Five future Internet trends that will change Hotel Internet Marketing

With the evolution of the Internet, hotels need to reconsider the way they market themselves through this channel. More than ever, hospitality professionals need to adopt technologies that the Internet user is or will be familiar with in the near future. Consequently, online hotel marketing will go through 5 different kinds of developments:

• Focus on choice
A successful online distribution will come from the choice that suppliers offer to the consumer. Indeed, the consumer is looking for an experience and the success of his experience will result from the variety of options available. Also, hotels will have to give the opportunity to individually book services such as rooms, dining and spa internally and externally, so that consumers can tailor their own memorable experience.

• Irrelevancy of search rankings
Nowadays, an effective Internet search is being complex and does not provided personalized content. For instance, a Google account owner may be given data based on its past search behavior. This tells what tourism businesses should aim at in the future. The most successful hotel search marketing will have to strategically use the benefits of the social search channels’ online communities, as well as the appropriate niche, to optimize its content and target the right audience.

• Development of the online omnipresence: from “web-sites” to “omni-sites”
The evolution of the web throughout the years has allowed any user to create content, whatever his knowledge of web design is. In the forthcoming years, the shape of the online form will change. Consumers and the technologies are being more and more mobile and the online form must adapt so as to be present an all supports: web browsers, mobile devices, televisions, billboards, etc. So the main challenge for hotels will be to make the content available on any device, assured of its usability and its impact on consumers.

• Close relationship between the supplier and the consumer
The Web and the social networks are going to be crucial elements for the communication between suppliers and consumers. Indeed, social channels enable consumers to share their experience, exchange relevant news and help the consumer make his buying decision. Also, it will be important that guests have the possibility to directly interact with the hotel’s representatives. In this way, a special relationship between a hotel and its guests is settled.


• The virtual worls as an opportunity

It is quite a common thing that consumers complain about the information a hotel provides. Indeed, they can show discontent because the photos of the property are limited or outdated. This kind of problem should be less and less frequent in the future, due to the other possibilities the consumer disposes of in order to visit a site (Google Earth for instance or 3 Dimensional views offer by Microsoft’s PhotoSynth). Additionally, potential guests have the opportunity to view photos or videos posted on the Internet by other consumers.

Some of the above developments are already in use. Others may not sound realistic but they will undoubtedly take place in the coming years. Technology is the future and hoteliers seriously need to consider these strategies as they will guarantee a simplified and global vision of the offer.

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