Online Marketing for Hotels and Travel Agents

I would like to thank all the participants who attended our seminar today Tuesday the 15th of September at the Ajax Hotel in Limassol. Personally I have enjoyed the active participation and the exchange of views on how the Cypriot Hotelier and the incoming agent could face the changes of the global market online.

Special thanks to our hosts , Ajax Hotel, for the great hospitality the excellent quality of the coffee breaks and the fabulous buffet lunch at their restaurant. Great tastes of real Cyprus and Mediterranean food accompanied by the attention of Akis Ioannides the General Manager and the staff of the hotel.

Also I would like to thank each and every participant form the hotels and agencies of the area. From the Holiday Inn Limassol Christos Rousos, from Pekos Hotel Nefytos Efstathiou, from the Mediterranean Hotel Sotiris Kaffa and Christina Lambrou, from Amathus Hotel Eugenios Savva, from Four Seasons Limassol Nick Aristou who shared with us valuable information concerning his activity online, Konstantina Eftathiou from Sun House Travel, from A.L Matnovani Travel Evros Theophanous and Julia Papageorgiou from JPP Marketing.

All of them have shown great interest and very active participation and made me become a better trainer, defiantly their experiences are of enormous value to me and to the seminnar.

Last but not least I would like to thank my assistant Maria Shaili-Papamiltiadous for her uncondtional support and fantastic work following the pace of the presentation and her more than valuable work concerning paperwork.

Next stop, Paphos the 22nd of September. Looking forward to welcoming the tourism sector of Pafos.

Online reservations in 14 laguages with Social Media facility

Sybelio, the non commissionable online booking system built in Spain has the capability to publish content on Social Media. The hotel can create its Special Offers and let its followers know instantly on all Social Media. Sybelio can know boost direst sales of hotels, hotel chains, incoming agents and any other accommodation facilities your company may have.

Sybelio online booking system

View more presentations from petrosmavros.

From attracting to seducing, the internet has changed tourism as well

The Internet has become the means of attraction of tourists for many “inexistent” Tourist Destinations worldwide. Places like New Zealand, Slovakia, Montenegro or regions such as Murcia or Extremadura in Spain almost did not “exist” before the Internet Revolution. They took very seriously their online potential and invested time and money on their online actions and strategies. Here below I try to will give you a different approach with 3 different methods of how Destinations could or do use the power and the potential of the internet to seduce visitors.

1. T.U.I: Traditional Uncovered Influence.

In T.U.I mode the destination gives to Thomas Cook, Thomson-Tui, American Express Travel or whoever other Big Tour Operator, lets say 3,5 million Euros each in form of “marketing expenses” and seeks ROI. This money is used by the tour operators to “market” the destination and of course to market it online since 50% of the sales of the big tour operators are now made online and almost 98% of total sales are confirmed using online tools. Thomsons-Tui for example last week was promoting Tunisia on their UK site and defiantly they were not doing it for free. If Cyprus for example is an expensive destination and Turkey or Tunisia are not so expensive then obviously the tour operator will prefer to promote an easy to sell destination than a hard one, since we are in S.H.I.T, (Stupid Hospitality Industry Turbulence) caused by real estate speculation

2. D.I.Y.O: Do It Yourself Online:

D.I.Y.O is a rather new way of attracting visitors. As all other D.I.Y methods, this requires new skills, new way of thinking, new strategy, new planning and especially lots of courage and faith in what you are doing. It works the same way as D.I.Y for plumbing. If you do not have enough confidence in what you are doing or if your skills are not yet well developed then you may end up with the house flooded. In politics flooding is dangerous, voters can punish you severely, just look what happens in the UK. Ministers fall over their chairs one after the other, but anyway that is in the UK, those things do not happen in the southern areas of the ex British Empire.

3. N.E.T: Neo-technological Effective Tourism:

N.E.T has 3 legs: The Destination, The Suppliers and The Customer all working in a team.

1. The Destination: a.k.a the Tourism Board: With N.E.T the Destination belongs to all and not all to the Destination. It needs to have proven flexibility, credibility and ability, not proven incapability. It needs to give answers online and not orders from-the-line. It needs to share valuable content and in an easy, indexable, universal and accessible environment and not hide content behind bureaucratic monsters and technological myths. In N.E.T “mood” the Destination to has a regulatory role and not a regular role.

2. The Suppliers Travel Professionals : In a N.E.T environment the airlines have online services and not online barriers, the taxis are booked online together with public transport and not “hitched hiked”, the hotels have online price parity and not online price asperity, the incoming agents are destination experts and not the destination desperates, in N.E.T suppliers practice online customer care do not customer scare.

3. The Customer: a.k.a the One who Pays Our Salaries.: The Customer is not only the receiver anymore but also the transmitter. He/She determines online how he/she wants to receive the service, he/she feels the value from home on the PC screen and he/she Pay Palls it. He/She is not scared to share and shout it loud. How does he/she does all that? By Blogging and not Blocking, by Commenting and not Complaining , by Face-booking and not Face-hiding, by Twittering and not Twisting , being on Youtube and not on Our Tube, by Trip Advising and not Trip Forgetting, by being Seduced online and not Ignored even online.

The article was originally published on the Cypriot Newspaper
Financial Mirror on Wednesday 1^st July 2009.

Is online Marketing is a matter of training as well ?

When we talk about online marketing most of us think of IT (Information Technology), well this is a very wrong idea. IT people are very good in applying technologies and give them to us, to the operations people to use them.

When it comes to the internet, technologies are just tools, tools we have in our hands as operations to use them. We need to be trained but not on the use of technologies but on the use of our skills online. The internet gives us the technologies most of the time for free, we need to train our brains to use them the same way we use the telephone or the vacuum cleaner. IT can prepare a web site but IT are not the ones who are going to position our product, brand and services in the online world. Think offline! We ask the graphic designer to prepare a brochure, we ask the printer to print them but we are the ones who are going to give them to right people. It is us, Sales and Marketing who will sit down with the customer to discus the services we printed in the brochure, so we should be the ones who talk to the customer online. For this we need to be trained.



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Emergence2009

The Cyprus Tourism Organization's commitment to its strategic objectives remains resilient despite pressing short-term needs. As a key initiative, hosting EMERGENCE 2009, is yet another contribution in the support of effective e-marketing and digital connectivity for the Tourism industry.

Providing the Tourism Sector of Cyprus with perspectives on how to overcome the current economic situation is the single most important task that the Cyprus Tourism Organization has proposed upon itself so as to enhance competitive capabilities of the local tourism industry with the launch of the upcoming E-Tourism Forum.

Managing digital, widens the scope of opportunities and it remains today as the single most important source of leverage for destinations and travel businesses. The mandate for Avantless in creating the eTourism Forum as a facilitator event with international speakers will definitely result in bridging the digital gap in the business of travel.

• Discovering genuine strategies that work more for businesses,
• Sustaining customer satisfaction in anticipation of market needs and dynamics,
• Managing conversations and online presence effectively

These are all part of formulas to navigate with success the emerging digital scape and a unique opportunity to allow for the sector to be empowered about braving the New Year with clear individual action paths that will bear also collective benefits.

The event EMERGENCE 2009 is to be celebrated in Limassol, Cyprus on the 18th and 19th of February, 2009 at the Grand Resort Hotel in attendance of the greater part of the national tourism sector.

For complete information, go to www.emergence2009.com


EMERGENCE 2009 is hosted by The Cyprus Tourism Organization and promoted by Avantless Ltd.