aaron dalrymple dot com

I’m not sure how earth shattering this is, but this post from HotelMarketing.com refers to a study showing that most people searching for a hotel are using a search engine to find hotels rather than going directly to a hotel’s corporate site. No big surprise that the internet is helping to commoditize hotel rooms just as it assisted in pushing airline tickets that same direction.

For most people, I believe, hotel rooms are booked primarily — in this order — for their location (city & state), price, proximity to desired landmarks, amenities, and then brand loyalty. No real scientific data there, just my gut instinct on how the average person goes about finding a hotel room for a family vacation, weekend getaway, business trip, etc.

I don’t doubt that brand does come into play if there are two hotels that match closely on the other factors. But average people don’t much care if it’s a Hilton or a Radisson in most cases. So, searching by destination, as this study suggests, seems perfectly matched to my theory. And, if you look at the search data you’ll find that a city name with a qualifier such as “discount” or “cheap” are the next most popular.

The danger for OTAs and Search Marketers or resellers depending on search marketing, though, is the risk of becoming nothing more than a price and amenities comparison engine that enable users to pick out a property, from a location search, and then go directly to the chain’s website to book the room. This study suggests that just that is happening:

“The BDRC said bookings are increasingly being carried out on hotel sites but third parties such as Expedia (40%), Lastminute.com (36%) and Ebookers (22%) continue to feature prominently during the research stage.”

If all you sell are hotel rooms, how do you differentiate from the rest of the pack? How do you use all of those great rankings to convert visitors to buyers?

Here may be a clue… The PhoCusWright Travel 2.0 Consumer Technology Survey, published in December of last year, says that,

“When it comes to making travel purchasing decisions, most American travelers would rather see the options for themselves than simply act on the recommendations of others. In fact, travelers want to view the options in detail via pictures, online maps and video.”

Frankly, I’m surprised at the fact that hotels aren’t trying harder to compete head-on in search engine marketing. Aren’t they leaning on their brand a little too much? Or are we just doing the hard work for them?

Search engines dominate how consumers look for hotels

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Tagged as: Travel Marketing, SEM, SEO, Online Marketing, travel search marketing, PhoCusWright, BDRC, Hilton, Radisson, Hotel Marketing, HotelMarketing

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I love High Definition television! And when you combine HDTV with a DVR, you end up with the ultimate tool for wasting time, burning brain cells and enticing the senses. My fanaticism for NFL football went from a solid 9.5 to 11 after adding HD and a DVR. Currently, my setup looks like this:

• 42″ Phillips LCD HDTV (only 1080i though)
• Kenwood AV Receiver
• Comcast HD DVR
• Sony Progressive Scan DVD/CD
• Apple TV 2.0
• Wii
• 6 piece Boston Acoustics Speakers

Probably not going to impress a major audiophile, but it works out pretty well for me. So anyhow, HDNet and HD Movie (Mark Cuban’s networks) are great for HD, however when it comes to quality of programs, it’s getting hard to beat the MOJO Network! Do you get MOJO? If not, you gotta call someone and ask for it!

Three shows that you shouldn’t miss (watch them online if you don’t get MOJO):

• Bobby G: Adventure Capitalist - Follows around Bobby Genovese, founder and owner of BG Capital Group, Ltd. and BG Capital Management Corp. Bobby is an adventure loving and filthy rich, a bit eccentric and genuinely a good guy (it seems). It’s a great snapshot of the life of a person who has made it in business and still manages to have fun - and he isn’t full of himself or an a-hole. He’s Canadian, they’re all cute and cuddly, right?

• Wall Street Warriors - This show follows the life of several Wall Street folks ranging from hedge fund managers, stockbrokers, floor traders and day traders. The “characters” are very diverse and you can actually learn something about how deal makers function and a bit about their personalities.

• Three Sheets - It’s drinking show, it’s a travel show, it’s about people and cultures. All great things that are even better when combined, like gumbo.

I also dig Start-Up Junkies, but I’ve worked for an Internet start-up and it’s all just a little too familiar for me. Plus the internet marketing guy on the show makes me want to throw things at him, and that would hurt my HDTV.

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Tagged as: Other, hdtv, mojo, bobby g, three sheets, start-up junkies, wall street warriors, zane lamprey

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Between search, meta-search, customer review sites, aggregators, OTAs and everything else the internet can throw at us - it’s actually getting harder to make travel arrangements on the web.  What??  What I mean is, the more information to sift through, the harder it is for most people to make a decision on what to buy.  It’s a fact that when faced with an overwhelming amount of choices, many people opt for no choice at all.

Airfare, however, still seems to offer limited choice - and therefore should be simpler to decide on.  And it is, for the most part.  Generally, from most cities, there are 1 or 2 choices that fit my schedule and my budget.  But if you’re a flexible traveler, how do you decide when to travel and when to buy your ticket to ensure that you get the best deal available?
Here is my method:

1. Search for my ideal travel dates in Orbitz, using flexible dates to see the fares for the days around my ideal travel date.
2. Pick the best rate that works for the day(s) I need to be in my destination.
3. Make sure that if I’m staying an extra night at the destination that the extra hotel night and/or expenses don’t exceed the extra cost of traveling on my ideal travel day.
4. Proceed to the airline’s own website to book the ticket directly and thereby avoiding the $5 service charge (and possibly getting some bonus miles in the process).

The thing my method doesn’t account for is knowing WHEN to buy the ticket…  2-3 months out is usually not possible for most business travel.  I just finished a book where the author recommends only booking 4-5 days out and using Orbitz pricing to determine where you should start bidding on a Priceline (Name you Own Price) ticket.

Farecast.com gives you a recommendation of when to “Buy Now” or “Wait”, but it doesn’t really give you a flexible dates option.  I recently ran across flyspy.com (beta) which let’s you look at rates on a graph for up to 30 days and lets you adjust for day and length while highlighting the lowest fare. But it doesn’t really give you an idea of what the fare may do if you wait to buy your ticket later (like farecast).

It seems to me like there is an opportunity for a main-stream air-only search engine that encompasses the best of these two models.  However, with little or no commissions given on air-only bookings, a revenue model might be difficult to come up with.

How do you find the best deals on airfare?  Let me know in the comments and maybe we can create an aggregated list of sites and/or suggestions…

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Tagged as: Travel Marketing, airfare, farecast.com, flyspy.com, orbitz, priceline, travel search

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