Hotel Marketing Trends for 2016 – Part I

The Digital Marketing Industry may be highly complex, volatile, and ever-changing, but a pretty exciting one for companies who are determined to ride the wave when it comes to modern trends.

2016 looks extremely promising, and the following list portraits some of the major trends that are to be expected in the Hotelier Sector.

1. Mobile Dominance

Mobile will rule and completely overtake desktop in terms of traffic. Google already announced that trend in 10 different countries in 2015, and with the “Mobilegeddon” advent it’s clear which side of the fence Google’s on, banking on desktop traffic fading away, meaning smart money will rest on mobile focused marketing.

Mobile has also contributed with over 94% of yearly growth in terms of e-commerce traffic. On average, 21% of all Hotel Bookings take place on Mobile Devices. Make no mistake and assure that you’re ready for the future. [Source: Retailing Today].

2. The New SEO? OCO [Online Content Optimization]

With an average of 30 to 40% of all Hotels’ revenue deriving from organic traffic, having a solid content strategy that goes way beyond “standard information” is key. Whether it’s a blog about local events or an innovative social media presence, now is definitely the time to get creative.

3. Real Marketing To Real People

It is not only vital to market to real people, but first and foremost to the right people. Relationship marketing techniques such as Persona Marketing, Machine Learning, Programmatic Marketing and Google’s Customer Match will play a huge role in getting you talking with your guest in 2016. [Source: Responsive Inbound Marketing].

4. Ad Blocking

Ad Blocking is effectively on the rise and makes absolutely no sense sugar coating it. Given this emerging trend, other methods of driving traffic to one’s websites will need to step up. The latest indicators signal a 41% increase in the past 12 months, which will translate into an expected global cost to the Industry of about 41 billion dollars in 2016. [Sources: Wordstream | Blog Pagefair].

Bruno Santos
Account Manager | HDS – Hotel Digital Strategy
bruno@hoteldigitalstrategy.com