Lodging Interactive Blog

Link2Brand Empowers Branded Hotels To Manage Their Own Marketing Campaigns – No Website Needed

Lodging Interactive, an award winning interactive and social media marketing agency servicing the hospitality industry, today announced Link2Brand an innovative marketing solution for branded hotels. With Link2Brand hotels can launch their own marketing campaigns without the need of a dedicated hotel website; Link2Brand links directly to the brand's website.

“Our innovative Link2Brand marketing tool solves a long standing issue for branded hotels – how to create short, personalized and descriptive promotional links that seamlessly pass through brand SRP booking codes,” said Mr. DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive’s Founder and President. “Link2Brand empowers hotels to provide their own local web marketing for events and groups such as soccer tournaments, military reunions and to offer local businesses their own branded links to easily make online reservations. Link2Brand enables hotels to deep link into the hotel brand’s booking engine.”

For example this SHORT link with the hotel’s name:

http://myhotelpackages.com/SheratonBirmingham/Midweek

Sends visitors to this LONG link, deep into the brand’s booking engine and passes through the SRP code “DAYBAR”:

 http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/search/pre_decider_all.html?propertyID=115&ratePlanName=DAYBAR&IM=SOP_TITLE_179WD_SI_115_ATL

Complete ROI Tracking – With Link2Brand every link counts. All clicks are recorded in real time, and the hotel can simply log into its online dashboard to view click results. Monthly brand website referral reports will detail the number of Link2Brand referrals and revenue.

“We’ve made using Link2Brand so easy to use, hotels and marketers can create their personalized links in less than 60 seconds. Link2Brand can be used on Twitter, Facebook and blogs or micro-sites to drive business,” added Richard Walsh, V.P. Business Development for Lodging Interactive. “Additionally each hotel account can have up to 10 sub-users who can create and track their own unique links.”

Try Link2Brand Free For Ten Days

Want Better Web Design? Watch Real Users

I’ve been in web development since 1995. For me, and many of you, it’s easy to forget that people don’t have the computer equipment to use the web sites and Internet applications we build. I’ve always found it interesting that TV show web sites are Flash based and loaded with images and video. It’s as if they are built for an elite group of TV watchers and everyone else doesn’t matter.

via searchengineland.com

Ritz-Carlton Launches New Luxury Brand

According to the WSJ

Upscale-lodging operator Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., hoping to take further advantage of the booming luxury travel business, will launch a new hotel brand called "the Reserve" that the company hopes will attract guests to smaller resorts and more out-of-the-way locales.

Ritz-Carlton, a subsidiary of Marriott International Inc. of Bethesda, Md., is planning to open the 125-room "Molasses Reef" on the island of West Caicos in the Caribbean sometime next year.

Unlike the majority of its current 62 hotels and resorts that generally exist in popular tourist and business destinations, the locations for the offshoot brand will likely be focused in largely undeveloped areas -- "places in the world where not everybody has been," says Vivian Deuschl, Ritz-Carlton spokeswoman.

To that end, the company will continue to compete with longtime rival Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts Inc. and other luxury operators that run small, expensive resorts like Kerzner International Ltd.'s "One&Only" brand. But the new brand's focus will shift away from a heavy focus on corporate travelers and group-meeting business that many of the existing Ritz-Carltons depend on for a large chunk of their business.

While the company uses the word "boutique" to describe the Reserve brand, Ritz-Carlton officials insist that the service element -- long decried as the Achilles' heel of the boutique hotel industry -- will, in fact, be enhanced. Indeed, as the luxury travel industry has remained strong in the past few years and shows few signs of cooling, the highest-end travelers continue to look for more exclusive options outside traditional resort destinations. Ritz-Carlton officials say they hope to open new Reserve properties elsewhere in the Caribbean and in Asia.

User-generated travel guides are worthless??

The Internet is awash with travel Web sites featuring "user-generated" comments: People post their I-stayed-at-such-and-such-a-hotel-and-here's-what-I-thought-of-it recollections, and the rest of us are supposed to adjust our vacation decisions accordingly.

Time was when only a couple of Web sites -- like TripAdvisor.com and Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree (thorntree.lonelyplanet.com) --featured such homely advice by amateur pundits. Today, a growing array of services -- www.igougo.com, www.tripmates.com, www.gusto.com, www.tripconnect.com, Britain's wayn.com and many others -- consist of nothing but.

Click here to read more...

How Much Should A Search Engine Optimizer Earn?

How Much Should SEOs Earn

Rand at SEOMoz has another excellent post named SEO Salaries - How Much Should You Make.  He details what he believes SEOs of all calibers should make.  Here is a quick snap shot:

In-House SEOs:

• VP/Director of Search Marketing: $100,000 - $350,000+
  
• Director/Manager of Organic Search: $75,000 - $150,000
  
• SEO Guru: $75,000 - $200,000
  
• Campaign Manager: $55,00 - $100,000
  
• SEO Specialist: $40,000 - $80,000

SEO Agency Employees:

• SEO Director: $50,000 - $100,000
  
• Search Marketing Consultant: $60,000 - $200,000
  
• Link Builder: $35,000 - $100,000
  
• Content Writer: $35,000 - $75,000
  
• SEO Researcher: $30,000 - $60,000
  
• Client Relations Coordinator: $35,000 - $75,00

Consider the above if you're trying to hire your own SEO expert for your hotel; it may become cost prohibitive to "do it inhouse".