California hosts Little Hotelier U.S. launch, gets treated to international traveler insights
Dallas, TX (PRWEB) June 22, 2015 -- Little Hotelier, an all-in-one business solution specifically designed for small accommodation properties, has officially arrived in the U.S. following its launch event at Cienaga Creek Ranch in California on June 10th.
Located at the scenic Big Bear Lake, the event saw innkeepers enjoy an afternoon of networking and hearing insights about the innkeeping industry from the Californian Association of Bed and Boutique Inn’s Jenn Wheaton and Little Hotelier’s Bronwyn Karaoglu.
Owner-operators of the properties in attendance expressed their biggest business challenges as:
Raising awareness of their small properties in an increasingly-competitive online landscape
Developing strategic partnerships to help promote their small property
Managing their reservations from various sources.
Speaking on the topic of connecting with international travelers, Ms Karaoglu said, “The U.S is never short of international tourist arrivals. In fact, 1.1 billion arrived last year. Today, it’s more about how small properties can tap into lucrative international markets, like the 4.9 million Chinese visitors that are forecast to arrive in 2015.”
The ‘billboard effect’ was highlighted as the best way small hotels could achieve this, as successfully demonstrated by Little Hotelier customer Tubac Country Inn.
Little Hotelier has given Tubac Country Inn the technology it needs to raise awareness online. As a result, the property has seen an increase in direct and advance bookings, and a reduction in bookings from OTAs.
“The value [from Little Hotelier] that we’ve seen is we’ve had more direct bookings – both over the phone and online – and a reduction in OTA bookings. We pay our OTAs 15% commission, and we’re cutting that in half right now because more people are booking direct. That’s exactly our strategy, so we’re very pleased about it,” said Ivan Drechsler, Owner-Operator of Tubac Country Inn.
“We’ve stimulated enough interest for guests to call us, and our direct bookings from the website are certainly more than those from the OTAs.”
The complete presentation on how to attract global guests can be found here: http://www.littlehotelier.com/launch-event-presentation/
About Little Hotelier
Little Hotelier, powered by the leading cloud platform for hotels, SiteMinder, is an all-in-one hotel business solution for small accommodation businesses including bed and breakfasts, guesthouses and motels. Little Hotelier is specifically designed to empower small hotel owners, through best-of-breed cloud technology that allows those hoteliers to compete online with industry giants and on a global scale. Local support and implementation is also at the core of the Little Hotelier solution with offices in Bangkok, Dallas, London, Sydney and Cape Town. Visit http://www.littlehotelier.com for more information.
Bronwyn Karaoglu, Little Hotelier, http://www.littlehotelier.com, +1 2 8031 1248, [email protected]
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