a re - ignite publication

HOTEL TRAFFIC Comparison Magazine for Major UK Hotels

A Re-Ignite Media Publication 2014

Travel Lodge

Premier Inn

Holiday Inn

Ibis

HOTEL WEB Comparison magazine for major UK hotels Contents

Introduction

The Editors

Hotel Market Situation

Primary Research Email

Primary Research – Online PR

Primary Research – Mobile App

Primary Research - Online Advertisements

Focus Group Questionnaire

Travelodge Results

Premier Inn results

Holiday Inn Results

IBIS Results

Opt in Email

Online Advertising

Pay Per Click Advertising

Online PR

Mobile

Search Engine Results

SEO Statistics

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendices

1

2

3

4

6

8

10

12

13

14

15

16

17

20

21

22

28

31

32

34

36

38

HOTEL WEB Comparison magazine for major UK hotels

Introduction

www.holidayinn.co.uk

www.ibis.co.uk

www.premierinn.co.uk

www.travelodge.co.uk

The main aim of this report is to evaluate the traffic building

techniques of the Premier Inn, Holiday Inn, Travelodge and

Ibis hotel chains.

Within the report, research will be stated to provide evaluations regarding the

quality of the emails the companies’ use, the mobile applications, the social

network platforms and the banner advertisements used by the four hotel

chains. To provide further evaluations of the different traffic building

techniques, a focus group will be arranged and the feedback provided by the

focus group members will be summarised and used to crease further

opinions and analyses.

Conclusions will be made to summarise each of the chains techniques and

how successful the focus group and team re-ignite conclude them to be.

Comparisons will be made between the four hotels to rate the hotels in order

quality of their traffic buildings techniques.

1

http://www.holidayinn.co.uk/

http://www.ibis.co.uk/

http://www.premierinn.co.uk/

http://www.travelodge.co.uk/

HOTEL WEB Comparison magazine for major UK hotels The Editors

The Editors are a group of 2nd year students

studying various Business degrees: Three are

studying Business Management & Enterprise

and the other is studying Business & Digital

Media Communications. For this module (Digital

Media Marketing) we are now producing A Re-

Ignite Media Publication part 2. Part 1 of this

series can be found here

http://issuu.com/bernardjohannesen/docs/a_re-

ignite_media_publication.pptx

David Farrar Cain King

James Watts Bernard Johannesen

2


Hotel Market Situation

The market trend in the UK is always

increasing and is estimated to do so for the

next 5 years.

Hotels - UK

- October

2013 -

Market Size

and

Forecast

Total

hotel/motel/gues

thouse (trips)* M

Total

hotel/motel/gues

thouse (nights)*

M

2008 50.9 139.8

2009 52.6 141.3

2010 53.2 143.5

2011 58.1 151.8

2012 59.8 156.2

2013 61.4 160.2

2014 (fore) 63.2 164.7

2015 (fore) 65 168.8

2016 (fore) 66.8 172.1

2017 (fore) 68.7 175.5

2018 (fore) 70.5 178.9

As you can see from the table above, the total

numbers of trips are increasing year by year

and are expected to increase by almost 10

million stays between 2012 and 2018. That’s

10 million extra stays in 6 years so an

expected growth of around 1.67 Million hotel

stays per year in the UK.

There is an expected growth of around 4% in

the volume of hotel stays during 2014.

The market is always growing with increased

number of hotel rooms and stays every year.

This year there is an expected growth of

around 4% in the volume of hotel stay. Hotel

trips are expected to increase by around 8%by

2018.

Premier Inn is the UK’s largest hotel chain by

both number of hotels and rooms, operating 655

hotels and 51,671 rooms across the UK as of

February 2013.

Premier Inn re-launched its iPhone app and also

launched its first app for iPad in April 2013. The

iPhone app has become one of the brand’s

most important channels since its launch in

2011, with over 2 million downloads to date.

Travelodge is the UK’s second largest chain

hotel with over 500 hotels in the UK, supplying

over 37,000 rooms across the UK.

IHG have around 275 hotels with around 28,000

rooms operating in the UK. They have sub

brands of Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn express

in the UK.

Ibis operates under the main company name

Accor, and operate 88 IBIS hotels in the UK.

3


Primary Research - Email

The hotel emails were the first section for traffic building to be assessed by the focus

group, assessing the image quality, email layout and call to action.

4

Travelodge

Premier Inn


Primary Research - Email

5

IBIS

Holiday Inn


Primary Research - Online PR

This section of the focus group relates to the social media sites used by

the companies, plus ratings to show appealing the page looks and how

likely they are to follow the page.

6

Travelodge

Premier Inn


Primary Research - Online PR

7

IBIS

Holiday Inn


Primary Research – Mobile application

The next section of the questionnaire requires the focus group members

to give opinions on the hotel companies mobile application.

8

Travelodge

Holiday Inn


Primary Research – Mobile application

This section of the questionnaire requires the focus group members to give opinions on

the hotel companies mobile application and also to rate the layout, colour scheme and

how likely they are to use the application.

9

Premier Inn

IBIS


Primary Research - Online Advertisements/Banners

This section of the questionnaire relates to the online advertisements and

banners used by the 4 hotel brands. The focus group will rate the colour scheme,

10

Premier Inn

IBIS


Primary Research - Online Advertisements/Banners

This section of the questionnaire

relates to the online advertisements

and banners used by the 4 hotel

brands.

11

Travelodge

Holiday Inn


Focus Group - Questionnaire

The focus group was arranged

and conducted to receive

responses to the questionnaire

created by team re-ignite. Focus

groups allow the team to record

initial responses and data

reflecting on personal

preferences to different parts of

the hotel website, mobile

application and banner adverts.

The members of the focus group

were asked to answer questions

using a Likert scale of 1-5 “which

is the most widely used scale”

(Mcleod, 2008) . 1 being very

poor and 5 being very good.

12


Within the focus group the members

were asked to rate the quality of the

Travelodge’s emails. The average score

was 4/5, which reflects a good standard

of quality for the Travelodge emails.

Emails are one of the main ways

companies can reach out to their

customers and inform them of the latest

news and deals available. If the email

quality was poor, potential customers

may chose to opt out of the emails and

this could have a negative effect on the

hotels booking rates.

This table represents the following

results for the questions regarding

emails with purple (4/5) being the main

response.

The second part of the focus group was to

rate the social media platforms that the

firm use. Travelodge use both Facebook

and Twitter and the results showed on the

average the most popular vote was 3/5

with a showing of average quality.

Comments where added that the Twitter

page was dull and boring from the focus

group. Having an average social media

page can definitely affect the likeliness of

people buying with a company. The

competition is so great that if another

company has a fun, colourful page with

funny tweets from the company and a swift

response rate, people are likely to use that

company instead.

The responses regarding the Travelodge’s mobile application provide an overall rating

of 3/5, average quality. Mobiles are one of the most easiest, convenient and popular

way to book hotel rooms now. Having a good quality mobile application is vital to

ensuring your company is a success. Travelodge rating is average so

recommendations should be to improve the colours and speed of the application.

Overall the focus group graded most of the areas with Travelodge as average and

basic. This reflects with the budget hotels morals with low price budget rooms with the

minimum.

Travelodge Results - Questionnaire

This table shows that out of 8 votes, 5

was scored 3/5 and 3 votes scored 2/5.

13

Travelodge


The first questions answered by the

focus in regards to the Premier inn

is they’re the emails they send out

to their customers. The results were

very positive with the average rating

being 4/5, good quality. The focus

group liked the colours, big bold

titles and ease of obtaining the offer.

This is a positive reflection for

Premier Inn as they can be

confident that customers will use

their email system to full effect.

Premier Inn Results - Questionnaire

The second area of the Premier Inn

analysed by the focus group was the

social media pages. The focus group

really like the Premier Inn’s

Facebook and twitter page with the

photos, background and overall

design of the page reflected the

principles of a high quality, relaxed

service. The average response was

again 4/5 reflecting the high quality

comments.

Premier Inn’s mobile application

system was the next area to be

analysed by the focus group. The

majority of the reviews where

positive again with the colours,

layout and ease of use being stated

as good. The rating was again 4/5

agreeing with the past ratings of a

high quality service.

The ratings reflect the Premier Inn

motto of a high standard and

relaxed service. The mobile app,

email system and social media

networks are all high quality with

customers being happy to use their

systems to book rooms with.

14


Holiday Inn Results - Questionnaire

The first question was to rate the quality of an email sent

out by holiday inn. The layout is pretty basic but seemed

effective as all respondents rated the quality 4/5 which is a

good score for an email layout. The focus group seemed

to like the simplicity as it would reflect how easy to book a

hotel would be as instructions are clear and easy to follow.

The next section focused on social media and the focus

group liked the twitter page scoring 3 votes at 4/5 and 1

vote 3/5, again they commented on the simplicity look of

the twitter page.

The third section is about the mobile versions of the

Holiday Inn website. The focus group thought the layout of

the mobile site was simple and resulted in half the votes

scoring 3/5 and the other half scoring 4/5. They said they

are unlikely to use the mobile app again being split votes 2

scoring 2/5 and 2 scoring 3/5.

The final section of the focus group looks at a holiday Inn

banner ad. The focus group thought the ad was good but

as it was placed right next to where the search bar is they

thought it was a bit pointless and should be to a more

accessible area. The results were 3, scoring 3/5 and 1 at

4/5 because they thought it would be quicker to search a

hotel on the left hand side.

This table shows that 3

respondents voted 4/5

and 1 respondent voted

3/5

15


IBIS Results - Questionnaire

The focus group looked at Facebook

instead of twitter, as Ibis does not have

a twitter page. The Facebook page

seemed dull and not very appealing

and was scored 3/5 by 3 respondents.

The second section is about Ibis mobile

website, the focus group said that Ibis mobile

site lacked a professional look and looked like it

was made quickly in a rush and was poor

quality. Scoring it an even 2 votes at 2/5 and 2

votes scoring 3/5. They said they were less

likely to use this mobile app than any other hotel

in the focus group, scoring 2 votes on 1/5 and 2

votes at 2/5.

This table shows that the

results were 50/50 with 2

respondents scoring 2/5

and 2 respondents scoring

3/5.

16

It is clear that of all hotels premier inn is the

largest and most popular in the UK. Premier Inn

and Holiday Inn had the highest quality emails

based on the focus group results. IBIS scored

the worst score on the mobile site, saying it

lacked a professional look compared to Holiday

Inn’s simple, yet effective mobile site. The focus

group were most likely to follow premier inn and

Holiday Inn on social media because they had

the most professional Twitter website and have

verification ticks to show they are the official

twitter pages of that brand where as IBIS and

Travelodge don’t have these.

HOTEL WEB Comparison magazine for major UK hotels Email

Using email to create customer

personalisation is an effective way to push

online communications. Before being able

to send an email you have to get potential

customers on your list which can be

achieved from having a landing page which

is specifically designed to get people to

sign up. An example of this is with the

Premier Inn you are persuaded to sign up

to get future vouchers or discounts as a

loyalty bonus. This will mean that the

customer is enticed to join and this is one

example of how traffic building is created.

All companies now realise that it is illegal

to send emails with out opt in consent.

Even though there has been a recession E

Consultancy (E consultancy 2014) has found

that email marketing has increased by 24% last

year to £274 million, this means that most

businesses are trying to reach out to potential

and current customers by email.

Opt in email is one of many tools used by

businesses to connect with its customers and to

attempt to create more sales and has proven to

maintain customer loyalty. It is an effective

method as it is a low cost tool and can be used

at a broad scale. You can store customer’s data

when they register giving previous information

from their email address. “The figures for the

value of email marketing are the following.

Personalised emails improve click-through rates

by 14% and customers that receive these

emails spend 83% more when online shopping”

(Brandwatch, 2013) This is an example of how

beneficial it can be using Opt in email.

Example of why Email in

traffic building is so

important

17


Email

Why Hotels use Opt in Email

Email marketing can create a look

with many styles, colours and fonts

which allows to hotels to use their

brand image and style and create

the email to connect with their

company.

It is an effective way at reaching out

to all customers within seconds as

opposed to calling customers which

is a costly and lengthy process.

Email is an effective push

communications method, email –

essentially, has to be an opt-in form

of promotional activity otherwise

this is considered illegal SPAM

(Smith, 2013)

When customers receive

communications through emails

from companies that they have

opted into, this may form the basis

of an on going relationship and the

client will be able to receive

promotional pushes from the

company.

More customers year by year are

using online facilities, so Opt in

Email is a crucial tool for the travel

industry to maintain, not only is it a

cheap method it is also time and

cost effective.

Example of Travelodge

attempting to get a

customer to sign up

for future promotions

18

HOTEL WEB Comparison magazine for major UK hotels Email

Advantages of Opt in Email

The advantages of using email as a form

of traffic building is that you can create a

more personal feel to the emails as you

will have the customer’s information so can

improve future relations through email.

It improves your brand marketing and

creates more awareness.

Can be used to recruit new customers as

well as keeping current ones.

For some customers it may spark a

thought to arrange a weekend away with

one of the hotels that they may not have

done if they had not received this Opt in

Email.

Disadvantages of Opt in Email

Cold email is an example of how Opt in email can have a negative effect on customer relations

as it is a constant annoyance to receive junk email, (spam) which can result in the company

losing custom as it causes an irritation.

Here is an example of the use of email for traffic

building. If you click on this option when

registering with the Travelodge it will send you

future emails for promotional offers and other

information.

19


Online Advertising

Online advertising is a crucial part of

traffic building for any company and

is considered one of the most

important.

Banner advertising is widely used as

it stands out to the customer and will

usually result in a discount if clicked

on. Not only does banner advertising

improve sales but it also helps to

strengthen the brand image as the

same colours as the brand logo will

usually be used. The success of

banner advertising is usually judged

on two main factors and these are

the following. How the banner looks

itself is important as you want to

catch the eye of the customers and

increase sales. The second factor is

that there is no point having an

attractive eye catching banner if it is

not in the correct place so location is

just as important. Many sites use

eye tracking software on their sites

so that they can see which part of

the page gets the most attention, so

usually they will place banners or

brand logos in these areas.

There are 7 points used by

companies that use banner

advertising and they are the

following:

Attention

Promise of benefit

Credibility

Persuasiveness

Interest

Desire

Action

(max5025, 2013)

Example of online

advertising

20


Pay Per Click Advertising

PPC advertising is where an advert is

displayed for free until clicked through on

websites, through the use of google ad sense

or Microsoft content ads.

PPC occurs when certain keywords are typed

into a search engine and ads appear on the

side or below the search. (Chaffey,2013)

A quick search of premier inn hotel comes up

with a text advertisement which google will

receive money for each time a customer clicks

the link in the yellow box. This is a common

form of PPC.

The image on the right shows that the ad is

based on my current search terms meaning I

have matched key words related to holiday inn

that they use to advertise. They will pay

Google a certain price depending on the

popularity of the keyword.

On the left whereas

Travelodge appears 3rd

highest on the sponsored

ads below.

Around ¼ to 1/3 of a

companies traffic building

comes from PPC adverts

as they are at the top

of the search and drive a

lot of business towards

the companies advertising.

(Chaffey, 2013)

Don’t confuse with CPC

(cost per click) which

is a similar idea to PPC

however the ads for

CPC are not paid to be

displayed.

Companies can pay in excess of £10

depending on the keyword.

(Chaffey,2013) The company will

place a bid of the maximum amount

they are willing to pay for an

/advertisement and the higher the bid

the better position the ad will be in.

E.g. a quick search for budget hotels

shows that Premier Inn appear top in the advertisements.

21


Online Public Relation (PR)

Public relations are a very important

method that can determine the reputation

of a company. Online PR can persuade

customers to pick a certain company over

another so it is very important that each

company tries to have a good PR system

in place. Online PR is now a common

method used by nearly every business,

small or large. Businesses use online PR

to help promote their business, interact

with possible customers, to improve their

reputation and increase their customer

base.

The different methods used by

companies to increase their online PR

scheme is blogging, creating Facebook

and Twitter pages where they can

interact with their customers and also

monitoring discussions to do with their

business in case of scams or complaints

and many other methods to help build a

good reputation. The audience are now

connected to organizations. People can

now contact the companies instantly by

sending tweets (twitter) or by sending

Facebook messages. All 4 of the hotels

have Facebook pages where people can

send queries, complaints and see the

latest news and offers. Ibis is the only

chain that does not have a general

Twitter page, however Ibis has many

separate pages for local Ibis hotels.

All of the chains have a Facebook and

Twitter page , except Ibis, with regular

updates on their offers, competitions and

an easy way for customers to get in

contact. They have these pages running

so customers can get in contact with

them and build customer relations, which

will hopefully result in return custom.

22



The Travelodge Twitter site

has nearly half the amount of

followers that the Premier Inn

site has however, the

Travelodge page is very

efficient with the page

responding to different

queries, both good and bad.

The page responds on a

regular basis making it easy

for customers to get in contact

and ensure they feel valued.

23

Premier Inn has an efficient twitter

page with over 29,000 followers

proving that the page is popular and

appreciated by customers. Premier

Inn pride themselves on meeting

the customers needs and by having

a good Facebook and Twitter page

this will help meet demands of

some of their customers.



Holiday Inn has around 47,000

twitter followers on their page

and they regularly respond to

queries allowing customers to

get in contact easily and

efficiently.

The Ibis hotel chain does not run one general Twitter page.

Instead, the chain runs many different smaller twitter pages

for each of the local hotels. This could be beneficial as

people who have specific queries with a specific hotel

could get a more efficient response. Ibis do run a general

Facebook page where they post the latest offers and

respond to enquiries which helps people get involved with

the business.

24



Its evident in the pictures that customers use these sites to get in contact with

the brands for different information and help.

“Today, a company’s activity can be discussed and debated over the Internet,

with or without knowledge of that organization.” (Chaffey, 2013) The

members of the audience are now connected together. Hotel companies are

always being discussed and compared by customers who are debating which

hotels are the best and which hotels to stay in. Unlike on Facebook and

Twitter the company can not delete abusive messages or messages that

could be damaging to the brands reputation. However if a hotel is of a high

quality, discussion forums can be a very good and free way of online

marketing for the hotel. If there are many positive reviews, customers will

choose to stay in that particular hotel rather than others with a bad review.

Here you can see reviews of the Premier Inn In

London. The large majority of comments and

feedback are all positive. This is very good Online

PR for Premier Inn. Potential customers may

choose this hotel over others. All 4 of the hotel

brand are discussed on Trip advisor and other

comparison websites, giving customers the best

guidance on what hotel to book.

25



This image illustrates the different areas regarding online PR. All the

different areas and methods of online PR all link back to the main aim of

attracting new visitors and hopefully increasing your customer base. With

relations to each hotel, they all use different methods in each of the 4

sectors with the sole aim to increase awareness and sales.

Some companies use blogs to help create a buzz over their brand and

increase awareness by proving detailed information in blogs. The benefit of

blogs is that the company controls what is said within the blog so they can

create the blog to portray a certain reputation.

26



Summary

After assessing all of the information regarding the online PR from the four different

companies. It is obvious different hotel brands rate the importance of online PR

different to others. Premier Inn are the masters at online PR from the information

gained, both their Facebook and Twitter pages are run with quality and class.

Premier Inn updates the pages regularly with their latest deals and competitions

and also respond to different queries promptly. The number of followers reflects

their great service.

Travelodge only have half of the amount of followers that Premier Inn do however

they do run a very efficient page, responding to queries (mostly complaints) very

quickly. By having an efficient service if someone does have a question or

complaint, by dealing with it quickly will help increase the chances of the customer

returning.

The Holiday inn run their page very similar to Travelodge. They run their page to

mostly respond to questions and complaints rather than interacting with customers

regarding competitions and deals.

Ibis does not have an overall Twitter page just many individual pages where if

customers have stayed In a hotel they can contact the specific twitter page which is

good for lost items or specific questions regarding the area. they do run a main

Facebook page where they post their latest offers.

Overall Premier inns Facebook and Twitter pages have been voted the highest

scoring amongst their rivals, beating the others with their posts and high quality

colour schemes, they are ranked the best by Re-Ignite.

27


Types of mobile advertising

SMS – companies are only allowed to send

text messages via SMS when customers

have opt in when giving details, common

examples are dominos and Papa Johns

where by ordering by phone, they add your

number to their database and send you text

messages with promotions.

Branded Apps –all 4 hotels have branded

apps, with a few reviews for each app on

how effective the app is as a whole. The

apps available on iPhone via the Apple

market and some are compatible with the

iPad as well, whereas some apps are not.

Location – Geo-location, allows companies

to advertise to customers within their

proximity each mobile site and app wants to

know the current location of the mobile

phone, allowing them to track user location

and can gain data on their customers

geographical location.

Mobile

Social Networks- A lot of companies

advertise via social networks; which

are easily and commonly accessed

through mobile phones worldwide

everyday.

Bluetooth – there are some

developments with Bluetooth and

hotels. There is now an app that

allows you to connect to your room

door via Bluetooth and allows you to

open it, potentially cutting out the

traditional hotel check in.

28


In a study by Ofcom of consumer

phone usage (Ofcom, 2013)

according to the statistics gathered,

33% of all users questioned use their

phone for internet usage, the sample

group claimed to access the internet

more than 10 times per day. This

information illustrates the growing

trend in internet use by mobile phone.

The Hotels in this study are having to

deal with and link traffic building with

customer retention. Do the four

Hotels in question make mobile apps

or link sites to traffic building?

Mobile

29

The mobile site landing page for the

Travelodge opens onto a, quick

book page, this enables the user to

enter details such as, Hotel, place,

postcode or motorway. In this test

the user entered A40, this came up

with no rooms available on 26

January 2014 for 1 room with 1

adult. This mobile site has not

utilised the use of traffic building

into their mobile site, with no option

to gather any of the user’s details –

not ideal to build customer relation

not to mention customer retention

witch ultimately leads to traffic

building.

Holiday Inn has a 2 page step to get to

the mobile site page, and then the user

(if using a Blackberry) is given the

instruction to enter IHG.com in the web

browser on their phone. Below is the

2nd page in the 2 step process. The

landing page opens and a pop-up

Cookie usage and Settings message

appears, the user then has to accept to

go any further, this is somewhat

convoluted for a user in a hurry.

Of over 4000 respondents interviewed by

Kandar for Ofcom, 71% stated the most

important aspect of internet usage on

mobile phones was placed on using the

internet around places they go regularly

outdoors (Ofcom, 2013) This information

shows the importance placed on Business

to utilise and incorporate, efficient use of

traffic building techniques into the mobile

site market.


Mobile

30

This is an example of excellent use of live mobile

marketing used within the O2 Arena to promote

exclusive entry to their Priority moments lounge

and Blue room facilities.

Travelodge use geo tagging for local hotel booking, this locates

the customer and directs them to geo specific Hotels in their

area. All hotels should look to apply a similar app as illustrated

above, and possibly should, be used to offer geo specific promo

offers.


Google search on 15 February

throws up Travelodge at number

three on the first page of the Search

Engine Results Page (SERPS) this

result has been achieved through

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

(Google, 2014).

Search Engine Results Page (SERP’S)

31

Citation Flow – This number predicts how

influential a URL might be based on the number

of sites linking to it. The more links that the site

has, the higher it’s Citation Flow.

Trust Flow – This number predicts how

trustworthy a URL might be based on a

backlink’s proximity to trusted domains. Links

from within trusted neighbourhoods are more

trustworthy than links from spammy

neighbourhoods (Palocsay, 2014).

Page Rank – This

number shows the

ranking that Google gives

hotels in relation to their

Search Engine Results

Page.

The document title tag -for example Travelodge title is:

Travelodge | Cheap hotels

throughout the UK & Ireland,

see appendices.

32

SEO STAT

Meta description &

length – This should be

below 150 characters in

length. Only one hotel

goes above this number,

Travelodge.

Social Media

stats

From data analysed we can see that

Travelodge and the Premier Inn have the

highest ranking citation and trust flows, with a

score of 62 and 52(Travelodge) 61 and

58(Premier Inn) at the lower end of the scale we

have 32 and 33(Ibis) with 30 and 42(Holiday

Inn) this highlights the comparative differences

in citation trust flows and the need for further

input from the hotels at the lower end of the

spectrum with regards to improved SEO

monitoring. (Statistics gathering using Majestic

SEO)

From the numbers shown we can see that

The Premier Inn and Travelodge have a

much better grasp on the SEO of their

respective sites, and obviously monitor

and evaluate them accordingly (stats

gathered 15 Feb 2014).

The Holiday Inn is a close third in this

study behind Premier Inn and Travelodge

with Ibis coming bottom, Ibis has a lot of

catching up to do on their rivals in the

competitive marketing strategy of Search

Engine Optimization/Marketing.

Title length - This is

the length of the title tag

and – ideally should be

less than 75 characters, all

hotels have less than this

number

33

ISTICS


Conclusion

34

The four hotel websites researched for this study have all utilised similar traffic

building techniques. The hotels all have varying degrees of success with

Travelodge being the leader in terms of Google rankings, back links, trust flow,

citation and their use of Meta tag data.

Premier Inn are the largest in this sector in terms of size, and are in front with their

utilisation of Facebook, Twitter etc. These statistics show a close comparison with

Travelodge in terms of the figures illustrated within the SEO statistics.

Holiday Inn and Ibis have a lot of ground to catch up on if they want to be as

successful as the top two in this budget hotel sector.

All of the methods used show that Travelodge constantly monitor and evaluate their

SEO and traffic building techniques, with outstanding results whereas Premier Inn

have the best results with regard to the focus group findings and social media

status.

Email: The focus group results for email show that Premier Inn is the leader in terms of

quality, layout and call to action (likelihood of customers clicking on to a particular

request). Premier Inn received 4/5 for all three actions and was deemed to have the

best layout of the four Hotels.

Travelodge came a close second with the call to action being scored one below The

Premier Inn, Holiday Inn and Ibis were third and fourth respectively.

Social Media: The Premier Inn scored the highest here with a score of 4/5 on how appealing their

Twitter page looks; the call to action was also rated high with 4/5 on the likelihood

of customers to follow their page.

Similar patterns were present in relation to the previous scoring of emails by the

focus group, as the Premier Inn scored highest with Ibis trailing behind; Ibis has no

Twitter page at present therefore their Facebook page was used to determine the

focus group results, they did not fare any better here with the focus group, showing

low scores on looks and potential to follow them.

Mobile application: The focus group were asked here to score the Hotels on the layout, colour scheme

& design, and the likelihood of potential customers to use their mobile application.

Holiday Inn has shown great usage here and has scored better here and is in the

same position as Premier Inn and Travelodge. Ibis has scored the lowest here

again with a score of 2/5 on all three sections.

Online PR: This encapsulates all mediums, Twitter, Facebook. Premier Inn are the masters at

online PR from the information gained, both their Facebook and Twitter pages are run

with quality and class. Premier Inn updates the pages regularly with their latest deals

and competitions and also respond to different queries promptly. The number of

followers reflects their great service.

Travelodge only have half of the amount of followers that Premier Inn do however

they do run a very efficient page, responding to queries (mostly complaints) very

quickly. By having an efficient service if someone does have a question or complaint,

by dealing with it quickly will help increase the chances of the customer returning.

The Holiday Inn runs their page very similar to Travelodge. They run their page to

mostly respond to questions and complaints rather than interacting with customers

regarding competitions and deals.

Ibis does not have an overall Twitter page just many individual pages where if

customers have stayed in a hotel they can contact the specific twitter page which is

good for lost items or specific questions regarding the area. They do run a main

Facebook page where they post their latest offers.

Overall Premier Inns Facebook and Twitter pages have been voted the highest

scoring amongst their rivals, beating the others with their posts and high quality

colour schemes, they are ranked the best by Re-Ignite.


Conclusion

35


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37

Acknowledgments The editors would like to acknowledge the use of Majestic SEO, all

statistics are reproduced with the kind permission of:

http://www.majesticseo.com/

HOTEL WEB Comparison magazine for major UK hotels Appendices

Table 1: Referring domains monthly

Table 2: Backlinks reviewed monthly

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Table 3: Referring domains discovery yearly

Table 4: Backlinks discovery yearly

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0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

CitationFlow

TrustFlow

Table 5: Citation & Trust Flow

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a re - ignite publication

Documents

hotels uk

volume of hotel

ibis hotel chains

major uk hotels introduction

media publication

chains techniques

year students

focus group members