The Hotel Sector Report has published a brief look into who is winning and who is losing the battle in the hotel sector online…
The Hotel Sector Report, produced by digital marketing specialists Inside Online, ranks 46 of the leading websites within this competitive market according to their online performance.
The annual study reveals the successes and shortcomings of each website, highlighting where there is room for improvement.
Other stand-out results from visibility include:
- Accor Hotels [117 per cent] recorded the most significant increase among the top 10
- The top 10 saw a majority (nine) see a rise in their visibility year-on-year
- Marriott saw a reduction on its previous years’ visibility as Q Hotels dropped out due to a 21 per cent reduction, and was replaced by Radisson Blu after its 23 per cent increase
“It’s been a fantastic year for the hotel sector with nine of the top ten seeing improvements in their visibility,” commented Gemma Curtis, Inbound Content Marketer, at Inside Online. “It looks like paid media is the way forward when it comes to getting your Hotel site to the top of the SERPs.
“Overall, there is a big difference between the number of the brand searches and owned social score across the board. Content was on-brand, frequently posted and mostly varied but we weren’t wowed by any hotel company in particular.
“With an estimated 85 per cent of millennials using their phones to make purchases now, social is a huge asset to your business. Brands should focus on making engaging content which invites interaction to boost their owned social scores.”
Five-star social
Following Hotel Designs’ recent focus on social media, it seems as if UK company Premier Inn leads the overall social charts, coming in first place for brand searches per month but outside of the top five for owned social scores, led by Marriott.
The top five social scorers:
- Premier Inn is the top performer with 1,500,000 monthly searches
- Travelodge, Village Hotels, Marriott and Radisson Blu rounded out the top five for searches per month
- Marriott leads owned social scores with Hilton, Accor, Melia and Intercontinental making up the top five
The social score considers followers and engaged conversations on all major social platforms.
Despite leading the overall charts, Premier Inn has a high brand search with 1,500,000; however, this hasn’t translated to their owned social score [659]. Likewise, Travelodge recorded a brand search score of 1,000,000 against an owned score of 202
Similarly, however, Hotel Duvin [40,500] had a high brand search but recorded an owned score of 86, while Britannia Hotels scored 27,100 against 13. Easy Hotels has a brand search score of 22,200 but owned social of 26 while Corinthia and Warner Leisure both score 12,100 for brand search against owned scores of 73 and 61.
Conversely, Marriott leads the owned search scores with 5,214 but only recorded a brand search score of 60,500.
Lodges to links
Links have always been an important ranking factor and can make all the difference to how far up a brand appears on Google. Consistently gaining new high-quality links can be great for business; however, high-link volumes without the quality could spell trouble ahead.
Hilton has the highest average number of links per month of high quality, which is likely because they are an international brand with many different subdomains and franchises. Most of their links are going to the various hotel sites, and they don’t appear to have any creative content outlet.
IHG, on the other hand, has a blog gaining many links, covering topics such as the best places to shop, eat, stay or things to do in various cities – which puts them in second place.
There are several sites with ‘high-quality, low-volume’ links; these include Radisson Collection, Star Hotel Collezione, Apex Hotels, CP London City and Point-A Hotels.
Conversely, there are also sites with ‘low-quality, high-volume’ links, such as Corinthia, Best Western, Q Hotels, Campanile and W London. Consistently gaining a high quantity of low-authority links highlights an urgent need to address your off-site reputation.
