Panel members were from Secret Escapes, Voyage Prive, Groupon and Travelzoo. Obviously each of these companies has a different business model, but what they have in common is a large subscriber / membership base, from Secret Escapes 1.5m to Groupon’s 33m customers. And it is that large audience that is the key to the success of any flash sales.

However, as the audience was predominantly Revenue & Finance Managers, you could sense that they consider flash sales as something of a necessary evil. Questions from the audience revolved around the commission levels charged by the companies concerned and the feeling that hotels feel held to ransom by the increasingly high commission levels charged by these 3 rd parties. Let’s face it, in days of old commission was 10% regardless of what the promotion or package and regardless of who the third part was. Now commission levels can be as high as 35%, and if this is on a heavily discounted price, hoteliers are more than likely losing money, unless they can generate sufficient incremental spend from guests during their stay.

But what occurred to me as a marketer, was that the main reason why the audience get hung up on the commission levels is because they are Revenue Managers and not marketers. So they just see the commission as reducing their achieved average net rate. Which is not the way to see it!!!! Before companies such as Travlezoo existed, the only way to promote a tactical offer to 25million people was to advertise extensively in, for example, Sunday papers, colour supplements and Readers Digest. At £50,000 per page for such publications it required a high advertising budget, with no guarantee of incremental business. You spent a fortune, then held your breath and prayed!

With most of the third parties there is relatively little or no upfront cost and commissions are only payable if you get the business. So it’s a win-win situation. And even a commission level of 35% is nothing compared with any other way of reaching such large numbers of potential customers. And let’s remember that these people have chosen to receive information about hotel deals, so they are highly targeted, which in days of old, you simply couldn’t do.

Flash sales are definitely here to stay. If hotels structure their offers correctly they shouldn’t dilute the existing business or customer base. Customers increasingly are loyal to the third-party brands, so  hotels need to work with a variety of third parties. A win-win situation should always be the outcome.

Let’s go back to the mid-‘80’s when so many brands were evolving and going global, as so many new countries ‘appeared’ and became accessible. I worked for Holiday Inns at that time, then the largest hotel chain in the world with 1760 hotels. For each of our brands we developed maximum as well as minimum standards, so that a Holiday Inn Express could never be better than a Holiday Inn and a Crowne Plaza had clearly superior standards (and larger bedroom sizes) again. Exceptions to these standards were few, so we had clear differentiators and brand positionings. What went wrong is that every hotel chain wanted global distribution of their brands. So if an owner had a fab site or hotel under development in a city you wanted to be in you would do a deal with him, almost no matter what. If he wanted to pay the lowest fees possible (ie budget brand) but had essentially an upscale product, a deal was often done, rather than lose out to a competitor. Conversely someone with a mid-scale development might have wanted the kudos locally of having an upscale international brand attached to his property. And so another type of deal would be done. All of which totally undermined the unique positioning of the brands. And this has continued as more and more cities became available for hotel developments.

So, those are the underlying reasons why there is little difference between brands and why Ludlow is right.

But surely we have sufficient top-notch marketers in our industry to have developed unique values and personalities for their brands, even if the tangible USP’s are few and far between? Of course, their hands are tied by the physical product and locations, but it is possible. A few I believe merit mention are Malmaison, Premier Inn and InterContinental. Each has a clear brand personality & positioning, tangible USP’s and achieves excellence in their market segment. They operate in completely different market segments to each other and yet are all aspirational in their own way and clearly differentiated from their competitors.

Subject: 5 Reasons Not to Do Social Marketing

#1 – You have the writing skills of a coffee table. If you can’t provide relevant content (or hire someone to provide it), you probably won’t do well in the social arena. Engagement is a product of interesting, timely and relevant writing.

#2 – You don’t have any time. Social marketing takes time and effort, if you can’t invest the time it won’t work. It doesn’t have to be your time but it has to take SOMBODY’S time.

#3 – Your website hasn’t been updated since 2002. Social marketing comes last. If you don’t have a good site, good products and a business plan, you need to focus on the basics before implementing a social marketing program.

#4 – You don’t know how to use social sites. If you don’t have a Linkedin profile and a Facebook profile, and think twitter is something kids do after school, you probably need to get online and start using social. Before you set up a social marketing program learn how to use social media personally.

#5 – You actually believe there is no value in social media. One million plus groups on Linkedin, over 835,000,000 users worldwide on Facebook, millions of companies engaged on twitter and other social platforms, they could all be wrong. A passing fad, well most marketers don’t think so.

Photographer for Hotels – why good photos trump bad ones.

See on www.howtoincreasehoteloccupancy.com

With many travelers ready to return to the travel they gave up during the recession, Facebook Credits can help socially savvy hotels get ahead of the competition.

See on www.mdgadvertising.com