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Resort Advertising

rentals st bartsThe sophisticated French island of St. Barthelemy (aka St. Barts) packs a lot into a delightfully small island package. The cuisine ranks among the Caribbean’s best, and almost everything is stylish—from the chic boutiques in the capital, Gustavia, to the private villas in St. Barts that dot the hillsides. You can spend the morning on a picturesque beach, try on the latest French fashions in the afternoon, watch the sunset over the megayachts in the handsome harbor, then choose from dozens of excellent restaurants for an elegant evening meal. These perks make St. Barts one of the region’s most exciting islands; consider it a delightful.

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Debbie Szwast

Looking for a way to boost occupancy and improve revenue? Try gift cards. Many resort properties are capitalizing on the holiday season by offering gift cards redeemable for room nights, spa services, special packages, dining options, and more.

Pheasant Run Resort in the western suburbs of Chicago has taken to advertising its gift card program across all mediums—signage, radio tags, print ads, eblasts, and the property’s website all promote gift card sales. The resort is banking on the fact that people are looking for easy and affordable stocking stuffers for family and friends. Gift cards can be purchased in denominations of  $20. To encourage repeat customers, Pheasant Run Resort also is offering a limited-time special where customers receive and extra $50 for every $200 in gift cards they buy.

This type of loyalty program increases sales for both the buyer and the recipient. Plus, it can translate into revenue twice from the same transaction—once when the gift card is purchased and then again when it is redeemed when the guest hopefully spends additional money on services or amenities at the resort. Studies show that in general, consumers spend more than the face value of the gift card they are using. By limiting the time frame in which the gift card can be used, the hotel can control occupancy, as well.

From a profitability standpoint, gift cards improve cash flow, too. The hotel or resort benefits from the sale at the time the gift card is purchased, even though the property does not have to provide the rooms until the card is redeemed. So even if the property is currently sold out, it can still sell gift cards and increase revenue today.

In addition to boosting sales, gift cards can enhance brand identity. When the resort’s logo is emblazoned on the gift card, it is a constant reminder to the user of that property. It’s like a mini billboard in someone’s purse or pocket!

So this holiday season, if your hotel or resort is searching for a memorable way to generate sales, revenue and customer loyalty, why not implement a gift card program of your own? It could be just the gift you were hoping to receive.

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Nicole Wagner

Are you in the hospitality industry and looking to improve your company’s web site? Below are some tips from Stevens & Tate Marketing that will help you improve your site and make it more user-friendly for your visitors to generate more conversions:

Accommodations and Special Packages Are What They Are Looking For
Accommodations are the key pages for users. The guest really wants to know what the room looks like that they are considering to stay in. Make sure you present your rooms in the best light. This is also an area where you can upgrade users by presenting multiple rooms on one page and showcasing the amenities for each room type.

Specials and packages pages are key. Steer price sensitive customer to dates you need to fill by offering specials they can’t refuse when they visit this section of your website.

Headlines Should Be Clear
Hotels typically want to do fluffy text but their focus groups has found they need to be succinct. Make sure your headlines tell people what the copy is about so they can easily find what they are looking for. This also helps you be found within the search engines.

Content is King
Place your key content in prominent positions, but don’t be afraid to finish your story. If you are offering information that is valuable to the reader they will scroll and continue to read. Don’t overwhelm them in website content on one page however. Be sure to make the website appear simple so a user is not overwhelmed with the amount of copy on one page.

Use Skimming Words
Remember that users still skim your web pages. Make sure to incorporate key words that will resonate with the reader to draw them into the copy they are looking for. Bold headlines and short paragraphs help for them to find what they are looking for and for what you want them to read.

Coordinate Ads Into the Site

If you are trying to draw attention to special promotions or features in your website and you want to add call outs on different pages don’t make them look like ads. Make your ads look like part of the website rather than stand apart. Users will trust and read them more than if you make them look like banner ads.

Unique Audience Pages
You have different audiences visiting your website. Make pages unique to each audience and be sure to speak to them in their own language. From the home page call out these different audience segments and lead them to the pages that are meant for them.

Do Not Overdue Main Navigation
No more than 9 main navigation elements. Nine is all that a user can digest to make a logical decision without being confused. Make your navigation easy to understand and try to withstand from catchy phrases that may cause confusion.

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Nicole Wagner

Below are some of the top e-mail subject lines from resort/hotel e-mail marketing campaigns that we saw during the month of September.

Getaway this Month with our NEW Hot August Nights Package

Wake Up to the Beauty of Eagle Ridge

Make some memories at The Lake before the end of Summer

Your Labors Deserve A Getaway to The Abbey Resort

Labor Day and Fall Fun at The Abbey Resort

Celebrate Labor Day at The Abbey Resort

Live Entertainment at The Abbey Resort

August Beach Blast Cookout & Fireworks Show in Lake Lure……

Fall Events…Delaware Wine & Beer Festival

Ends Thursday! Sale starting at $49* one-way

Escape to Kohler this Summer for $148

Your August Pure Michigan Featured Deals

Luxury Escapes – August

Help Shanty Creek Name a Ski Run and WIN!

Snap up these great deals by Thursday!

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Tim Itano

A couple of months ago, my wife and I celebrated our 10-year anniversary at the Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago and were both amazed and grateful. Amazed at our stay and grateful for the many technological resources the travel/hospitality industry has inspired to help us make that outstanding selection.

Ten years ago, I distinctly remember booking our honeymoon in mixed bag fashion, partially in the traditional travel mode (looking at Fodor’s, calling a referred travel agency) with the other part using tools pretty innovative for the time like Expedia.com and similar price-comparison sites.

Fast forward ten years, and my wife and I are short listing our potential hotels via Google maps (for proximity to nearby attractions), screening those same short-listed hotels on their Facebook pages for happy travel stories, pulling up Groupons and posting photos of our stops on FB via iPhone.

When it came to making our stay great, the technological features of the hotel – including a über cool bathroom mirror that turned into a TV –  were great but weren’t the difference makers. It was the impeccable service that was evident from the moment our car pulled under their porte-cochére. Their service-first mentality wasn’t just a corporate mandate, it seemed genuine and true. When we sidled up to the well-appointed front counter, the conversation was warm and custom-tailored like a fine suit. Throughout the hotel, guests seemed more relaxed, more confident and friendly as you would expect having been treated like a million bucks.

And the room, I can’t say for sure that Donald Trump himself didn’t hand-pick our room for us, but with views of the river, the lake and half of Chicago’s finest skyline, who’s to say he didn’t?

Are you looking for a hospitality marketing agency that trumps the others? Stevens & Tate Marketing and Endora Digital Solutions, specialize in hotel/resort advertising and have provided innovative marketing solutions for hotels, resorts, CVB’s and lifestyle-based residential  communities throughout the U.S.

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Nicole Wagner

Getaway this Month with our NEW Hot August Nights Package

Wake Up to the Beauty of Eagle Ridge

Make some memories at The Lake before the end of Summer

Your Labors Deserve A Getaway to The Abbey Resort

Labor Day and Fall Fun at The Abbey Resort

Celebrate Labor Day at The Abbey Resort

Live Entertainment at The Abbey Resort

August Beach Blast Cookout & Fireworks Show in Lake Lure……

Fall Events…Delaware Wine & Beer Festival

Ends Thursday! Sale starting at $49* one-way

Escape to Kohler this Summer for $148

Your August Pure Michigan Featured Deals

Luxury Escapes – August

Help Shanty Creek Name a Ski Run and WIN!

Snap up these great deals by Thursday!

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Nicole Wagner

I watched a presentation given by the marketing heads for Marcus Hotels and Resorts as well as Morgans Hotel Group. Marcus Hotels and Resorts highlighted the Grand Geneva website and Morgans Hotel Group showcased the Sanderson Hotel in London’s website.

James Zito, VP of Interactive Marketing for Morgans Hotel Group discussed how they tried to develop a design that was unique to a boutique property. He stated “There is a unique reason why people stay at boutique property and we wanted to showcase that in our websites.” He called there websites an ‘immersive visual experience’ in trying to bring the property to life.

Some of the unique features regarding his websites includes the ability for the site to resize as you make your browser window smaller or larger. There is a lot of nightlife and social experience that goes on with the Morgans hotels and they wanted to share that using video and imagery. The calendar experience is almost full size and integrates with the blog that highlights experiences happening in the city where the hotel is located.

Both Marcus and Morgans Hotel Group used focus groups and extensive usability testing to determine the best direction to take in their design. Morgans Hotel Group spent over days watching focus groups use the new websites to see how they navigated through and made revisions that would accommodate any confusion the test user had.

Both companies also made sure their sites will built to be SEO friendly. Morgans has two copies of their website a flash and html version. The html version resides under the flash version – called progressively enhanced. The html version is used for both the search engines and for mobile phones.

What are your thoughts on both the Morgans Hotel websites and Marcus Hotels and Resorts websites? We would love to hear your comments.

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