Tips and Tricks: TrustYou’s Weekly Digest // Week of July 25th 2011

Consumers Trust No One...Except Themselves (by yours truly)
First off is, of course, a plug for our own series on “The Future of Social Media” - a blog series about how we here at TrustYou think social media is going to affect the hotel space over the next three years. The first two posts are online, and the first one is linked below. Check it out!

Booking Patterns of Independent Hotels [Infographic] (by Martin Soler)
World Independent Hotels Promotion, a hotel promotion company, has this to say about the specifc booking patterns of independent hotels: “Constantly researching new ways to promote hotels and increase their direct bookings means we need to analyse a lot. After gathering lots and lots of information about hotels and bookings patterns we thought it would be cool to make an infographic about it and share the knowledge with our fellow marketers and hoteliers. So here it is the booking patterns of guests booking in independent hotels as an infographic.”
(note: pay particular attention to how important and independent hotel’s individual web presence is)

How Google Will Reshape Search, Social Media, and Travel (by Giles Longhurst)
Are We Witnessing the Death of the Natural Search Ecosystem in Travel? (by Eric Bjorndahl)
Google Panda, along with Google+, are poised to change the way consumers go to Google to find about about their next hotel stay. These two articles shed light on some recent changes in the Google ecosystem, which as a hotelier you can’t afford to miss.

As We Recover, “Value” Remains the Word of the Day (by Nicole Petrak)
Here’s an interesting article about how the economic recovery we’ve been seeing recently has affected travel behavior for many consumers. “Value” as the article states, is “still the word of the day”. U.S. consumers specifically don’t seem to be ready to return to the pre-recession ways of vacation and hotel spending. But as the author Nicole Petrak states, “ its important to remember that ‘value’ is subjective and does not necessarily mean ‘cheapest.’”

Mobile Travel Booking Awaiting Takeoff (by Mark Walsh)
And finally, a little reminder that people are increasingly placing their lives in their smartphones, iPads etc. This now touches the hotel space, since some travelers now only carry a smartphone or iPad type device with them - and thus need content tailored for their specific needs. Now, more than ever, it’s essential for a hotel to have a mobile site and be participating in other parts of the mobile space like Foursquare and Facebook Check-ins.

That’s it for this week. Stay tuned for more interesting content from the TrustYou Blog!