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It’s increasingly likely that travel shoppers will first encounter and experience your hotel online. From desktops, laptops and hand-held devices, they consume images, reviews and offers so they can evaluate and make a selection.

The mistake some hoteliers make is in underestimating the importance of the travel shopper’s online experience. Increasingly, a hotelier's success will revolve around the stories told and impressions made in this hyper-competitive, virtual marketplace.

The internet has changed the way people research and book hotels. There are more channels, more offers and more opportunities than ever before. Amidst all of this, how do you know where and how to connect with shoppers and get them to book your hotel?

Want to Attract More Travel Shoppers? Tell Your Hotel’s Story with Video
It’s a competitive market online for hotels these days. What can you do to attract online travel shoppers, set your property apart and produce more hotel bookings? The answer, as a growing number of hoteliers have found, is to tell your story in a unique and compelling way -- tell it with video and get that video in front of as many shoppers as possible.

More and more consumers are watching online video when considering a purchase. It’s also one of the most effective online conversion tactics that over 60% of hoteliers are planning to launch this year. But what makes a great hotel video?

Online video is proven to be one of the most effective online conversion tactics for hotels (according to the Hotel E-Business Survey). But more importantly, hotels that are providing rich visual experiences that include video are getting the best sales conversion results online.

Our survey results reveal that the most effective customer experience and conversion tools are a combination of rich media/merchandising tactics and social media-based tactics. Specifically, the marriage of rich visual content like videos and visual hotel tours (with spin, zoom imagery, etc.) with user generated reviews, ratings and rankings. Download the report to learn more.

The world of travel shopping is changing in ways that reflect overall trends in Internet commerce. Online hotel shoppers – like online shoppers more generally – value rich visual content that informs and supports their buying decisions, according to market research. As their expectations grow, they are gravitating to hotels that most effectively present themselves online.

This Distribution Success Kit is designed to help you make the right decision for hotel marketing. It outlines the key indicators of a quality distribution provider and the important questions you should ask when considering a visual content distribution solution

Online travel tools are beginning their next major evolution. The winners in this battle will deploy rich media online experiences to create an immersive online customer experience.

A comprehensive research study by Harris Interactive examining the importance of both quantity and quality of visuals (photos, 360? virtual tours, and videos) to online travel shoppers.

What travel shoppers are experiencing on today’s travel sites is an absence of well merchandised hotels. In other words, hotels are not presenting their unique stories and special qualities in a compelling way online. Instead, online searches pull up a series of undifferentiated “listings” that fail to entice shoppers or provide clear incentives to book.

In a travel market overflowing with options and offers, hoteliers often find it very difficult to differentiate their properties and clarify the unique value they provide. It’s extremely challenging to cut through the online clutter and boost bookings in this economic climate when you don’t fully understand the travel shoppers you are targeting.