots have been so terrible for the last few years. There are really great chatbots there now today because of LLMs. Exactly.
 
But a lot of hotel websites have engaged with them. And the last thing you want to get is a web form where you have to submit your email address and someone will come back to you. Like, you you lean into the bot, but teach it. Like, it it feeds off the information that you give it.
 
So I've gone into a web hotel website the other day. I went to see this hotel, and I was like, let me try this bot. Let me just ask them how much the parking is and if the gym is open at six o'clock in the morning. And the bot got lost with my questions because they'd never been fed the answers to the questions, and it actually created an awful experience.
 
So when you do have a bot, make sure that you feed it in the information. And every time it gets a question wrong, that you have someone reviewing it constantly to make sure that it constantly to make sure that it iterates and and updates, but they are really, really good.
 
Completely. Yeah. I mean, I think you said this previously, and and I think it is true for any site that it should be your best salesperson. And and you have to train a salesperson in the same way that you did to train a chatbot.
 
So I a hundred percent agree.

Chapter
How big should your advertising budget be?
 
So now I've got my website. I've got my book. I've got my booking engine built in. How much money should I spend on advertisement? How do I figure out what my budget for advertisement should be? Because I am clueless on this.
 
Yeah. Sure. So, if you were to ask me this question and I was running a hotel, I would think about, you know, what are my growth goals? Do I have a certain revenue target for this year?
 
What percentage of that revenue target do I want to invest in advertising? And then within that budget, let's say it's one to three percent. That's a number I'm comfortable with. Or it's ten percent because I really wanna grow a lot this year, and I and I feel like I have an opportunity to do it.
 
I would then look into what my mix is. Am I more about, you know, investing in building the brand and in reach, or do I wanna put it all in search because I think I have an opportunity to to capitalize on demand for, you know, the the city or town that I'm in and the property that I have? So, I would always start with what are your business goals and then and then work backwards from there.
 
Yeah. So so a typical hotel does between eight and twelve percent of their business from the website, which isn't great, but it's it's it's what hotels do. If you're looking to hit twenty percent, then you need to figure out, okay, twenty percent of my total annual business is this amount, and then you work backwards to, well, what am I willing to spend to get to those numbers? Yep.
 
And it really is a mathematical formula. This is not like, let's just try five thousand euros and see how far it reaches. Like, you've got to commit. Once you've built the website, you've got the person employed, you can't just give them five thousand euros.
 
That just is not gonna last and it's not gonna work because you've gotta run a lot of tests. Right? Because I'm assuming we at Muse run tests. Like, some ads work, some ads don't work.
 
Yeah. And we gotta do lots of AB testing?
 
Yeah. We do. So and and what what we think will work when we're when we're creating an ad isn't always the reality, which is why testing is important. So you sort of become ruthlessly objective with the data and and let it tell you what customers want because it isn't always what we think we want.
 
But you brought up a really good point, which is that it can be daunting to say how much should I spend on advertising? Like, what should my marketing strategy be? But I actually find it less intimidating when you make it a math problem. When you say, I wanna get to twenty percent.
 
What does that look like? It means I need to increase traffic. How do I increase traffic? It means I need to write content.
 
How many page views can I get per piece of content? And then you start breaking it down into component parts, and it becomes much easier to to execute versus saying, well, should I spend in TikTok or Instagram or Facebook? There's all these platforms out there. Like, that That's not a useful exercise.
 
You can always boil it down to very specific measurable goals and then decide what are the best tactics to help you hit those goals. And, you know, because, you know, we have enough data on these platforms to say, if I spend this much, I'll drive this much traffic or I'll reach this many people. It's actually quite easy to build that model and and and, you know, have at least a place to start.

Chapter
Free growth channels
 
Yeah. And and could you succeed if you didn't spend a penny on advertisements, you think, in in increasing the growth of the business?
 
Yes. So the the the short answer is yes. I I I think you could. You know, again, depending on what your business goals are and how much you want to grow and what success looks like for you.
 
But I think certainly there is there are ton of free channels that cost nothing but time to invest in, like LinkedIn, like Reddit, like I free travel. TikTok. Exactly. Instagram.
 
And especially if hotels have either owners or people on-site who have personalities, like, there's an asymmetric opportunity in in building a great TikTok presence for free, so to speak, versus investing in paid media. Right? So, yeah, a hundred percent. I I don't think performance marketing or advertising makes sense for every hotel. And and even the ones that are doing it, that money might be better spent in, you know, more organic storytelling or or UGC influencer storytelling.
 
Yeah. And and, like, honestly, this platform of Matt Talks came from no one gave me a podcast. I just took it because I was like, I have things to say, and I wanna make sure that I help hoteliers on their mission. And this doesn't cost anything. This platform software cost me maybe one hundred and fifty euros a year to just have this. And I bought a microphone and I'm good to go and I ring lights to make me look relatively interested.
 
It looks great.
 
And it's so easy to to to just get content out there, but you do have to have a voice. You have to have something to say and and really target the audience. But it is easy. And if you were to say, okay, let's that twenty percent is my goal.
 
You know, I get a budget of a hundred thousand euros. I could either burn eighty thousand on bad advertisements, or I could spend that on working with travel influencers and TikTok. You know, there's there's a generation of people that is not our generation. But they live in TikTok and they book through TikTok.
 
They all do all of the exploration of hotels on TikTok, and then they book directly through there. And you could spend on content and making sure that you engage with those content creators that that you're trying to attract the audience of. So it is one hundred percent possible. It's just you've got to figure out how much budget you have and then who's your audience and where do you where does that audience come in through and how do you attract them?
 
So I do think it's possible, but you definitely need someone who deeply thinks about this, in a background.
 
No. Completely. I even think to to use Matt talks as an example. I I feel like, you know, it started from a place, right, of how do I provide value and help people, and and and talk about things that, are are top of mind, but it it it there isn't always a clear answer.
 
I think that same spirit of trying to help guests, is a place to start for hotels. So when you think about what you do when you travel, you wanna a gym is important to you. It's same same thing with me. Right?
 
Well, what if the hotel published here are ten, you know, quick workouts for vacation, and then restaurants are important to me. So that's something I do in in the process.
 
What how could the hotel work with local restaurants or even write or publish pieces of content that highlight area as a way to grow traffic and awareness.
 
Yeah. I think if you start from a place of empathy for how can I help my potential guest in their in their journey, whether it's vacation or business travel, and create content, like, that's hugely differentiating? And I think now that, you know, Matt Talks is a great example. It's now turned into a platform for for us. That same opportunity exists for hotels.

Chapter
On abandoned bookings
 
So I'm gonna take a step back again back to the website. So we've got a website. We've now got a cookie banner on there. We've got content, and we've got ads running. Booking abandonment. So when you start to see booking abandonment in your data, meaning that people have come into the website, they've opened the booking engine, and they didn't book, how would you tackle that? How would your solution for that?
 
Yeah. Sure. So there's a couple ways to do it. So one, if if you are running advertising on Meta, for example, and you're you likely or or should be investing in in retargeting.
 
So you'll have a pixel on the site that can retarget users who didn't convert and try to push them back into, the purchasing journey. And and so specifically, it means that they've gone to the website. They didn't buy. They were on the booking page.
 
Didn't didn't convert. They go do something else. You wanna retarget them with an ad to get them back to the site and into the booking process. That's one way to do it.
 
The other is whether through content or through other moments where you can capture, like, an email address or data, you can then leverage emails or what we call abandoned cart campaigns to try to reengage buyers back into the purchasing journey. But you, you know, the I think the most effective thing generally is is retargeting ads if if you have the budget for it. And then if you don't, you wanna find moments on the site where you can convert an unknown user to a to a known user through things like cookie opt ins or email capture. So then you can kind of create a journey for that person up until purchase.
 
When guests have stayed with you, we wanna make sure that the next time that they think about coming back to the hotel, they book direct, they come to the website. Any tips on because we've now got that captured attention in the hotel for several days. How do we get them from an analog experience, which is physically in the hotel, to book direct instead of going to booking a Commer Expedia? Any ideas?
 
Definitely. So I think whether they've booked directly or through an OTA OTA, you should have their email address, and possibly phone number. And so that is an opportunity for you to build a direct relationship with that customer. So once they've checked out, you can send them a thank you note, ask them how their stay was.
 
You can check back in with them in a couple months to say, hey. Are you traveling here again? We'd love to have you. And if you can incentivize them through discounts, that's a great way to to incentivize them to book directly with you.
 
Because you you now own that relationship. Even if that relationship didn't start with you, you you now have an opportunity to to own it. So email's a good one. SMS, if you have that capability, so text messaging, and phone calls.
 
Just checking in. Hey. You know, we'd love to to host you again. If you're here, let let's make it happen.
 
Yeah. So we've got great integration platforms platforms like Revenate and Sendyne that are the CRM of hospitality that have built custom workflows for hotels. The moment we've got the email address, if they book direct, you've got the email address. If they book through the OTAs, you get those terrible obfuscators email addresses.
 
So it is your job to make sure that we capture the real email addresses. The more people you get, for example, through the Muse online check-in, we ask that question to hotels. Can we you know, to the guests, we're saying, what's your real email address? If they go to the ҹɫֱ²¥ kiosk, we ask that question.
 
But the majority of check ins happen by by the people at the reception desk. So make sure that you train the staff because the email address is worth it. Because if you think, an OTA booking you paid between eighteen and twenty three percent commission. So So an average booking value of two hundred and fifty euros.
 
There's there's money behind the email addresses. So you might even wanna incentivize your receptionist saying every email address you capture, you get whatever, one euro.
 
Because if you think if I have to find them on advertisements, you're gonna pay way more than one, two, three, four, five euros. So it's really being smart about where that budget is spent. And if we talk again, go back to the budget conversation we had earlier. If your budget's a hundred thousand euros, you can pay your staff, you know, ten thousand euros a year for capturing email addresses because that means you can, for free, retarget customers not having to pay advertisement fees.
 
Exactly. What's good about platforms like Revenate or Sendyne is that they build real work. So they're not just gonna spam customers saying, oh, it's Easter. We've got a special promotion.
 
But the guest didn't come at Easter last year, so why are you retargeting them for Easter? They came, you know, for the skiing holiday. So and they booked that three months before. So three months before they booked last time, that's the right time a year later to retarget them with a great targeted ad.
 
And that's what those platforms do really well. They they recognize the patterns of booking, and then they jump into that. But make sure that you capture hotel email guest email addresses. That's really, really key.
 
Yeah. Those are gold. They're they're they're worth something. And and owning the relationship with your audience and your guests is is hugely valuable over time.
 
Yeah. It's more efficient. And and, yeah, you always wanna own that relationship. So absolutely.
 
So if if hoteliers are listening to this now and they have to do something different tomorrow, like, just, you know, what they've learned and there was so much we talked about, what would you recommend as a few takeaways that they should immediately tomorrow start to look at or start to change?
 
Yeah. I one is I I find that sometimes things are so busy that it's easy to ignore the basics. So go go through the booking experience on your site as if you were a potential guest and audit it and figure out if you can confidently say that you are a hundred percent happy with that experience. That just always kinda best practices.
 
And even watching a a potential guest go through it. So to build that with that journey, I find that those things, again, cost nothing but are hugely valuable. The next thing I would think about is how can I be different? You know, things are commoditized now.
 
It's easy to to, relatively easy to to build a a beautiful site because there are templates that are off the shelf and and look nice. But what's what's my edge? What's the thing that makes my hotel worth staying at over someone else's? And how can I make that come to life on the site even if it is a very easy booking process?
 
Like, I think removing friction is a sign that I can probably expect a frictionless experience on on property because they've thought about this. And then the last is, like, in building empathy for the the potential guests, there are there's so much information out there, I think. Whether it's looking at review sites and and figuring out what people are saying about your hotel and finding those nuggets of of insight that cost nothing, but that can be potentially really valuable for you in how you not only design your website, but shape your experience on on premise. So I just find that, you know, I would push anyone to to ask themselves, have I done all the research I possibly can on how to make my site experience and ultimately my my guest experience as good as it could be.
 
And then there are just there are tons of sites out there to go look at those reviews and then adjust accordingly. So, yeah, in in one way, it's never been easier to create a great website experience, but also because things are changing so quickly.
 
Pricing is right in front.
 
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But that's why I always believe in, you know, sticking with the basics.
 
Do you know who your audience is? Do you know what they care about? You know, is it clear what the goal of this site is? And oftentimes, those things aren't answered even for the the biggest brands in the world.
 
So, nailing the basics is not table stakes. Yes.
 
So last question. What's one of your favorite hotel experiences that you've ever had in your life and what made it so special? It's a hard question because there's so many hotels that you had a great experience in or because you have great experiences.
 
I know. I have an answer for this. So I'm I'm between two two options. So one of my favorite places in the world that I've ever traveled to is India.
 
And I think that the hospitality in India set an entirely new bar for me personally when I when I went. And I found that with most hotels there that we stayed at, it just felt so personal. Like, I felt the second I walked in that they cared about my experience and would do any anything that they could to make it memorable. I think one of my favorite hotels in the world is the Oberoi in Agra, right near the Taj Mahal.
 
And obviously, like, the setting is is incredible. And it's, you know, you're you're staying next to a wonder of the world. I also find that the difference in a in a memorable hotel experience is in the details. It's it's the things that, you are are hard to scale.
 
And so whether it was a handwritten note or, like, a cold bottle of water or, you know, like, they they knew that I had had a smoothie for breakfast one day, so they made it for me the next day without me asking for it.
 
You know, that that personalized experience, I'll never forget. And so that combined with an amazing setting, yeah, would would be why I choose that one.
 
So I love that so much.
 
And it's Yeah. To me, that's what makes hotel special. It's the humans that do that do really deeply think about you as a guest and the experience that you want to have. And they just they are enabled by their manager to just do these things because, you know, it all comes from the top. If you've got a great manager that enables their teams to do these things that make these days special, that multiplies across. And I've been to a few of those hotels and I am dying to go back to those hotels.
 
Yeah. Absolutely. It's great. I'll never forget it.
 
Nice. Thank you so much. I really, really enjoyed, the conversation. And I'm sure I will want you back on in a year's time once once you've been better with ҹɫֱ²¥ and what lessons we've taken from our own journey on the website as well. And we'll share those again.
 
Happy to. Yeah. Some battles cars. Yeah. We'd love that.
 
Thank you.
 
Cool. Thanks, Matt.