Would you like to recieve more international visitors to your hotel? To have your venue referenced in a travel guide can be a very powerful marketing tool. Why, how and which are the main travel guides? Below you will find a small introduction to the subject.
Travel Guides: A Powerful Marketing Tool
In your customer segment ´personal and leisure´ ( see the article ´What is your hotel customer segmentation?´)there are two types of travellers: those who phone travel agencies to book hotels, transport and activities; and the ones who ask for advice from their friends, research online and, more often than not, purchase an additional travel guide for the country they will be visiting.
These travellers tend to use only one source of information, they cross check the information, make a sort of mix and then make a concious decision based on this knowledge. If your hotel is classed as number 1 on TripAdvisor, has a great website and on top of that a friend recommends it, it is almost a guaranteed booking! But to also be present in the travel guide they have just purchased could just be the cherry on top that will make the final push on the ´book now´ button! Another great thing is that being in the hard copy travel guides can mean taking bookings in-situ, which means no commission!;)
How To Get Your Hotel Mentioned
Good question! Travel guides do not all work in the same way. Here are the different ´types´ of travel guides I have noticed:
- Explorer: Impossible to influence their choices of recommendation. They have a reporter who travels across a country every year (or every 2 years)to update the guide content. This reporter performs a kind of investigation (just as a traveller would do) to uncover the establishments that, according to the criteria of the travel guide, can be most recommended. This type of reporter travels ´incognito´only sometimes introducing themselves after having tested out your services. However, it is sometimes possible to fill in a form recommendatind your hotel… they say on the website that they’ll pass on the information to the writer.
- Collaborative : This type of travel guide collates recommendations from their readers and applies them to update their information, or even to add the hotel directly on the “online” version of the travel guide.
- Comercial : Only paying venues get added and mentioned in these guides.
More and more often, these hard copy travel guides have an online version as well as a booking option directly through their website. They use the prices from booking.com or Expedia, for example… so, if you’re not on these channels, then your hotel won’t appear in the “book a hotel” part of these travel guides websites…
Which Are The Main Travel Guides?
With the help of tourism professionals feedbacks on LinkedIn, I have compilated a list for you with the main travel guides:
In french :
- Le Routard
- Michelin Green Guides
- Petit Futé
- Guides Voir
- Ulysse
International :
- Lonely Planet
- Frommers
- Rough Guides
- DK Eyewitness Travel/ Traveldk.com
- Let’s Go
- Moon Travel
- Conde Nast Traveller/ Concierge.com
- Fodor’s Travel Guides
I hope this article has made the subject clearer for you, and maybe even given you some inspiration! If you see any way of improving this list, information needs modifying or travel guides to be added, do not hesitate to inform me.
Translated by Holly Cooper Chima