The other day I saw a tweet by Hollie Walker that caught my eye. She was promoting a new virtual tour of her hotel, but instead of the ubiquitous URL-shortcuts on Twitter, Hollie was able to include a full, descriptive URL. With Director of Sales & Marketing Brad Logsdon, the Hilton Anaheim has registered a separate domain for each of their web sales tools:
It’s a brilliant idea: instead of explaining website navigation to potential guests, you can give them a simple, easy-to-remember address. With domain registration available for under $10, I’m surprised more hotels haven’t tried this.
I asked them a few questions about the strategy in an email:
How did you come up with the idea to host each tool on a separate domain?
We just completed a $70 million dollar renovation to our hotel and wanted to show it off.
What are some benefits?
The online virtual tour is a great tool for our sales department. Not a lot of people want to carry around stacks of paper and sales kits anymore. The virtual tour is great for answering client questions especially while on the phone with them. We can walk them through our hotel virtually and we’ve had great response from our clients.
Who developed the mini-sites for you?
We have an independent company that created the tour and video for us and they really showcase our hotel well.
How do you promote them?
We promote online through an array of social medias, our personal blog, and our email signature line. It is amazing how rapidly social media is growing!
This just may be the best $20-30 investment you can make for your web presence. What do you think?
Related posts:
- What’s your conversion optimization strategy?
- 5 tips for turning social media traffic into sales
- Fairmont Hotels Explains Their Twitter Strategy (Interview with PR Manager)
- What every Director of Sales & Marketing should know (Keith West Interview + New Workshops)
- Process Chart: Social Media Strategy for Hotels
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