Hotel & Motel Management - January 7, 2008 - (Page 68) News Jeff Higley H&MM January 7, 2008 | HotelMotel.com www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition Economic topics front and center in Atlanta The conference is scheduled for March 9-11 at the Atlanta–With an investment en- Marriott Marquis in downvironment that seems to shift with town Atlanta. each rally or decline on Wall Street The programming will and every move made as a result of lead with economist Rajeev last summer’s subprime mortgage Dhawan. crisis, organizer Bob Hunter fig“It’s timely because we’re ures that by focusing the 20th an- discussing the direction of nual Hotel Investment the economy and it will Conference-Atlanta on have an impact on our the economy, he’ll score business,” Hunter said. big with attendees. “Having an economist “If I were the potenhas been well received in tial attendee, [I ask], the past because everywhat am I concerned one wants to hear what he about?” Hunter said. has to say and apply it to “The answer is the econwhere they think the hotel omy. No one knows ex- Hunter industry is headed.” actly where it’s going HUNTER REALTY ASSOC. Part of that could be to be a day, a week or a answered by the industry month from now. All they know is trends presentation from Randy that they want to know more.” Smith, co-founder and chairman EDITORIAL DIRECTOR What: 20th annual Hotel Investment ConferenceAtlanta Where: Marriott Marquis, downtown Atlanta When: March 9-11 Focus: Owners of full-service and limited-service hotels between 80 and 400 guestrooms Theme: “The Money & The Marketplace” More info: www.hotelinvestmentconference.com, nancy@hunterhotels.net, or (404) 355-0880 of Smith Travel Research. More could be answered by the breakout sessions—six of which deal specifically with financing hotels. Because the Marriott Marquis is undergoing a massive renovation and some of the meeting space isn’t available, the conference will split what traditionally has been a general session about financing into two sessions: “Advanced Financ- ing Strategies” and “Financing Fundamentals.” “It might even work to our advantage because each will be specifically targeted toward audiences with different understandings of the issues,” Hunter said. Other topics to be addressed include private equity, buying versus building hotels and determining the value of hotels. Hunter said the experience of his company, Hunter Realty Associates, has indicated that values have held stable. “There was a spike in values, and that spike has come back down to more of a solid trend line,” he said. “Because so many of these deals are driven by financing, and the wild financing is gone, prices have come down to normal. “Regular performers and steady buyers are back in the game,” he said. “Financing is still available and attractive, but everybody has gotten more realistic.” The conference will feature keynote addresses from John Murray, president of Hospitality Properties Trust, and Tom Keltner, c.e.o. of the Americas and global brands for Hilton Hotels Corp. jhigley@questex.com Internet offers deep pool of marketing options By Emily Hanna ASSOCIATE EDITOR Phoenix–Since the inception of the Internet, its use as a mode of marketing increasingly has been an obvious must and a definite plus. But as technology advances, the ease by which an audience can be reached muddles the distinctions of who to target and how, experts agreed at the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International’s ninth Travel Internet Marketing Conference in December. Two-thirds of online travel customers use some form of social media, which is the online technologies people use to share their thoughts with each other, said Cindy Estis Green, managing partner of The Estis Group. As word-of-mouth messaging expands to strangers influencing each other via the Internet, it becomes more difficult to use the tactical marketing approaches of old. Plus, the changing ages of consumers also create a shift in identifying the travel consumer. Now, members of the once-targeted Generation X market are leaving their baby-boomer parents’ houses, having children, buying houses and taking on debt, said Mike Pusateri, chairman of Vantage Strategy Consulting. This frees up the baby boomers in terms of money and time. Once a consumer group has been identified, the real question becomes: How do you market to that group? Social media consists of social networking sites and media tools such as blogs, podcasts, widgets, consumer reviews and RSS feeds. One form that Best Western International uses is Knock Knock, a desktop appli- High-tech terms Mashup: A Web application that combines multiple services into a single application to consolidate information with a simple interface. RSS Feed: RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication—a method of providing Web site content in a standard XML format. Widget: A program run on the Mac OS X Dashboard or the Yahoo! Widget Engine where, by pressing a designated key, a widget will jump to the front of the screen. Common widgets are search engine boxes, flight trackers and stock lists. Source: techterms.com Panelists [from left] Jill Howard-Allen, online marketing manager for Southwest Airlines; Leon Corbett, advertising and direct marketing manager, Visit Florida; and Patrick Campbell, senior manager, eCommerce, Best Western, discussed their companies’ social marketing projects. cation that notifies users of special deals, said Patrick Campbell, senior manager, eCommerce for Best Western. Andy Tress, regional v.p. of sales for YouTube, said online video provides an extra level of experience for the customer and allows him to share his views with others, which could essentially mean free advertising for the company. Tress said travel companies have found success on YouTube, whether by advertising, posting videos, creating content on brand channels, or even partnering with YouTube to conduct user-created video contests, as Best Western did in 2007. Tress demonstrated mashup technology, which combines data from more than one source to create a new product, such as mixing video content with Google Maps. Google Maps can display property locations, and when a user scrolls over one location, a property video can be launched. He also discussed overlays, which are advertisements that run across the screen while users watch a YouTube video. Other social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have barely been tapped within the travel realm. Data collected by online measurement company Hitwise found that only 1.36 percent of all traffic from MySpace and Facebook goes out to travel sites. But whether these sites are worth marketing dollars is up for debate because although the demographics of the sites are changing, many users aren’t travelers yet. Some social networking sites ideal for travel-related marketing do exist, such as TripAdvisor, Fodor’s and even YouTube. Eight hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and hundreds of millions of videos are watched daily. Tress noted the need for more lodging and travel content on the site, calling the travel/events category H&MM PHOTO | EMILY HANNA “the most underserved on the site.” A key to marketing to the ideal consumer is being in the right place, Pusateri said. His research found that search habits are generational, and that while Google and Yahoo! are popular search engines for those under 45, MSN actually has higher search results for the 45-54 and over-55 age groups. The Internet has not only offered new vehicles for marketing but also tools to better understand consumers by interacting with them throughout the entire process, as opposed to just at the booking points. “If you don’t take advantage of interacting, you’re shirking your responsibility,” Estis Green said. “You don’t have to, but I can assure you your competitors will.” ehanna@questex.com http://www.HotelMotel.com http://www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition http://www.hotelinvestmentconference.com http://www.techterms.com
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