In fact, 72% of visitors “CAN ACTUALLY” book directly if they get the best deal.

Pebble Design

But this can happen, if and only if you have an attractive and powerful website for your brand. Although I know, there are many do’s and don’ts surrounding this thought.

So to leave them behind, in this blog I’m going to break down all your misconceptions linked to it and guide you on the importance of owning a hotel website.

What are the myths and facts about having a hotel website?

It’s not unusual for people to get the wrong idea about having a brand website. But, my question stands, should it continue to be that way? Shouldn’t the truth be revealed?

Definitely a NO to the first and a BIG YES to the next. Right?!

If you notice, the sudden shift of digitalization has led people to spend more time on the hotel’s website; exploring its beauty, location, and amenities.

On the other hand, the COVID19 pandemic has left everyone to build their bucket list and explore everything on the web; thereby making online presence a pressing priority.

Without further ado, here are the nine crazy beliefs about owning a hotel website that you should stop trusting right away!

Myth #1: Brand websites do not provide any benefits

Nowadays most people search for products and services online. However, it’s untrue to believe that a web presence is essential if and only if you are one of them or sell such things.

Without having an online presence, you wouldn’t be able to represent your business properly; leaving a question mark on your trust factor as well.

A majority of hoteliers still feel websites are just a liability to their business as they are unaware of the importance.

Fact #1: Websites enhance your brand’s online presence

Online presence has become the talk of the town these days and it is no secret that online presence = brand awareness. 

Thus, if you don’t have one, you are definitely left behind by your competitors. 

In fact, most marketing experts agree, how you present your brand online will gain you similar outcomes. 

Creating an online brand presence is about capturing the attention of your targeted audience. And, a website is a driving factor that helps you to do so. 

Being the first point of contact to know more about your hotel; it creates an identity that is bigger than you to engage, acquire, and attract more guests online. 

Myth #2: You do not get any conversions from a website

Hotel owners suffer from a misguided expectation that their website will automatically start attracting visitors the moment it is published. 

Also, some are of the view that it is difficult to gain visitors online, as OTAs have more power and it is tough to compete with them. 

This is because they expect that, since they’ve invested money to build a website, bookings should naturally start flowing in. 

But, it’s not that simple! Marketing for any brand does take time. And, once your website goes live, it’s time you start promoting.

Fact #2: Hotel websites drive direct bookings and generate higher revenue

Every hotel’s goal is to sell more rooms and maximize their profit. Having a stunning website helps you to drive in more visitors to it and eventually turn them into bookers.

The websites created with a website builder solution, often comprise a lot many features namely looker to booker widgets, promotional discounts to highlight, themes, and more.

Making the right use of them and integrating your website to a booking engine makes it even simpler for you to drive more direct bookings and thereby enhance your revenue.

It gives your visitors the freedom to check rooms, availability, and rates on a real-time basis thus allowing them to book their stay directly from your hotel’s websites.

Myth #3: Website requires a lot of maintenance

As a hotel owner, you would want to use your time wisely. And, many have the false opinion that, once their website is built they’d have to invest a lot of time and effort in maintaining it.

Also believing that, they would’ve to regularly check and update its content, photos, videos, as well as nurture its online presence.

All the more, their biggest concern lies in the to and fro to contact the web designer for minor changes and the additional cost that is incurred behind it.

Fact #3: Website creators are easy-to-use and user-friendly 

Nowadays, creating a website and maintaining it is just like a walk in the park. Thanks to the newest technology and the emerging option of DIY (do it yourself).

This means anybody who has little or rather no knowledge about coding can easily manage their website and make updates as required.

The website builder solutions provide you a simple and user-friendly option of drag and drop that requires no added costs, time, and efforts.

It allows you to add or remove any page you wish to on your website, showcase any new offerings, and promote your business in the best possible manner.

TIP: eZee Panorama is one such solution that provides all of these features.

Myth #4: You get poor search engine results 

If you think you can get your website ranked on the first page of the search engine results overnight, then you’re surely fooling yourself. 

Consider your business to be very lucky if you quickly rank as the number one website. Besides, getting a better ranking is just like playing in the stock market.

The traffic patterns are hard to judge and you cannot expect that once you’ve built your website you would naturally rank well and improve your reach without any marketing efforts.

Fact #4: Having a brand website enables stronger organic reach 

Building a strong website definitely has an edge over your competitors as it provides you to acquire better SEO results.

Currently, website makers are offering on-page SEO to help you rank better and improve your brand image. 

However, the organic value of your website will need some time and marketing to pick up the steam.

Besides, it makes your website become more discoverable if you promote and link your social media channels correctly to it.

Myth #5: Custom made websites are better than template websites

Many people are afraid to create a website because they lack the required knowledge and imagination. 

Apart from that, most hoteliers believe, customized websites are expensive and give more value to their business than the pre-designed templates. 

This is because many other businesses might be using the same templates, that won’t help your brand to stand out from your competitors.

They prefer to create a website from scratch believing that customized websites are adaptable to the hotel’s requirements.

Fact #5: Pre-designed templates provide a better look and feel to your website

The reality is, these pre-designed templates are exclusively created by experts who have good knowledge of your business and consider all your requirements.

They make such options available to save your time and energy in designing a completely new website from scratch. 

Templates are the simplest way to get a beautiful website built with a design that perfectly reflects your brand personality.

Website makers provide you various options to choose from and allow you to select or combine any of the templates you wish to.

Not only that, but also they give you a broader idea of what all features your website should include.

Myth #6: Websites are not responsive on all devices

A well-designed website might be visually appealing, but it won’t necessarily account for an increase in sales unless it is responsive on all devices.

Hotel businesses cater to an ample number of customers who could make their booking from any type of device they use.

And, often while they experience low bookings, they blame their website’s unresponsive design. 

They believe the clickable elements which look great on a desktop might not be as appealing on other smaller devices like a phone or a tablet.

Fact #6: They look best on any device and deliver a better visitor experience

At present more than half of the web traffic comes from smartphones. Thus, solution providers ensure to design a website that adapts the layout, content, and design of any device.

This enables your websites to attract and convert more guests online by giving them a delightful experience.

Adding on, these days most software providers give a free demo on how your website would look like on all types of devices such as a desktop, mobile, laptop, and tablet.

Myth #7: No ownership on your website data

Data security has always been a big concern for hoteliers. By creating a beautiful website for the brand, their main question lies upon “Who has the control on my data?”

What if I want to make any updates or remove any information from my website, will I have the power to make such changes? 

And there arises double thoughts on owning a website, believing that they have no ownership on their data information.

Fact #7: You get complete control over your website and data

You don’t necessarily have to worry about your hotel’s data. With the fear of a security breach, most website makers provide an SSL certificate to secure your online information.

Besides, they give you complete ownership of your website and the freedom to perform any edits on your own.

Be rest assured as your content is 100% yours – from the images to the domain, forms, links, and everything in between.

Myth #8: You can’t build a beautiful website without appointing a professional web designer

Often we assume, nothing turns out fruitful unless you invest in it. Likewise, this belief isn’t wrong.

Instead, most small businesses overlook having their own brand website, because of the additional investment of a web designer.

But, considering Fact #5, with pre-designed templates it becomes much easier to create a perfect website for your brand.

On the contrary, 

Fact #8: Website makers design and deliver a perfect website for your brand

Understanding the additional expense of a web designer, most website builder solutions now come with a dedicated web designer all-inclusive in their pricing plans.

They guide you through which templates could look best for your brand, the themes that resonate with it and build a perfect website that your needs.

eZee Panorama is one such solution that completely takes care of all these requirements and ensures to deliver the best website for your brand.

Myth #9: Website builder solutions are expensive than local web designers

Hoteliers commonly believe that website builder solutions include many features and so are more expensive than local designers or web design agencies.

On the other hand, such designers can help you to create and maintain brand identity; but are definitely unaware of your target market as well as the domain knowledge.

To give you a broader idea, here’s a comparison chart on why website builder solutions are better than local web designers.

Fact #9: They provide you various features at an extremely affordable price

It’s just the hype which makes hotel owners believe that purchasing a software incurs more expenses. 

But, the fact stands that, these solutions provide you higher benefits and are exclusively designed as per your brand requirements.

Besides, in reality, website builder solutions are much lighter on your pocket compared to other local designers. 

They are easy-to-go and deliver your hotel’s website within less than a week; covering all your technical aspects as well.

By far, I hope I’ve been able to debunk all your myths on owning a hotel website, although I understand that these might leave a few unanswered questions in your mind.

Let’s get them solved.

FAQs

Conclusion

My personal advice would be to leave all your myths behind and give your brand its own unique identity. 

I know, before making any decision, research is important and you would definitely do that; but do not wait any longer.

Creating an online presence usually takes months or even years to really establish, so better late than never. 

Remember one thing, in the end, all it requires is trust. Trust yourself that you’re making great decisions for your business to walk on the right track.

I hope these facts have tickled your mind. Do let me know how this turned out for you (via comments), and if you need any guidance to understand them better.

It’s time to give your brand, a new face!

The post 9 Biggest Myths and Facts About Owning a Hotel Website appeared first on eZee Absolute.

The travel industry, which came to a standstill, is opening up. But this time, things are different. The travellers would prefer brands over any local service provider. Because, they find brands trustworthy. And a critical need for a company to become a brand is to have a full fledged website. But, our experience says that hospitality businesses do NOT even consider importance of brand website, and avoid having it.

To be honest, I’d skip the thought of visiting a hotel or restaurant that fails to have an online presence. It’s a deal breaker for me. I am always eager to know everything about the place I’m staying or eating at, and a website helps me with it. 

This happens with the majority of travellers across the globe. 

70% of guests say they rely on website images.

Suffice to say, importance of brand website is undeniable to get guests at your doorstep. 

But now you’ll ask, what exactly is a brand website? What is the importance of brand website? I am covering it all in this blog. 

What is a brand website in the hospitality industry?

To define in layman terms,

A brand website is a collection of web pages helping you to create a unique identity of your business and share your brand story to your guests and readers. It assists you in connecting with your audience at a deeper level.

You’d be thinking, I already have a Google listing, my hospitality business is listed on all web portals, then why should I invest in a website? 

Let me answer that for you,

Why should hospitality businesses have a brand website?

If we consider the importance of brand website, you will find a plethora of reasons to have one. However, I’ll give you the 6 best reasons which will compel you to have one today, or rather, I am giving you 6 compelling benefits of a brand website.

1. Creates Trust Factor with Reliable Information

As I shared earlier, I don’t prefer to book a hotel without a website. Having a website gives credibility to the guest about your hospitality business. Let me explain this with a suitable example. 

Say, you are interviewing candidates for the position of General Manager. Now, would you just hire anyone based on their resume or appearance?

You won't. Right? Instead, you would check the portfolio, LinkedIn profile, skills, and recommendations to choose the right candidate.

Similarly, having a brand website is like creating your hotel or restaurant’s portfolio on the World Wide Web. It helps customers access the information they can rely on.

 Simply put, a website is a digital representation of your business. 

Restaurants on the other hand, have unique benefits of having a brand website. There is a well-known saying among chefs,

You eat with your eyes first. 

So, adding pictures of tantalizing food dishes on your website is an additional benefit. These pictures will make your customers decide their orders faster.  

Studies say that,

Millennials prefer to book hotels via travel agencies, but 52% browse the hotel’s website for more information.

Skift

It conveys that travellers do search for information about your property, and a website increases the probability of winning that booking. 

So you see, the benefits of a brand website are endless.

2. Increases Guest Engagement with 24*7 Availability

Ever wondered, why every travel or hospitality website has an inquiry form?
Simple, for travellers to post their queries.

This enables them to generate inquiries, prospective bookings and have a 24*7 availability leading to a better guest engagement.

The hospitality industry is quite dynamic. Every guest has a different question or doubt. Now, it won’t be possible for them to find an answer to those questions on the internet, everytime. So, they fill out an inquiry form. This is most helpful for queries generated when the reservation department is off-duty.

In addition, hotels can display pictures of their property, location, rooms and in-house restaurant to help guests get an idea of what they should expect.

Similarly, for restaurants, listing out an entire digital menu comes in handy. Your customers become aware of your offerings, and they can choose their food accordingly. Be sure to remove unavailable dishes from your website. This helps in avoiding a disappointing situation with customers. Nobody likes the unavailability of cuisine to be the reason for their order getting cancelled or replaced.

Businesses these days, use website chatbots to increase conversions. These chatbots capture the contact details of the visitor, and guide them to make a booking on the website. But the fun fact is, you are getting bookings without even engaging in these scenarios.

3. Encourages Guests To Book Directly with You

Here’s an interesting incident that happened with me. I went for a holiday in the mountains last year and booked my stay from a known OTA. In the evening, the hotel owner was enquiring about our booking details. I was shocked when he informed me about the offer running on his website. I could have saved 1000 bucks if I had booked from the hotel’s website. Since then, I’ve started checking for ongoing offers on the hotel’s website as well.

The point here is, hotels and restaurants these days are trying to list themselves on every booking channel. However, most of them neglect the idea of routing these bookings via their website. 

As per the report published by Skift,

More global millennial respondents said they use general travel sites (60%) for hotel bookings than U.S. millennials and 31% said they use hotels’ websites.

Skift

It’s no secret that every platform charges a certain amount for each booking provided to hotels. You can try to reroute some of them via your website. Websites these days have a booking engine and channel manager integrated with them. 

On the other hand, the in-house dining restaurants have their restaurant POS integrated with their website. It helps the guests to reserve a table with no hassle. If your restaurant is hosting an event, you can have that promoted and booked via the website as well.

Once you’ve got a fully functional website, you can run promotions such as weekend discounts, festival special offers, early bird concessions and many more on your website. This will encourage your guests to book with you directly or order their next meal from your eatery.

4. Increases Visibility and Brand Recognition

If I say ”Best Hotel / Restaurant in India”, the very first thing that would come to your mind would be a luxury hotel chain or a big restaurant brand. It could be Marriott, Oberoi, Taj, IHG, McDonalds, Starbucks and so on. 

But these companies didn’t become a brand overnight. It was a journey of decades. So how did they achieve this?

They created a brand with ultimate guest experience, invested abundant money and efforts, and grew gradually. Guests promoted them, initially offline and now online. Soon they became talk of the town. And the rest is history. 

For that reason, a brand website will speak your story and be a building block of your branding and marketing strategies. If done correctly, implementing the right hotel digital marketing strategies for your property’s website will help you in getting increased visibility. It means that you can be in the top search results by performing good SEO. And as simple calculation goes, appearing in top results will positively impact your business.

If you are stressed about the expenses, don’t be! A website is lighter on the pocket than social media marketing.

5. Earns you High ROI

As a hospitality business owner, you are quite cautious with your expenses. We all know, a major chunk of your revenue gets exhausted in marketing and promotions. Travel agent commission, running specific promotions on OTAs, maintaining social media pages are to name a few. 

But do you know, having a website costs way less than other online promotional activities? Yes, it is true. 

However, there is one biggest myth about websites, that creating a website is costly. In reality, it is not. 

Website builders, such as eZee Panorama help you create your website with zero experience and technical know-how. 

Once made, all you’ve to do is keep updating it with content. This could include travel blogs, articles on local attractions, new cuisines you are trying, guest testimonials, highlights of your property, and so on.

A website helps hotels in generating direct bookings. There are nominal payment gateway charges levied for every booking made on your website. But it’s a win-win situation. It still saves you from paying a hefty commission to travel sites. 

And, if your restaurant has an option of home delivery, having a website is a must for you. Like hotels, you also can avoid the charges levied by food delivery apps to some extent. And, utilize it to provide your customers with exclusive offers.

6. Increases your Guest Influx

Regardless of direct bookings or not, a brand website becomes the foundation of each of your bookings. Your guests identify and connect with you through your website and the information you share on it. 

After this pandemic, many hospitality businesses have got themselves certified for ‘Best Safety’. Highlight your safety measures in a video and share it on your website. It would create faith amongst your guests to place an order. 

Suffice to say, a website improves your guest influx by a large extent. 

I am sure, the reasons I gave establish enough importance of brand website.

In conclusion

I would say that not having a brand website is like having all ingredients of the recipe, but no fire to cook. The services and facilities of your hotel are the ingredients. A website is a fire, it helps spread the aroma of your qualities among people. 

The ones attracted to it will be your potential guests. All you need to do is, take a leap of faith and ignite a spark to light that fire.

The post Importance of Brand Website: 6 Undeniable Reasons for Hotels & Restaurants to Get it appeared first on eZee Absolute.