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The “Call Me Back After Christmas” Objection and How to Deal With It Dec 18, 2013: So why is it that the buyers and decision makers give us the Christmas objections? There are various reasons for this. Sometimes, there’s a genuine reason why they can’t proceed with a booking until January – perhaps a colleague is away that needs to be involved or perhaps there isn’t a budget until next year. But, in a number of cases, decision makers use Christmas objections as a convenient way of getting salespeople and hotel owners to go away. Far too many salespeople and hotel owners fall for these objections, take the decision makers at their word – only to be surprised come January when they can’t get hold of that person.

Call Tracking & Conversation Analytics Nov 11, 2013: Guest Blog Post: Call Tracking & Conversation Analytics With LogMyCalls’ McKay Allen

Hoteliers Wary of Discounting as they Evaluate the Long-Term Effects on Brand Perception Oct 29, 2013: Five years ago, as the recession hit and consumers began tightening their purse string, hotels have responded with discounts and sales. Consumers have quickly become addicted as shown by the Hotwire® 'Britain on Sale' report released earlier this year: more than half of today's consumers never or rarely pay full price when they shop, 57 per cent use discounts and buy items on sale, and 90 per cent say they will continue to look for discounts and sales in the same way even if their economic situation improves.**

Three Steps to a Better TripAdvisor Rating Oct 25, 2013: Booking a hotel room online requires a strong level of trust on the part of the consumer, because they aren't able to see the property until they arrive on their check-in date. This makes sites like TripAdvisor a very valuable tool for consumers. In fact, 86% of respondents to a recent MSNBC survey said that they rely on the reviews that they find on TripAdvisor (or other similar travel sites) before they make a purchasing decision.

Three Steps To A Better TripAdvisor Rating Oct 16, 2013: According to ehotelier, an increase in your property’s TripAdvisor rating can have a drastic impact on your revenues. If a hotel increases its TripAdvisor review score by one point, room rates can be increased by 11.2% without a drop in occupancy. A 1% increase in a hotel’s online reputation score leads to a 0.89% increase in price (as measured by the hotel’s ADR), up to 0.54% increase of occupancy and up to 1.42% increase in RevPAR.

Google Says Goodbye to Keyword-Centric SEO Oct 11, 2013: The End of an Era: Google Says Goodbye to Keyword-Centric SEO / Max Starkov & Sue Wiker

2014 Federal Per Diem Rates Oct 11, 2013: 2014 Federal Per Diem Rates and Policy Take Aim at Curbing Meeting Spend

PR & Marketing Tips for Smaller Hotels Oct 8, 2013: ReviewPro PR & Marketing Tips for Smaller Hotels from Renata Parolari Fernandes

Every once in a while, we like to bring in guest experts to provide you with another perspective and some fresh ideas. Today, Renata Parolari Fernandes, the founder and director of Five Star Magazine, an award-winning publication about unique luxury hotels, shares her experience promoting smaller hotel properties. Enjoy!

Updated City Forecasts with a Focus on Room Rates Sep 28, 2013: Should The Good News Be Even Better? PKF Provides Updated City Forecasts with a Focus on Room Rates

TripAdvisor, hotel search and the looming presence of Google on the horizon Sep 10, 2013: Over the past eight months or so the hotel search landscape has shifted and a gathering of the meta engines is now well under-way.

It started back in November of last year with Priceline’s acquisition of Kayak, followed shortly by Barry Diller selling his TripAdvisor shares to Liberty Interactive and, to top it, when Expedia bought a controlling stake of Trivago.

There is a game afoot to control metasearch and TripAdvisor just fired the latest round when it officially unveiled the upgraded rate comparison metasearch .

With its tongue planted firmly in its cheeky, Trip Advisor also announced that it’s getting rid of the pesky pop ups, and – as the self proclaimed “number one travel website” – is now maximising revenue by fully integrating live rates and availability feeds to customer searches.