Okay, as a hotel marketing manager you can decide to pay a large amout of money to third party booking sites and affiliate partners in order to sell rooms. It is the easiest way to attract guests to your hotel but unfortunately also the most expensive!!!
An increasing number of hotels are becoming aware of the opportunities to sell rooms via direct online channels and to avoid expensive sales commissions. In the short term you need to invest money in these channels, but in the long term you will have a smile on your face for your decision to do so :)
There are plenty of online channels you can focus on to attract visitors and new sales such as: Google Adwords (paid results), Google Organic (not-paid results), email marketing, social media marketing and mobile marketing. One of my favorite direct channels is Google Local (or Google Maps) because 1) it will get you a very high ranking in Google (non-paid results), 2) it is free and 3) it is highly effective. Read more »
