Welcome back to our weekly roundup of the best news, studies and guides of the week. We hope everyone is fully back in the swing of things after the holidays and ready for a great 2017.
January is off with a bang, as the Turkish Competition Authority fines Booking.com $650,000 after finding its rate parity and best price guarantee clauses violate their competition laws. After beginning their investigation in August, Turkey seems to be joining the competition law authorities in other countries pushing back against rate parity clauses.
In less contentious news, Kantar Millward Brown has released a report on Generation Z. They claim it as the first such global research report, and took a look how the kids today look at ads. A little differently than most of us, it turns out.
Finally, we’ve got three guides for you. How should you be advertising on Facebook, Google and Bing? How can you rank higher on TripAdvisor? Lastly, our 17 Hotel Marketing Trends for 2017.
Check them all out below:
Turkish Competition Board Fines Booking.com
The Turkish Competition Authority has taken the decision to impose an administrative fine of $650,000 on Booking.com regarding its “best price guarantee” practice.
The Competition Authority decided unanimously that the provisions of the ‘price and quota parity’ and the ‘best price guarantee’ practice were in breach of the relevant clauses of “Regulation on Fines to Apply in Cases of Agreements, Concerted Practices and Decisions Limiting Competition, and Abuse of Dominant Position”. They evaluated the contracts signed by Booking.com with accommodation facilities, and found that the contracts are in the scope of the regulation.
The board decided to impose an administrative fine of TL 2.5 million ($650,000) on Booking.com.
Advertising on the Internet: Facebook vs Google Adwords vs Bing. Which is better for your hotel?
Deciding what network to advertise on and how much time and money to spend on each of those networks can be extremely confusing for a smaller hotel. For hotels with limited marketing budgets, the three platforms that are generally recommend are Facebook, Google Adwords and Bing Ads. Each of these networks has its pluses and minuses, depending on what your advertising goals are.
These platforms have different strengths and weaknesses, and different requirements. This means that each requires a different approach.
Here is some advice to help you cut through the noise and let your advertising efforts to be heard.
How TripAdvisor’s Algorithm Works & How To Rank Higher
TripAdvisor’s ranking algorithm relies on three things: Quality, Recency and Quantity. Why does your ranking matter?
It matters because reading guest reviews has become a standard process in the travel shopping journey. 95% of travelers read travel reviews when planning a trip and 76% of travel shoppers believe that online reviews provide valuable insight.
According to comScore, the most visited travel website in the world is TripAdvisor. They receive almost 67 million unique monthly visitors. And users constantly upload new content to the site – they write an average of 280 new reviews every minute.
TripAdvisor is an important channel for hoteliers to rank highly on. There are certain things you can do to ensure your hotel ranks higher on TripAdvisor. In this article, Leonardo outlines how TripAdvisor’s Popularity Ranking algorithm works and what you can do to improve your ranking.
Marketing to Generation Z
Kantar Millward Brown has released what it claims is the first global research into how Generation Z – people aged between 16 and 19 – respond to advertising.
The topline takeaway is that Gen Z, despite being “born with a mobile phone in their hand” are quite responsive to “traditional advertising”. In fact, the study says that “Gen Z are generally more open to outdoor and TV ads than to digital ads, even though they spend more time online.”
Many Gen Z in the survey felt “overwhelmed” by how much advertising they see, particularly online. This creates the seeming disconnect between how Gen Z lives its life and where it likes to be marketed to. Cinema, TV or outdoor ads get a more positive response because those ads are not directly related to their online searches. There’s more of an opportunity to surprise and delight.
17 Hotel Marketing Trends for 2017
(Thanks to Tnooz for featuring our infographic!)
Hotel marketing specialist Net Affinity has come up with its 17 big trends for 2017.
The insight from the Dublin-based company includes some of the tips you might expect such as those around mobile and mobile payment as wells as other less expected ones such as the rise of Bing and Instagram.
The company is forecasting much ecommerce via Instagram as the image-sharing service has begun working with leading retail brands. Net Affinity also sees further commercial opportunities arising for hotel marketing via Snapchat and Facebook.
