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The Internet is no doubt, the most economical, result oriented sales and marketing channel any hotelier or person in the hospitality industry can use to expand the reaches of his business. Thus is becomes essential to throroughly understand current Internet marketing trends, so as to enhance your web presence, attract traffic and spread awareness about your services.

The concept of hotel and hospitality Internet marketing started when hoteliers realized importance of the Internet in gaining more bookings. This led to creation of websites for hotels, introducing the online reservation booking system. With a website, a hotel can promote itself by putting up their pictures and offering virtual tours, in order for prospective guests to have a feel of the interior and exterior of the hotel.

Today, with the economic crisis and ever-increasing competition in the hospitality industry, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of Internet marketing trends. Here is what you need to do to enhance your hotel’s web presence:

1. Campaigns: your Internet marketing activities need to be targeted. Let your campaigns be value based, focusing on specific events or seasons. You can think about running paid search campaigns, supporting seasonal offers, managing a late deals page, promoting the best available rate and so on.
2. Be flexible with your rates online: Knowing that certain days of the year are popular for a vacation or travel while others offer little business, you should be flexible with the rates on your site and with your online travel agents.
3. Invest in your website: Your website should accurately reflect your product. It is what visitors see in your website that will cause them to click through. Your site should include an image gallery featuring the rooms, the bathrooms, some onsite facilities, events and local attractions.
4. Optimize your web site: Go in for search engine optimization focusing most on brand and location. Though it may be difficult to rank your hotel in popular cities, do your best to get your site among the top 5 results. You can either take on a full blown SEO program or identify to get listed on travel portals that are specific to your region.
5. Use Email Marketing: This is one of the most cost effective methods of Internet marketing. You can effectively communicate with your clients using the two elements: a growing database and quality messages. Develop a process of capturing email addresses.. With a system in place to capture leads, use emails to further buttress the services of your hotel.
6. Protect your brand: If your brand is very important to you, take steps to protect it. You do this by constant monitoring and restrictions where necessary. For example you can restrict some OTA from using your brand name for sponsored advertising with anti-progressive remarks. Another way to protect your brand is through monitoring reviews. Always check user reviews online and place managerial responses where necessary.
7. Channel Management products: These systems that offer the ability to manage your hotel rates with OTA’s. With this system, you can control your rates, as well as save some time. Offer the best rates through your online booking system and advertise this on your website.
8. Use a good analytic package: A good analytic package will help you know how successful your Internet marketing efforts have been. A good analytic package will record your visitor sources, and give you clear details of the ROI on travel sites paid listings, paid searches, and analysis of terms user used to find your business. This will help you develop a future strategy for your business.