Why Every Hotel and CVB Should Consider Pinterest

Recently I started dabbling with the latest social media network, Pinterest.  Yes, I know what you’re thinking: another one? Who has time for another social media network?  This is one social media network that I believe every Director of Sales and Marketing of hotels, resorts and destinations will want to make time for because of (A) its incredible rise as a traffic generator, and (B) the particular suitability for events, tourism and culinary marketing.

Pinterest is like a giant bulletin board.  Using their Twitter or Facebook login, users “pin” favourite images to their own or others’ pinboards.  A pinboard is a collection of images (a.k.a. “pins”), usually chosen around a common theme.  Users can either upload images from their own computer, enter the url of the image or use the Pint It button,  a bookmarking tool that allows users to upload images right from their web browser’s toolbar.

To learn how to set it all up quickly, download Hubspot’s guide, How to Use Pinterest for Business.
 
As with other social networks, the goal with Pinterest is to build awareness, drive traffic to your
website and convert visits into leads.  Let’s say for instance you are Turtle Bay Resort, a beautiful independent resort on the North Shore of Oahu, in Hawaii.  Your destination is known for surfing and destination weddings, and you want to promote your meeting packages for groups looking for high-impact team-building activities.

Create one pinboard for each of those topics and name them: say Surf’s Up, Turtle Bay Romance, and Team Building Oahu Style.  That way you can make sure you attract followers who are passionate about each of those topics.

Next, start uploading:  shots of last week’s surfing competition, the photos your banquet manager took of Saturday’s beach-side wedding set-up and the candid of your client’s corporate group heading out onto the rope course.  Make sure the photos are clear and that you have the permission to post from anyone who could be recognizable in the picture.  Then pin away!

By logging in through Twitter or Facebook, you’ll be able to let your followers know you’ve started posting on Pinterest.  Add the Pinterest follow button to your website so that visitors can pin your website photos to their board.  Encourage your guests to take pictures of events and pin them.  You can even launch a Pinterest contest and give prizes or discounts to the best shots!

The promotion possibilities are endless.  What’s more, Pinterest users pin photos they LIKE and that make them feel good, so it’s likely to generate more positive vibes about your venue or location.

For a great discussion on applications of Pinterest for hotels, resorts, destinations and even restaurant, check out Jitendra Jain's post on the Hotel Internet Marketing Blog.

I predict that hotels and destinations that are serious about building their brand and enhancing their visual attraction to niche audiences will soon be flocking to Pinterest.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and Pinterest enables you to speak volumes!

The Destination Doctor is in

This post is by guest contributor and notable travel writer, Allan Lynch
Read more about Allan at http://www.destinationdoctor.ca/

I have been on fam trips on four continents. There are great fam trips, good fam trips and unbelievable fam experiences.

My work, when I return to my office, is to interpret a place for readers who might be interested in bringing their corporate group or incentive program to the destination. It’s surprising how bad most destination Convention & Visitor Bureaus (CVBs) are with follow up. Face-to-face people will tell you, “Call me anytime, I’m happy to help.” I know they mean it. But then they disappear behind an impenetrable technological veil. It’s perverse that we are the most connected society in history, yet have all these impediments to communication. Things like a telephone menu that either doesn’t list the department you’re trying to reach or is only accessible if you know how a surname and how to correctly spell it.

In my work I have learned that accuracy is a loose concept for many destinations and properties. Why can’t a property offer consistent information about their facilities? Many hotels give conflicting information about simple things like room count or restaurant names. A restaurant may have been renamed and both identities are left floating on the information highway. Confusion grows when the website describes it as fine dining, a guidebook says it’s a bistro, a press kit calls it a lounge-restaurant. Have you one eatery or three?

For a piece I was doing for meetings magazine I needed to confirm a couple of details I couldn’t get from the resort’s website. The moment I heard the bright, enthusiastic fresh PR grad voice on the phone I knew I was in trouble. I wasn’t looking for a comp stay, free meal or to sell an ad. I wanted to know her property’s total room count, how many were suites, ballroom capacities and number of break out rooms. The woman I spoke with told me she wasn’t familiar with the magazine and didn’t think they wanted to associated with marginal media and hung up. Where is the harm in saying we have 400 guestrooms and 30,000 sq ft of meeting space?

I did what any self-respecting journalist would do and contacted their biggest competitor. That hang up meant the competition got exclusive mention and because of editorial cycles that first resort was shut out of the magazine for three-to-five years. They were also shut out of any Google searches a planner might do.

For many years I thought it was only media who didn’t get their telephone calls and email returned. I have learned that an astonishing number of meeting planners are also ignored.

As covered in Greenfield's November e-newsletter, the failure to return information requests is so rampant it prompted the Institute for Hospitality Management to conduct a secret-shopper style survey with 167 hotels. Only 15 percent of properties send a tailor-made offer based on client needs. This raises the question are staff working for you or the competition?

So what are three best practices to ensure you’re not working for the competition:

1. Make sure requests are not only directed to the correct people but that they are being received by them. One destination made an incorrect assumption about who was managing their trade website. Because of my questions they found 400 unanswered requests from media, meeting planners, incentive houses, travel agents and tour companies. How much business was lost because of that?
2. Have a policy detailing who handles media requests and ensure that the front desk, receptionist or whoever answers the telephone knows who to forward calls to. Media have deadlines. If the spokesperson isn’t available now, when are they back? And who stands in in their absence? Hotels always have a duty manager on site, so there should be a duty person to handle meeting planner and media requests.
3. Items 1 and 2 are reactive policies. What about a proactive policy? Do you court media coverage? Do you know how to get media and meeting planners interested in your product/service/destination? Do you have a communications plan and a concise message for both traditional and social media? It’s great that you’re using multiple platforms from traditional and social media to face-to-face fams to connect with clients, but you need to have something to say beyond book with us. When someone asks why they should focus on your property don’t tell us it’s how friendly your staff is – smiles are your business. Sell us.

All of us work in a 24/7 world-wide environment. Your competition is no longer the place down the street, it’s every place and property down every street, in every time zone. You cannot afford to miss connecting with anyone who is interested in you on any level. Today’s board meeting could lead to a national conference. Every call, every request is important.