How to take site lookers to room bookers

How to take site lookers to room bookers.

I was surprised to recently learn that hotels in China are seeing a decline in occupancy rates. While I was aware that the Chinese market had been slowing down, I hadn’t considered the affect this was having on hotel bookings. What’s caused this decline however is not so much the economy, but the fact that China is saturated with hotels. Hilton, Marriot, Intercontinental et al; all have opened new hotels and show no sign of relief, each planning to open more than 100 properties in the country in the coming years. So competition is fierce. Hoteliers have to decide how they will be able to entice people to stay at their hotel when the choice is endless.

High quality digital imagery on a hotel website is crucial at ensuring your online visitors choose your hotel rather than your competitors. A great still photo, video or virtual tour can encapsulate the true experience of what it would be like to stay at your hotel. And that’s what people want to see. They need to know what they can expect.

Will it be fresh and contemporary or classic and homely?
Will I feel comfortable in my room?
Can I work efficiently as well as take time out for myself to relax and unwind?

If you can’t show your visitor what their experience will be, there’s a good chance they will book with someone who can.

Digital Brand Overhaul for Millennium & Copthorne Hotels
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (http://www.photowebusa.com/2012/12/digital-brand-overhaul-for-millennium-copthorne-hotels-resorts-2/) recognized the need to show their online bookers what they can expect from their stay, by choosing to completely overhaul their digital imagery for their Asia and China hotels. But what’s interesting about this overhaul is they chose to give their online viewers the complete experience – from still photographs, which visualizes the general look of a room, to 360-degree virtual tours where you can see and explore the entire hotel, to video that makes it feel as if you are taking your own hotel tour. So now when visitors are on their website, they gain a realistic and rich perspective of what it would be like to stay at their hotel.

Don’t you wish we could have the same experience with everything we book online!

Author: Andrew Meli, CEO, PhotoWeb

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