Mobile booking is going to be one of the most important trends that hotel marketers will have to take into account in 2014, according to a new infographic from hotel marketing agency Netaffinity.
The infographic reveals the most influential developments in hotel marketing over the next 12 months, outlining what marketers should concentrate on the most in 2014. It highlights the importance of providing mobile-optimised websites and the options for mobile booking because by 2017, half of all bookings will come from mobile, Netaffinity predicts.
Another aspect of marketing to be taken into consideration is consumers´ demand for video content. Data shows that last year, more than four in five people who booked hotel rooms online viewed a video guide of the hotel prior to making their decision.
The agency also predicts that this year, hotel marketers are going to focus on visitors who leave the website without converting, which in fact is the vast majority of users. By remarketing, advertisers will aim to bring these users back onto their sites and convert them into customers.
Netaffinity points out that marketers should embrace meta search marketing as yet another means to gain share from online travel agents. Other emerging trends to keep an eye on include multi-screen usage, semantic search, the rising importance of Google+ as a social networking platform and the launch of Google Carousel for hotel-related searches in Europe this year.