MARKETING REPORT - 2001

Listed below are some of the main marketing activities, which took place during 2001. As the main marketing publication for the Irish Hotels Federation, the Be Our Guest guide was once again a very successful promotional tool in both the domestic and overseas markets. As part of the Be Our Guest marketing initiative, a new web site – Irelandhotels.com went live in September and represents all premises featured in the guide. It is anticipated that this site, with its online booking engine will play an increasingly important role in the overall marketing of the Federation in the coming years.

BE OUR GUEST – 2001

The 2001 edition of the Be Our Guest guide featured over 1,050 entrants, over 480 pages covering all areas of Ireland including Northern Ireland. In addition to information on the individual hotels the guide also features golf, angling and conference sections and detailed touring maps.

Once again almost 170,000 copies of the Guide were distributed in over 20 overseas markets. In addition it was promoted extensively in both overseas and domestic shows. The Be Our Guest guide was also available through book stores, car hire companies, Regional Tourist Offices and from the travel trade. As part of the Be Our Guest marketing initiative, properties listed in the guide were able to avail of a number of training workshops and seminars. These included seminars on How To sell at Workshops, Internet Marketing seminars and a series of workshops on the new web site initiative, Irelandhotels.com. Also as part of the Be Our Guest marketing initiative, the Hotels Federation became one of the sponsors of the 2001 St. Patrick’s Day Festival, which included PR coverage, banner advertising along the route of the parade and coverage on their popular web site.

A series of workshops to promote the new web site took place in July and August in Dublin, Cork, Killarney, Waterford, Sligo and Belfast and again in Dublin in September. The web site was developed and maintained by Parcom Media and the online reservation system is provided by SynXis Corporation, an application service provider delivering proven reservation management and distribution systems to the hospitality industry worldwide. Through a suite of Internet-based applications, SynXis empowers hotel operators with the ability to consolidate and control hotel inventory from all sources. It also provides money-saving direct access to the major GDSs and other Internet distribution systems at a low cost and helps build hotel revenue by enabling consumers to conveniently book hotel reservations online through the hotel’s Web site.

An important feature of the site is the new multi-property search, which displays only those properties that meet the visitors selected criteria, including the desired region and property services.

The site also features a Special Offers section which lists thousands of offers which can be booked online and a Gift Voucher section, which allows visitors to the site to order a gift voucher online for the premises of their choice. The Special Offers section has been particularly popular with visitors to the site.

Irelandhotels.com together with the Be Our Guest guide now forms an integral part of the Irish Hotels Federation’s marketing activities and a specific marketing campaign promoting Irelandhotels.com ran in both the domestic and UK press, which resulted in a significant increase in traffic to the site. An intensive marketing and promotional campaign centred on irelandhotels.com will commence early in 2002.

INN-SITE INITIATIVE

As part of the Irish Hotels Federation’s commitment to bringing members the most up-to-date information on web marketing issues, the Inn-site web service was set-up in early 2001 with Trianion Training to offer members the opportunity to avail of up-to date advice in a fast changing sector. This service will continue to run in 2002 and has proved valuable to many members to date, in particular the IHF’s own web site irelandhotels.com which is audited on a monthly basis to ensure that it remains at the top of all search engine rankings.

The Inn-Site service offers many benefits:

It promotes a member’s site in the search engine listings:

• checks a site for the key elements that improve search engine ratings
• makes sure there are no features that reduce search engine rating
• if it’s necessary to make changes to meta tags, they are agreed and a revised home page is compiled to send to the Web Server
• registers the site with the most important search engines
• reports back on a site’s ranking in the search engine results four times a year, to make sure that a site stays at its optimum position.

It also provides valuable hints, tips, information and reference sites to help develop a web site.

Inn-Site membership also provides access to the following resources:

• A bi-monthly newsletter featuring hints, tips and the latest information that can be applied to a site.
• Password access to the Inn-Site web site which provides:
  • A permanent source of advice about search engine strategies, site promotion and effective areas of content that can be used to pull in visitors and convert them into paying guests.
  • Access to the discussion group exclusively for subscribers to ask questions, share ideas and benefit from discussing the business of marketing hotels on the internet
  • Expert advice from Inn-Site’s specialists who will be there answering questions in the discussion group and providing confidential replies to issues
  • Links to sites that will give ideas for the design and content of a site, advice on its development and details of free resources to make a site even better.

CONSUMER SHOWS & TRADE FAIRS

The Irish Hotels Federation attended the promotions listed below. In addition the Be Our Guest was distributed at a number of events by the Irish Tourist Board in each market.

	Event	Location
JANUARY	Reiseliv	Oslo, Norway
	CMT	Stuttgart Germany
	Holiday World Manchester	Manchester, Bord Failte Stand
	Matka	Helsinki, Finland, Bord Failte Stand
	Holiday World Dublin	R.D.S., Dublin, IHF Stand
	Holiday World Belfast	Kings Hall, Belfast, IHF Stand
FEBRUARY	CBR Munich	Germany
	Holiday World Cork	IHF Stand
	Scotland Holiday Show	Glasgow, Bord Failte Stand
	Birmingham Holiday Show	Birmingham, IHF Stand
MARCH	Consumer Day	The Rai, Amsterdam
	Consumer Day	Brussels
	TUR 2001	Gothenburg, Sweden
MAY	Ireland Travel Trade Workshop	R.D.S., Dublin
AUGUST	Kerrygold Horse Show	RDS, Dublin
NOVEMBER	World Travel Market 2001	London

BE OUR GUEST 2001 – DISTRIBUTION PLAN

Almost 400,000 copies of the Be Our Guest guide were distributed during 2001, the majority of which were distributed in over 20 overseas markets. A significant portion of the guides were distributed at trade and consumers shows in both the domestic and overseas markets, with the Irish Hotels Federation represented at even more promotions during 2001 than previous years.

Each year over 50% of the guides are distributed by January with an additional 20% distributed by March. Overall requests from car hire companies and bookstores as well as general enquiries were up on previous years. As were the number of guides distributed through attendance at overseas promotions.

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