#like a lack of industrial standardisation probably also means roads are not standardised

[communistkenobi]

something I don’t see people bring up a lot when talking about worldbuilding, especially when you’re creating cities, is wind. prevailing winds in many places in the northern hemisphere blow from west -> east, and because industrial production tended to take place in the centre of cities, workers would live downwind of factories while the wealthier classes would live on the other side, away from air pollutants, which is why a lot of cities have a poor east-end and a rich west-end, a spatial configuration that persists in many places that are now post-industrial

and in general the built environment has a durability to it that persists far past the historical moments that produce those configurations. this means that the stated aims of a city via a vis city planning are frequently at odds with the physical layout of the city itself. so if you want to create a city that feels like it has a long history to it, working through its earlier stages of production can help with decisions you make about its layout, and also allow for weird spatial contradictions in a city that has to constantly fight against its own physical history

[blogdanielwilson-blog]

Increase hotel direct bookings with unique offerings

In a world dominated by big brands and businesses, where standardisation is the path to efficiency, customers consistently look for something out of the norm. This is clearly the case in the travel industry; it’s one of the major reasons Airbnb has been so successful.

Travellers can get bogged down by same-same marketing, and middle-of-the-road hotel experiences. They want something unique, authentic, and personalised.

To get more direct bookings, your offering has to reflect these desires. So how do you make your property stand out from the competition and convince guests to avoid booking via OTAs?

Understand the audience you want to target The first step to being able to offer a unique selling point to travellers is to know who you want to target and who will be visiting your website.

For example, Marriott expects the majority of guests to be millennials, so the company’s direct bookings marketing campaign emphasises the experiential joys of staying at a Marriott.

Doing the research into your most common demographic will be worth it, as you can start shaping your offerings to perfectly suit your guests.

Provide interesting incentives for travellers to book direct While using the word ‘bribe’ might be too strong, there are certain offers you can make that travellers will find hard to refuse.

For instance, about half would be most likely to book direct if a hotel offered a room upgrade as an incentive. Second in line is free room service, at almost a quarter.

Often an add-on like this won’t break the bank at your business but can be a powerful motivator for travellers to book direct and save’. In fact if you do upgrade a guest, you can then resell the original standard room – effectively selling this room twice.

Use authenticity to your hotel’s advantage Independent hotels often have a much closer affinity to the local area than big brands, so use this to attract guests via your website. Maybe your hotel is lucky enough to be near a theme park, popular nature reserve, or maybe your building itself is heritage listed.

Focus on what makes your hotel special and make this clear when travellers visit your web pages. You could even create special promotions around these unique features to further entice people to book direct.

Use exciting content to engage travellers When travellers are browsing your site they want as much information about your hotel as possible, and they want to be wowed. If they get both of these things, it’s very likely they’ll be happy to book directly with your hotel.

Think about using video content to showcase your hotel. It doesn’t have to be Hollywood quality, simply a short and sweet production showing off the best aspects of your property and its staff. Or you could go even further and use virtual reality to give potential guests a ‘try before you buy’ experience with a 3D virtual tour of your hotel. VR is becoming very popular and also more cost effective, so it’s worth a thought.

The importance of visual storytelling is vital, as is knowing what visuals to use. Images create emotions within individuals and opens up their imagination. Guest rooms are the most-viewed images on hotel websites. This means you should be leading with images of your rooms on your website to get travellers interested and excited.

Give guests a different, more original promotion to consider While percentage-off stay deals or common room package promotions are fine, they don’t differentiate your hotel from its competitors.

Instead, think about what guests might really want. For example, people are excited about their trip and just want to enjoy the experience. If they have to plan out all their days and work out a number of details, this excitement can fade away to a certain extent; to be replaced by frustration or impatience.

Make it easier for guests by offering an itinerary package – a ready-made bundle of activities around the area. You could have a few immersive experiences for specific guest types. This might include a family bundle package that offers tickets to local attractions with vouchers for a meal at your restaurant. On another day it might provide tickets to a children’s play centre while the parents enjoy relaxing massages.

Make hotel direct bookings sweeter with extras

Extras are an inextricable element of your hotel’s direct booking strategy. It’s a win-win situation: they enhance your guests’ experience while increasing your profit.

In recent years Tnooz released fascinating statistics around extras that will help you improve your up-sell and cross-sell strategies across the board.

Overall, 15% of guests will purchase extras at the time of booking.

Guests who book 1-7 days in advance of their trip are 3x more likely to purchase extras when they book.

Guests who book 7-21 days in advance are actually 5x more likely to purchase extras when they book.

Travel parties of 1-2 people are most likely to purchase extras that are available at your hotel, such as a bottle of wine or in-room breakfast.

Travel parties of more than 3 people are most likely to purchase outside extras, such as tours, activities and dining reservations. Partner with local businesses in order to earn commission for these bookings!

These facts and figures make it clear that extras are not just a passing trend — they’re a set of complementary products that you should always try to tweak and improve at your hotel.

Here’s a few ideas to consider when it comes to selling extras at the time of booking:

Shuttle services Many travellers like to use public transportation or simply walk from place to place once they have arrived in their destination.

This means that they will not be renting a car, and may prefer the convenience of a shuttle from the airport directly to your hotel property.

By offering shuttle services as an extra at your hotel, you can allow them to conveniently book everything they need at once.

Products and gifts Products and gifts are a popular extra amongst guests, specifically those who are celebrating a special occasion on their trip.

Champagne bottles, fresh, local fruit and local wine are marketable extras that you can up-sell to your guests at the time of booking.

Tours and activities More and more, travellers are looking for one-stop shopping when it comes to planning their holidays. By offering room packages that include local tours or activities, you will appeal to these time-savvy travellers.

In addition to earning the extra revenue on the booking package, you’ll probably be able to earn a commission from the tour company that you partner with in your area. This is a wonderful way to boost the local travel industry while generating additional business for yourself.

And of course, your guest wins with the perfect hotel stay and tour or activity experience.

Use an online booking engine that allows your guests to purchase these products and services at the time of their reservation.

Direct bookings at your hotel can be won simply with better images

If a traveller has any suspicion about the quality or authenticity of your hotel, it’s very unlikely they’ll book with you.

A lack of published reviews and a lack of photos are two of the biggest red flags for guests when browsing hotels. To someone viewing a hotel on the Internet, the absence of reviews or images may indicate to them that the hotel is hiding something – perhaps evidence of poor quality service, dirty interiors, or misleading location information.

TripAdvisor published findings stating that when compared to hotels without photos, hotels with at least one photo saw a 138% increase in travel engagement. On top of that, hotels with at least one photo are 225% more likely to receive a booking enquiry. If just one photo can make this much difference, think of the statistics if your hotel develops a strategic plan for your property photography.

During the browsing stage people generally fixate on the hotel name, images, price, and location. This means you have a chance to wow them with photos before they read any reviews.

Here are the best ways to approach your hotel imagery:

Capture a pleasing vista The majority of images that extracted positive emotions from consumers were bedrooms with window views, a pleasant vista, and natural light. The photos helped create an instant reaction between the consumer and the hotel. Positive feelings were also exhibited when customers saw something interesting outside of the hotel like a beach, city, or landmark.

Display unique and attractive features If your hotel has any unique features put them front and centre in your photography to delight the eyes of online shoppers. This way the potential guest will be immediately drawn to your hotel.

Don’t meddle with perspective, balance, and distortion By far the most popular images were those that also looked authentic. Photos that looked skewed or altered drew suspicion from shoppers because they create unrealistic representations of the property. Hotels should instead keep it simple and try not to show too much in a single shot.

Keep images clean and crisp Neatness and precision were the qualities that garnered the best responses to hotel room images, along with light and space. Negative opinions focused on messiness and clutter, clashing colours, odd angles, or missing features such as bathroom or wardrobe.

With eye-catching imagery and unrelenting dedication to quality, it’s clear you can use imagery as a powerful boost to your bookings.

Direct hotel reservation barriers and how to remove them

Direct bookings are always at the top of a hotelier’s mind. The higher percentage of bookings that come direct through a hotel’s website the better.

Investigating the barriers that stop customers booking direct and creating strategies that remove them is a never-ending but necessary battle.

Common problem areas include:

The cost of technology support

Reliance on online travel agents (OTAs)

Cost of acquisition (e.g web design and user experience)

Lack of hotel resources

All of these are reasons why hotels are either not pursuing, or not being allowed to pursue direct booking campaigns and foster return business.

However, there are methods hotels can use to improve their chances of direct bookings.

Here are seven reasons direct bookings are important and some strategies for hotels to make the most of them.

1. Anticipate the booking and communicate pre-stay

If a customer does in fact make a direct booking it’s important to reinforce that decision. The first step is by raising the anticipation of the guest for their trip. People like to be excited by the prospect of a holiday; often the period before departure is the most enjoyable feeling of the whole process. A common way of achieving this is to create a consistent and enthusiastic stream of pre-stay communication with your guest, usually via email. This may be as simple as telling them you can’t wait to see them in two weeks, or you might provide them with information about cool things to do while they’re staying at your property.

2. The traveller’s active choice

It’s been found that there is a direct correlation between guest satisfaction and direct bookings. Direct bookers are often happier because they’ve made an active choice to stay at your property. This may not always be the case for OTA bookers. This can result in a lack of personal connection and relationships, resulting in poorer reviews. When you get a direct booking you know they’re definitely from your target market and coming in with positive attitudes about your hotel.

3. Reroute your commission savings into the guest experience

Commission paid to OTAs are probably the biggest reason hotels look for more direct bookings because they eat into the potential profits of the business. Money saved on direct bookings can be better spent on guest experience and hotel upgrades. Commissions can be reduced by maintaining price parity to save on conversions and keep pricing transparent to debunk the belief OTAs always offer a better deal. Use some innovation in how you approach your direct booking strategy to entice as many travellers as possible to your website.

4. Build relationships with travellers

Building relationships with travellers is a big bullet hotels can fire in the direct booking battle. Using research and creating customer profiles to find common ground and appeal to your target’s interests is vital if you want to encourage direct bookings and build guest loyalty. Be imaginative in the way you engage travellers and always be positive.

5. Think about direct bookings and future innovation

New technology is sure to be a boon for any purpose you want. Decide what is best for you in progressing your relationship with customers. Services such as live chat or messenger apps might be serious considerations. Anything that enhances your social media or simplifies your booking process is a must.

6. Receive ancillary revenue from your bookings

Offering additional services or products to give the customer a ‘shopping cart’ experience is a good tactic even if the guest isn’t interested in purchasing any extras. It gives the sense of professionalism and credibility, and puts your hotel on a competitive level with OTAs who often offer some kind of package deal. Making sure you think of your hotel as more than rooms and beds is always a positive step towards enriching the experience of your guests.

7. Boost your hotel’s brand loyalty

The best way to ensure an increase of direct bookings is to boost brand loyalty and create new return customers out of every new traveller who enters your hotel. Increasing hotel brand loyalty is an obvious and natural way to boost direct bookings and has numerous added benefits such as:

The ability to know the guest preference

This enables your hotel to deliver a better experience by offering more appropriate products and services to meet the guest’s needs.

A diversified portfolio of hotel booking sources

This makes for a more stable and healthy business mix overall so that a hotel does not become dependent on only one or two primary markets.

Loyalty members are a comfort blanket

A larger member base means your hotel will better resist low seasons and harsh economic periods.

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