In the web's every changing attempts to generate money, TripAdvisor is adding a "Business Listing" component that adds your web adress, email and phone number to your listing.

Here is the web link to sign up: http://www.tripadvisor.com/BusinessListings

Here is how to sign up by phone   1-866-322-5942 (toll-free within US)   +1-617-431-5424 (outside US)   Monday-Friday, 9:30am-5:00pm EST

 Here are the annual rates:

Rooms

10 or fewer - $600   Discounted to   $420

11-25        - $1000  Discounted to   $700

26-50         - $1500 Discounted to $1050 

 If all the top inns in your area refuse to pay this fee, then I think you should decline to pay TripAdvisor.

The other component to consider is whether you have already made your inventory available to be booked via the TripAdvisor booking engine.  If you are, then paying for this listing might save you the commission that the TripAdvisor booking engine would take.

 

 

Previously, only hotels and bed & breakfasts personally visited and selected by a Karen Brown Research-Editor for our published guides were recommended on www.karenbrown.com. However, we have launched a new feature to our website: READER DISCOVERIES and we are now very pleased to share places our readers have discovered with all travelers who visit www.karenbrown.com.

Therefore, there is now the opportunity to have your property included and featured on our website before being visited by a Karen Brown Research-Editor. Simply ask one of your guests to write and submit a review of your property and their write up will be included on our website as a READER DISCOVERY.

    Anyone who wants to submit a review should go to:

    http://www.karenbrown.com/user_discovery.php (the Reader Discovery link on our website) and then simply follow the instructions.

When we receive the Reader Discovery recommendation for your property we will contact you to confirm the information and details before it is published on our website. You will then also have the opportunity to submit up to four color pictures.

Once your property becomes a READER DISCOVERY on www.karenbrown.com it will be featured on our website, FREE of charge for three months, with all our Karen Brown recommendations. At the end of three months, we will contact you to see if you would like to continue having your property prominently featured on maps and lists with ALL other Karen Brown Recommendations. You will be able to do so by paying a fee of $150 for an additional twelve months. If you decide you do not wish to pay for the continued, prominent exposure, the review of your property will remain on www.karenbrown.com but, only as part of the Reader Discovery archives. Visitors to our website will only see the review of your property when they click on "Reader Discovery - List All" in the key box below the maps.

 It is important to understand that even if your property is featured as a READER DISCOVERY on our website this does NOT guarantee inclusion in a future edition of a Karen Brown Guidebook. To become a Karen Brown Recommended Property, either on our website or in one of our guidebooks, it is necessary to be visited by a Karen Brown Research-Editor.  However, we greatly appreciate recommendations we receive from Karen Brown Travelers. In fact, many of our reader recommendations over the years have often resulted in some of our "best leads". So encourage your guests to share their review of your property so that we give it special consideration and so that your property will be featured on our website!

    If you would prefer to be placed on our list of properties to see but do not wish to be a reader recommended property please email the following information to admin@karenbrown.com:

    1.   Name of Property

    2.   Website Address, Email Address

    3.   Complete mailing address INCLUDING COUNTRY & REGION

    4.   Telephone number, Fax number

    5.   Short description of your property
 
 Again, only properties personally visited and selected by a Karen Brown Research-Editor will be featured as a Karen Brown Recommendation on www.karenbrown.com or included in a future edition of a Karen Brown Guide.

SCAM alert! Did you get an email like the one at the bottom of this posting?  read the info at http://stopecg.blogspot.com/2006/11/euro-business-guide.html

Euro Business Guide

Misleading ‘contracts’ sent via Email

When your company starts to get a bad reputation what is the best thing to do, change the name! Or at least spin off a new company with a slightly different name. We first saw the tactic employed by Novachannel AG, where we have had reports of many different names on the mailshots E.g. Camping Guide, Tourist Directory Restaurant Guide, Travel Agency Tourist Directory and Tourist Directory Guide D'Hotels

Next up came the ECG who at the start of this year began mailing new forms under the trading name E.C.G., S.L. the forms had titles such as Industrie En Handel 2006 and Commerce Et Industrie 2006.

 

From: Euro Business Guide [mailto:eubizguide@gmx.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 5:14 AM
To: mail
Subject: Business Registration 2009/2010

Dear Madam/Sir,

In order to have your company inserted into the registry of European companies for 2009/2010,
please print, complete and return the enclosed form (PDF file) to the following address:

Click here to download the form for your inserting in the Euro Business Guide.

Euro Business Guide
P.O. Box 2021
3500 GA UTRECHT
The Netherlands
 
e-mail: registereubizguide@operamail.com
Fax: 0031 205 248 107

Updating is free of charge!
 
To unsubscribe, please send an email to unsubscribeeubizguide@mail.com

In the May 11th PAII email offer:  "Twelve Travel Directories Have Partnered With PAII to Offer Members a Special Summer Deal."

There are six Four Star sites in this offer.  <<<<<<<<< Consider these!

There is one Three Star sites in this offer. <<<<<<<<< Consider these!

There are three Two Star sites in this offer .<<<<<<<<< Pass on these!

There are two One Star sites in this offer. <<<<<<<<< Pass on these!

Become an Inn Strategist member to save time and maximize your advertising BANG FOR YOUR BUCK!

Kayak.com launches TravelPost.com to be a competitor to Tripadvisor.

http://network.bookingbuddy.com is a new PPC portal for bed and breakfast inns.

Now three years later, this same debate is as hot a topic as it was three years ago. Just some historical review...

Merchant and Hotel Chain Part Ways Over Disagreement on Commission

August 22, 2005 -- As the debate over the place of the Merchant Model in the hotel industry continues, two established players in the industry have parted ways after failing to reach an agreement on commission levels.

After weeks of negotiation, the specialist hotel review company Skoosh http://www.skoosh.com and the landmark property Danubius Hotel Gellért http://www.danubiushotels.com/gellert in Budapest have agreed not to sign a contract for 2006. They're now both eagerly watching to see who predicted the market correctly.

The Merchant Model has long been a cornerstone in the sales strategy for individual hotels and chains alike. Positioning themselves between traditional wholesalers and commissionable retailers, the Merchants (including many of the big names: expedia, hotels.com, lastminute.com)typically command a margin of around twenty five percent. Merchant distribution is split between direct sales through their own sites and affiliate agreements with other sites and partners in the industry.

During the early days of internet sales the boundaries between the different types of distributors were blurred, with some operators straddling all areas. Some canny wholesalers started to tack retail websites onto their existing businesses. Selling directly to the public, whilst still buying at wholesale prices they made phenomenal profits, often around the fifty percent mark. Hoteliers felt that they had been duped and, in many cases, they had. When the hoteliers cottoned on there grew a general antipathy towards any distributors who were perceived to be making excessive profits. Unable to distinguish between the market segments many hotels and hotel chains exercised a blanket policy to exclude wholesalers and Merchants from their distribution plans.

But there was another issue pulling hoteliers away from Merchants and that was the growing evidence that they could market their hotels effectively themselves. Some major corporations, including Hilton and Starwood, dropped all their wholesale and merchant partners to concentrate on selling directly and through commissionable agents who typically earn around 10%. Their explanation was simple – they believed that their brands were strong enough and that customers could and would book with them through their corporate websites without the need to pay the Merchants their cut.

The policy to cut out all 3rd party internet sales caused a lot of tension in the market. Dorian Harris, Director of the Merchant operator Skoosh, argues that it was an unnecessarily radical move.

"Hotels have always needed different distribution channels and the arrival of the internet doesn't negate that need," he comments. "I don't think the hoteliers realized what they were getting for their twenty five percent. The marketing and advertising budgets of Merchants are huge and we've built strong brands ourselves. Hilton may think that customers want a Hilton or nothing at all but frankly that's naïve. We have a lot of loyal customers at Skoosh and if Hilton hotels don't appear on our sites our customers won't book them."

Not all hoteliers have risked excluding Merchants altogether. Some are now trying to encourage merchants to drop their margins from 25% to 10% to match those offered to the major airline systems or GDS's. Zoltán Bogár, director of sales, for Danubius Hotel Gellért in Budapest, is trying to convince long term merchant partners to do just that. "Right now we are comfortable with sales from our own site, from local specialists and direct bookings from the public," Bogár explains, "but we accept we may need to work again with the merchant model in the future."

The strategy pursued by the Danubius Hotel Gellért is not the same being advocated for the rest of the Danubius chain which will retain its cooperation with the merchants on the same basis as it has until now. Bogár comments, "There are many hotels within Danubius Hotels Group where the merchant model is very useful and has a positive effect even on average rates."

But Harris believes the Danubius Hotel Gellért will be back online with merchants within a year.

"Discussions have been very amicable between Skoosh and the Gellért and it just comes down to who judged the market correctly. Naturally, I think it's us because the internet is our business and we're in a far better position to predict the future. Even though the internet has allowed hotels to operate on a more level playing field in terms of getting their site found, an individual hotel is still better off exploring other channels and not putting all its eggs in one basket. The merchant model is far from dead."

For more information contact:
Dorian Harris
http://www.skoosh.com

Before the Internet, travel agents used the GDS computer system to book rooms for their clients.

Look back on GDS = Global Distribution System post for review.

In the early days of the Internet, a few Internet entrepreneurs decided to create online travel agencies which accessed the GDS database to provide room inventory to online travelers seeking to book accommodations.

Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity and Orbitz are examples of these online travel agencies. As these sites grew in popularity, they decided to bypass the existing GDS room inventory and sign direct contracts with properties. This new system is called the IDS or Internet Distribution System.

Instead of the standard 10% GDS commission paid to travel agents, these online travel agencies raised commissions to 25% or more for a preferred, top of the page listing on their web site. This new 25% commission phenomena is commonly referred to as "Net Rate."

In our database, you will find a list of IDS web sites.

As in many other areas of the Internet (see Google PPC ads) there has sprung up a host of affiliate web sites that split commission with their IDS partner. While the true list of all IDS websites is easily in the thousands, we are mainly building this list for you to use when doing a text search to discover what type of advertising opportunity exists on a particular site.

As a property owner knowing the complete list of affiliates has little value. If you do decide to pay a net rate commission, comparing rates from amongst the major IDS sites should be sufficient.

The main problem (besides giving away 25% or more of your room rate) is that these IDs sites want weekends in your peak season as part of the inventory they can sell. As you can imagine, there are a host of cat and mouse games of removing inventory offered to the IDS after meeting their initial requirements to avoid giving away revenue in your peak season.

One B&B owner suggested that travelers often cut and paste the property name into Google and then go directly to the property's own web site - thus bypassing the IDS commission. He felt this lowered actual commissions paid to around 15%.

There are over 787 lodging/travel-oriented web sites in the Inn Strategy database today.

We have been working on automating the scripts used to evaluate the advertising opportunity available for each of these sites.

One of our criteria is whether the advertiser's profile page is indexed in Google, Yahoo and MSN.

While we can't check 1000 different cities for each travel site, we select one location in each site as being representative of what typically occurs in the local geographic drill down that travelers are likely to do. Having your listing page indexed in the search engines is obviously better than just the home page being indexed for a particular travel site.

As an Innkeeper and search engine marketer, one of the latest revelations from spending all this time looking at sites, is that there are auxiliary searches besides strictly looking for lodging that is a good way to capture prospective guests for your property.

Wedding and Honeymoon sites is one example of this area where we will be adding lots of sites.

Depending on your location, activity-based sites can be a great way to connect: hunting, fishing, skiing, surfing, etc.

The GDS or Global Distribution Systems is a computer network that enables travel agencies to book your rooms directly on behalf of their clients. Developed in the 60s and 70s this pre-Internet technology consists of four systems Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre and Worldspan.

With more travelers booking lodging on the Internet, one might think that this would signal the end of Travel Agencies (TA). So far, this has not been the case. While TA may handle more business or corporate accounts than leisure travel, if you have excess room availability, then this is one option to explore.

The standard commission that lodging properties pay when a travel agent books a room reservation with 10%. However in order to physically enter your room availability into the GDS computer system, you need to work with a 3rd party company that provides "GDS Representation Services."

A list of these companies and some of their contact and pricing information can be viewed below.

While there are several pricing models (monthly minimum, minimum charge per booking, straight percentage of the full price of the reservation, percentage plus a flat per booking fee, etc.) ultimately they connect you to the same GDS.

This is much like choosing an Internet provider, where they all connect you to the same Internet.

Some of the differences that are most apparent (besides the pricing) is the actual web site interface where you list your rooms and modify your availability. Ask to see the interface (similar to your availability calendar) so that you know what type of system you will be working with on a regular basis.

Greetings! My name is D.R. Peck and in concert with my team, we are ready and able to be your in-house experts on Internet advertising for the lodging industry.

Unsure about where to advertise on the Internet?

No time to evaluate each incoming email that offers to send travelers to your website?

Pondering whether to give 30% of your room rate away to big name Internet sites?

Inn Strategy's primary focus is on Bed and Breakfast directories, Lodging directories and Travel directories. Each of these advertising sites is rated on a 1-4 scale for your convenience. Using suitcases as our graphic image, a site with 4 suitcases has been deemed a very good value. The bigger the "bang for your buck" the higher the rating.

There are over 600 web sites in over 35 categories that are organized and classified for you. While knowing which sites offer the best value is important, knowing which sites are not a good value may be even more valuable. Since no one has an endless advertising budget, saving money by eliminating poorly performing web directories from your advertising portfolio is essential.

In addition to the classification and ratings, you can manage your Internet advertising portfolio by creating your own list of sites in which you are listed. For each of these sites you are able to keep track of:

Your Username
Your Password
Price you paid to advertise on the site
Expiration date
Type of listing (monthly fee, free, link swap, PPC, membership, etc.)

There is also a Notes field to help you keep track of relevant information.

You can copy and paste the web address for your listing. One click allows you to see your ad on each site.

We have direct links to the Home page, Logon page, Pricing page and Specials page (if they have one) for each advertising site.

The price to have 24/7 access to the software and site ratings is as follows:

$10 per month and $2 per month per room.

No contract, no early termination fee.

A 5 room bed and breakfast would pay $20 a month ($10 plus 5 rooms x $2 per month).

The reason larger properties will pay more (a 12 room inn pays more than a 5 room inn) is that they have more rooms to fill and will benefit more by professional optimization of their advertising budget.

At present, we have excellent coverage on the national advertising directory sites. Regional sites (featuring only New Jersey bed and breakfasts for example) will be added on an ongoing basis. One reason for this is to keep providing additional value to keep you as a customer.

Besides a comprehensive database of national, regional and localized web sites where prospective guests for your lodging property would visit, there are always newcomer web sites seeking your ad dollars. As they emerge we will evaluate and post our 'bang for the buck' opinion.

Our mission is to remove the anxiety that comes with not knowing how to respond to each new email offering advertising on the Internet and to allow you to go to bed at night knowing you have done all that can be done with your Internet advertising efforts.

Sweet dreams...