Hotelier Highlights: 14 Great Hotel Marketing Websites
21 Comments
[Feature Photo from our Hotel Design Pool: One of the pools at the RIU Tikida Dunas Hotel in Agadir, Morocco. Thank you, Daniel Atkins!]
This week, I’m departing from Hotelier Highlights’ usual format and instead featuring the best hotel marketing sites and the innovators who publish them.
These featured sites:
- Frequently publish, guest-publish, or host free and original digital hotel marketing strategies content.
- Communicate effectively with readers via Twitter, Facebook, online forums, blog comments or though interviews and personal exchanges.
- Prove through their own Google searchability that they know how to create and sustain a visible online presence — lending real-world cred to their digital marketing advice.
Basically, they encourage beginners like me to wrap our heads around a barrage of new digital applications, the hotelier-mindset, the shifting world of social media marketing, and every other development that’s shaking up the hospitality industry.
Even better, they inspire hoteliers and marketers to discuss and develop their own strategies. Haven’t given yours much thought? Eager to become an expert in your own right? There’s no time like the present; dive in!
14 Great Hotel Marketing Websites
1. HospitalityNet.org
Contact HospitalityNet.org
Recent Highlight: Revenue Management or Urban Myth?
2. Hotel-Blogs.com
Meet and Contact the Blogger: Guillaume Thevenot
Follow Guillaume on Twitter
Recent Highlight: This Week in Hotels #5 (Foursquare, Online Concierge, Hotel Website Review)
3. FabriceBurtin.com
Meet and Contact the Blogger: Fabrice Burtin
Follow Fabrice on Twitter
Recent Highlight: Managing the Last Impression in Hotels
4. a.nthonygreen.com
Meet and Contact the Blogger: Anthony Green
Follow Anthony on Twitter
Recent Highlight: What to Look for in a Hotel Booking Engine?
5. Hotelinsight.wordpress.com
Contact Hotel Insight
Follow Hotel Insight on Twitter
Recent Highlight: Nite Nite
6. YoungHotelier.com
Meet the Bloggers: Jitendra Jain (JJ) and Erin O’Neill
Recent Highlight: Hotel Stories: Exceeding Expectations with Exceptional Service
7. HappyHotelier.com
Meet the Blogger:Guido vanden Elshout
Contact Guido vanden Elshout
Follow Guido vanden Elshout on Twitter
Follow Happy Hotelier’s Favorite Hotel Marketing Tweeple
Recent Highlight: Using Tweepml to Manage your Twitter Contacts and do away with #ff and #tt
8. Blog.DanielEdwardCraig.com
Meet the Blogger: Daniel Edward Craig
Contact Daniel
Follow Daniel on Twitter
Recent Highlight: Is the Role of the Hotel Concierge Going Obsolete?
9. eHotelier.com
About eHotelier
Contact eHotelier
Follow eHotelier on Twitter
Recent Highlight: Revenue Management or Urban Myth?
10. HospitalityeBusiness.com/blog
About HospitalityeBusiness
Contact HospitalityeBusiness
Follow HospitalityeBusiness on Twitter
Recent Highlight: Hospitality eBusiness Strategies (HeBS) to Present during Mobile Technology & Travel Keynote Session at EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit
11. HrabaConsulting.com/blog
Meet the Blogger: Michael Hraba
Recent Highlight: Facebook & TripAdvisor; an issue for Google or Yelp?
12. HotelMarketingStrategies.com
Meet the Blogger: Josiah Mackenzie
Contact Josiah
Follow Josiah on Twitter
Recent Highlight: Top 10 Reports for Hotels to run in Google Analytics
The next two blogs aren’t exclusively hotel marketing focused, but they’re joining the conversation, testing strategies, and producing some great content. Rock on.
13. MitaroyGoaHotel.com
Meet the Blogger: Mihir Nayak
Contact Mihir
Follow Mihir on Twitter
Recent Highlight: How Social search is Replacing Google
14. OnlineFantastic.wordpress.com
Meet and Contact the Blogger: Lucie Hys
Follow Lucie on Twitter
Recent Highlight: Social Media & Hotels: Top 5 Blunders
I’d love to find, read and share even more great sites. Give your favorites some love in the comments!
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Thanks for sharing some of these sites Katie..
Have to add some of them to my list. Some of them I already was familiar with, but you had some here I had not visited before.
Seems like the right column of Josiah’s Theme need to be adjusted a little here. Came below the article for me here.
Cheers.. Are
You’re welcome, Are, and thanks for the heads-up about our Theme
Thanks for the shout out Katie ! And for sharing the love
I see that among this elite class of hotel marketers, I am the only one who actually runs a hotel !
I dunno whether to be proud or sad…
Cheers
Mihir
You should be proud! The rest of us are working towards the day when that happens for us….
You certainly should be proud, Mihir, but there are a couple other hoteliers on the list!
Happy Hotelier owns The Haagsche Suites, in the Netherlands, Daniel Edward Craig managed a hotel for years before becoming a consultant, and hospitalitynet.org frequently features hotelier-columnists.
Thanks Josiah !
See you on the other side
M
Mitaroy – what do you mean run a hotel? Are you the GM, or do you mean directly involved? I hate to have any hubris, but this industry makes you earn your chops. I have to chime in on my history and current involvement.
Prev history:
Parc 55 SF 1000 room http://www.parc55hotel.com
Hotel Boulderado, Boulder CO 165 room http://www.hotelboulderado.com
Wilshire Grand LA 1000 room http://www.wilshiregrand.com
Doubletree Monterey / Portola Hotel Monterey, CA 380 room http://www.portolahotel.com
Carmel Mission Inn, Carmel, CA 165 room http://www.carmelmissioninn.com
I helped build, open, and still help manage two LEED GOLD properties, and we are the only management company in the world with two LEED buildings:
Cavallo Point Sausalito CA http://www.cavallopoint.com (LEED GOLD, historic buildings, NPS land)
The Allison http://www.theallison.com (Willamette Valley wine country)
I have previously worked with and/or for, and still consult with:
Post Ranch Inn Big Sur, CA (winner of #1 hotel in the world multiple times) http://www.postranchinn.com
Sea Ranch Lodge, Sonoma CA http://www.searanchlodge.com
Hotel Hana Maui http://www.hotelhanamaui.com
Wilbur Hot Springs (only 100% off grid and 100% solar resort in the world) http://www.wilburhotsprings.com
Stanford Terrace Inn http://www.stanfordterraceinn.com
Inn at Oyster Point http://www.innatpoysterpoint.com (our new TIG website launches in two weeks!!!! It looks dreamy.. not like it does currently)
Phew. That’s not even all of it, but my pompous insecurity finally wore off. HAhaha.
I know what you mean tho… there’s a difference between an operator turned marketer (aka I don’t trust marketing, and like to think of it all as part of the customer service and guest experience)…
vs people that blog. But I think the issue is that operators are FAR FAR too busy to blog and provide insight. It’s hard to get a GM to blog, because a GM is so busy, too heads down.. and doesn’t have much to say at times. Depends on the GM.
But yes… I am an operator, and totally proud of it. But I am also thrust into marketing – post property level with 16 hours days, I found I had time to talk shop a bit more. It’s fantastic. The only reason I am considered a marketer now is because I am trying to get social media to mature so it can take over old world marketing and just be simple “communications”.
I can’t wait.
*Michael is a rockstar*
Seriously, I know it’s near impossible to run a hotel and run a full time blog. I admire those of you who can do both!
Michael, thanks for setting me straight!
You’re perfectly justified in explaining your background, and I’d actually love for Josiah and I to extensively profile, interview, and guest-host even more seasoned industry leaders (shakers) here.
These past couple of months, we’ve been lucky enough to score a great line-up of featured guests who spoke from experience and explained how they test their ideas in “the real world”, and I think our readers can tell the difference between that and “social media guru hot air”.
I understand why most hoteliers and GMs are too busy to blog, but we know their hotel can benefit from getting involved, so what’s a good solution? Do they need a journalist-assistant to structure and schedule posts? A parred-down format that focuses on Twitter, Facebook or photo-posts? Would it help if staff were encouraged to create and maintain digital content?
Regarding your history, very cool to see that you’ve worked with the Monterey Doubletree/Portola Hotel, The Carmel Mission Inn and Big Sur’s Post Ranch Inn! I live in Pacific Grove and am planning a wedding for next summer — looking for the perfect hotel for my 50+ out-of-town relatives
Anyways, this made my morning:
“I love that you provide a solid community where we can all come together and talk shop. More conversation happens here than Hotel Chatter or Hotel News Resource combined.”
One way to inspire more great conversations might be to guest-host/post each other’s content every so often — I’m sending you an email about this in just a bit
Thanks again for your feedback, Michael!
Katie
Actually.. I am pretty dialed in down there, and depending on the weekend (of course, there’s always a festival of lights, parade, etc in that community) I might be able to help out on rates at a couple hotels… actually CMI and Portola are two of the better bets for wedding blocks. I should be able to get decent rates at both. Let me know. Where are you getting hitched? =)
I got married at Holman Ranch last 19th Sept. Best day *EVAR*. =)
Pardon… new social media will not take over old world marketing. Social media will usurp old world marketing, stabilize it as a more transparent, honest process… and find parity as social media improves old world marketing efforts, and old world marketing efforts improve social media interaction. It’s like a feedback loop.
Funny.. I look back on the copy and paste job here and it is a bit too much… sorry about all that. But it’s funny how much I worry that someone will lump me into one of those “social media gurus” filled with zero experience and hot air. haha.
I guess it’s people like you guys noticing that will make that less likely. Thanks so much for this… I love that you provide a solid community where we can all come together and talk shop. More conversation happens here than Hotel Chatter or Hotel News Resource combined.
Cheers all!
Thanks, Michael! I’m glad you enjoy the conversation here – Katie and Mihir doing a great job encouraging this…
They are doing an incredible blog… I am fairly sure there aren’t any hotel portals or social areas where the conversation is like this. Look at the hospitality groups on 500,000 million user Facebook. It’s crickets.
Oh… and my hotel pages all have stats that say the majority of our thousands of fans are simply not using facebook anymore. That’s odd.
Just came across this – Googling myself, I’m so busted. A great list, Katie, especially since I’m on it : ) I’m surprised that http://www.hotelmarketing.com isn’t included though. In my mind it’s possibly the best resource for hotel marketers – aside from Hotel Marketing Strategies, of course. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Daniel! Yes, HotelMarketing.com is a great resource – but I like websites like ours that are original content producers
Hey I couldn’t find mine on the list… That’s OK I new in the hotel marketing blog sphere. Originally started a road in graphic design, then went to consulting and management for sales teams which I did for some 15 years. I was hired as a hotel Director for several years and ran two boutique hotels in Paris which was lots of fun. Currently a Hotel Marketing consultant and troubleshooter, spend most of my time working out how to get hotels to increase their direct revenue and thus increase their margins. Hotel websites being the prime channel for that.
And my blog is all original content, even though I do agree that Hotel Marketing.com is definitely one of the best resources for information.
Thank you for metioning Hotel Insight, and for sharing some other websites I had not picked up on before
You’re welcome, Simon! It’s great that we’ve started connecting more — looking forward to more of your thoughts, here!
Also appreciate including my blog on your wonderful list. Very well done. I agree that hotelmarketing.com has some very interesting articles for people in the hospitality industry, though it is rather a compilation of the news from the other sites. I now know Hotel Insight better – we even cooperated on an article! Best of luck to all and Happy 2011!
Thanks Lucie – wishing the best of luck to you, too!