Selling to Hotels and Tourism Clients Vertical Specific Training Series Vendasta Technologies Hey everyone, hope you are all having a great day! It’s been a crazy week here at Vendasta, we recently hired over 16 new employees and keep adding to the team at an enormous rate to develop the solutions you all need to stay competitive out there. Recently we announced our new partnership with YEXT to provide you all the most comprehensive listings solution in the market today. We also heard from a number of our partners they wanted a white-label mobile app solution and we delivered that with adding bizapps to our marketplace. If you are looking for more information don’t hesitate to reach out to your partner success manager for further details.

Hotels Clients VERTICAL SPECIFIC TRAINING SERIES Song Rattanavong Vendasta srattanavong@vendasta.com linkedin.com/in/songr SO lets get started, I’m Song Rattanavong - Director of Sales here at Vendasta. It’s my pleasure today to talk about how to sell to hotels and tourism prospects. Of course we all know when it comes to hotels and tourism, reviews are by far the most important part of a getting new customers. I don’t pick a hotel or make any travel plans without reading reviews. I was recently on a family holiday in Texas and every hotel and attraction we went too was due to the many consumer reviews that were left by their customers. Almost all travellers now make their plans based on Tripadvisor, Yelp, Google and Expedia.

New Marketing Stack A 2 3 4 WP Advertising Listings & SEO Reviews Social Website & In Store CRM A 2 3 4 WP Do they know about you? Do they trust you? Do they convert? Can they find you? Do they like you? Do they remain loyal? The new marketing stack could not be more important than ever for hotels and tourism. Advertising such as those visit california commercials create awareness. They attract us to think about warm weather, disneyland and movie stars. All this does is leads us to do research, places to stay or things to do. How many of us have searched the following “things to do in (insert a place), we all have and it’s become normal to us. We do this to see to make sure that we have the best and a memorable experience for our families. We no longer have to be disappointed like the Griswolds in the movie family vacation and show up to a closed Wally world theme park. THat movie kind of dates me but man it was good.

Nobody wants to be sold. They want you to help them... In the Information Age... Nobody wants to be sold. They want you to help them... Research Educate Connect Satisfy & Sell Service Help Grow In the age of the internet, we no longer have to sell consumers. They sell themselves. We have all made the decisions before we even go anywhere. I planned my trip to Texas weeks before I even showed up. It’s our job, It’s our duty to help our clients connect with these travellers. This is done with getting them found, getting them trusted and getting them liked.

Domestic and international travel expenditures in the United States Tourism spend has increased over the last number of years, travel spend is now almost close to a trillion dollars in the US. With more and more people traveling the businesses that gain the most exposure are the ones that win! Decisions are now rarely made on a whim but are calculated and researched for hours or even days! Where to go, where to stay and where to eat!

Need To Be An Influencer Our partners now this story intimately and can share it with any hotel or tourist attraction as they understand. On their doors are stickers like tripadvisor or yelp. They know the importance of the sites but they are not the only ones any more. Google and Facebook are starting to take over the industry. Hoteliers need to manage their reviews across so many sites and the number of reviews they receive is daunting. IT can be time consuming but probably the most important marketing initiative they can have. Hotels or attractions that don’t manage their reviews are in jeopardy of losing potential customers. Not responding to reviews would be similar to not checking on a security system that has gone off, you may be able to get away with it once but your likely to get robbed if you let it happen again.

Acquire Retain Grow Research Educate Mine Intent Consult & Close Adoption Retain Proof of Performance Mine Intent Grow Upsell & Cross Sell The Vendasta platform will assist you any part of the buying cycle, whether you want to acquire new customers through intelligence and intent. Or retain existing customers by getting them to use the software or show results and grow existing customer through cross selling. It’s all available in our automated email campaigns that you have access inside our platform. Or create your own specific for any vertical or type of prospect. For more information contact your Vendasta rep and they will show you more.

Potential Hotel & Tourism Opportunities Travel Agencies Hotels Amusement Parks Associations Listings could change often if they use different offices HUGE Multi location opportunity! Very competitive, super concerned about reputation and social presence Everyone is looking to gain marketshare, this includes tourism boards Prospects for tourism and travel are not limited to hotels and attractions. They can also include local travel agencies or even chains like expedia cruiseships, as well as travel associations whose memberships are littered with good leads.

I had the fortune to sign a deal with one such partner I had the fortune to sign a deal with one such partner. I called on our own travel organization here in Saskatchewan. After meeting with their head marketing Jonathan Potts. I was able to find out that reviews are so important to the industry, that each region is measured on the number of reviews they receive on a site like tripadvisor. OUr province ranked dead last when it came to reviews which was concerning to the travel board as it is the most important thing people use to make travel plans. After a number of meetings, George and I were able to secure a deal with Tourism Saskatchewan and they are now a proud partner of Vendasta. Every state and municipality have these local organisations and their memberships may be just the clients you are looking for. In our case we were able to convince Tourism Saskatchewan to actually pay for the software for their members. It’s a win-win situation, their memebers get more reviews which then increases their business and tourism saskatchewan is able to meet their goals as well.

LIVE DEMO Let’s talk about listings for a minute.

Every Business Has A Buyers Funnel Every business has a buyers funnel, this can start with awareness like those visit california ads or maybe simply looking for a family vacation spot.

Buying decisions are made online In 2016, 92% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. 94% of consumers would use a business with a four star rating! 60% 75% 83% 83% 85% 88% 2011 40% 2012 25% 2013 2014 2015 2016 17% 17% 15% 12% Can’t iterate this too much - BOOKING DECISIONS are made online, not at the hotel. Even though statistics have shown that 88% of all buying decisions are made online, I image the number is even higher for tourism, it be more likely to be in the high 90s. I don’t remember the last time I didn’t book my hotel room online. Before Entering a Store In-Store

How leads become sales ADVERTISING Who are you? That’s cool! At the very top of the funnel for any given business, consumers typically become interested through traditional media—by watching television commercials, seeing billboards outside, listening to radio ads and more. This is how traditional paid media attracts consumer interest.

^ How leads become sales don’t Advertising Listings Are you found? So annoying, can't find their location! . Let’s pretend that you are the business at the end of this funnel. How those interested consumers, or leads, begin falling out of that funnel, starts with listings. Once they become interested, they will likely look that business up. If that business (or associated product or service) can’t be found, many won’t look any further. This is how leads start falling out of the funnel.

^ How leads become sales don’t Advertising Listings Reputation Are you trusted? Hmm, I see bad reviews with no response... But if the consumer is interested and can find you, they now want to know if they can trust you. Online trust is gained through reviews. Not only positive reviews, but a healthy review pipeline, meaning recent reviews. Now, negative reviews aren’t a dealbreaker, but they must be responded to promptly and with respect to win over the trust of a new consumer.

^ How leads become sales don’t Advertising Listings Reputation Social Are you liked? Yuck, distasteful political post. Next, the consumer wants to know if they can like you. Like your product, your service, your brand, your online personality! Social media is the perfect way for the consumer to go about this discovery.

^ How leads become sales don’t Advertising Listings Reputation Social Website Is it easy to convert? It’s soooo slow to load. And finally, website. Is it easy for the consumer to convert? If not, that’s definitely a blocker to sales.

Advertising for the competition? Paid Media Listings Listings $$$ Reputation Reputation Social Social Website Website Here’s the kicker. Let’s say the consumer is making their way down the funnel for business A, on the left. They became interested after hearing a radio ad, then looked up that business online and found them but came across multiple negative reviews that hadn’t been responded to. This means they don’t trust you. What does that consumer do? Well, since they’re already well into their research stage, it’s very likely that they’ll go directly to the next stage but with a competitor! That means that business’ A’s marketing and advertising dollars pushed that consumer directly into the hands of their competition. And further down that funnel which increases the chance of a sale! A sale for the competitor!

Advertising for the competition? The fastest way to increase your budget is to use someone else’s Paid Media Paid Media Listings Listings $$$ Reputation Reputation Social Social Website Website But the opposite is also true. By ensuring that your business can be found, trusted and liked, have the competitor’s advertising dollars work for you! The fastest way to increase your business’ budget is to use someone elses.

The Five Pillars Advertising Listings Reputation Social Website The consumer research experience through this funnel is what we call the four pillars. Listings (are you found), reputation (are you trusted), social (are you liked) and website (how easy is it to convert). This is the story you need to be telling your prospects and customers. Website

5 pillars of the “Virtual Doorway” Listings Reputation Social Website Advertising Is your business listed online? Is the information accurate? What are consumers saying about your business online? Are you listening to your online customers feedback? How’s your website experience? Is it optimized for mobile? Reach the masses with your marketing and brand message!

Hotels Clients VERTICAL SPECIFIC TRAINING SERIES Song Rattanavong Vendasta srattanavong@vendasta.com linkedin.com/in/songr Thank you everyone for your time today, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions. I’s Song Rattanavong signing off from sunny Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Wishing everyone a prosperous week and keep on keeping on.