Open Rooms Classic & Plus MM12 Expanding Your Online Profile

The modern hotelier is bombarded like never before with website options and ever changing channels such as Twitter, Facebook, online travel agents, flash sales sites or Blogging. Determining priorities becomes increasingly difficult.

Your website is your most important distribution channel and is a reflection of your business and your brand and has the opportunity to convert visitors more cost effectively than any other distribution channel you may use.

It will not however achieve success just by being there and it is essential that hotels build an on, and indeed off, line strategy that recognises how important direct traffic to a website can be.

Both Open Rooms premium packages – Classic and Plus - have been developed to ensure that the hotel’s core website is supported by a range of integrated tools that the proactive operator can use to develop increased DIRECT business online.

Classic and Plus offer the same website functionality with Pro integrating the design of your social media and creates a streamlined feel across them all.

Remember we’ve designed the packages to be easily upgraded in the future.

What Does Open Rooms Classic and Plus Provide?

The following summarises just what you get from an Open Rooms Classic or Open Rooms Plus website. We are certain that it represents not only superb value but tremendous added value. Our commitment to growing Open Rooms also means you will benefit from continual upgrades and new functions free of any additional charges.

Website Structure Stylesheet Based Bespoke Design Unlimited Pages Drag and Drop Page Creation Full Content Management System Initial Content and Copywriting Support Integration of Content from Social Media Upload Files and Documents Image Gallery Online Contact Form Google Maps Integration Social Media Share Buttons Online Reservations Integration

Booking Engine Availability and Rate Management Detailed Reporting Tools Creation of Packages Multiple Language and Currency Full Integration into website Accommodation voucher sales Sell Guest Add Ons Guest Comments Module SMS Text Confirmations Secure Payment Gateways Integrated Web Analytics Guest Loyalty Scheme Agency Booking Function Channel Distribution

Business Development Support

Regular Online Briefings Free Social Media Promotion Free Scotland’s For Me Entry Access to online B2B support Free publication of offers Access to email promotions

Search Engine Optimisation Search Engine Page Titles Editing Updateable Meta Tags Search Engine Submissions Google Site Map Google Analytics Set Up including Goals Search Engine Reporting (Plus)

Administration and Communications Hosting Package & Database Licencing Domain Registration or Transfer Online Account Support E-mail accounts (5 for Classic; 10 for Plus) E-mail forwarding & Webmail

Social Media and Mobile Mobile Version Website (Plus) Facebook Set Up or Review (Plus) Branded and Designed Blog (Plus) Email Marketing Set Up (Plus)

Costs

The cost of setting up and maintaining an Open Rooms Classic and Plus website won’t break the bank and provides exceptional added value and given the current climate it is possible to spread the payments over 24 months. For full details of current offers and live examples of Open Rooms websites simply visit www.openroomsscotland.co.uk

Open Rooms MM12 Classic PLus

Year One - Design & Development Costs From £1800.00 From £3600.00

Year Two - Monthly Charge (Hosting, licencing & upgrades) £40.00 £80.00

Booking Engine Commission Commission

Term of Contract Two Year Two Year

Monthly Payment Option Yes Yes

Monthly Payment Option (24 month contract) £750 initial

£75/month x 23 £750 initial

£185/month x 23

Development Timescales

Access to The Claymore Project and Bookassist management systems is made immediately on receipt of payment and access to updating copy, images and all other content is available from that date.

Transfer requests for domain names can take up to two weeks but normally are completed in a shorter period.

The design changes will be made on receipt of logos and all required images and will require approval by the clients.

Open Rooms Classic and Plus in Detail The following pages give a more detailed appraisal of what Open Rooms Plus and Pro can offer the hotelier. For more information you can always visit www.theclaymoreproject.com or have a browse around a fully function demonstration site at www.celticlinksdemo.co.uk

Site Design and Layout

On signing up for an Open Rooms website we will take your design thoughts and turn your logos, printed materials, images and content into a search engine optimised, online availability ready, fully content managed website and in lot less time than you may imagine. Website owners are therefore able to create copy and pages as the site is being designed.

Whatever your size, whatever your location you can establish a professional and growing presence on the internet at a competitive cost and with the assured support of hospitality professionals behind you.

If you have a layout that you like we’ll work with you in developing to your style and if you wish to have added bells and whistles these will be quoted separately ensuring that you know exactly what you’re getting for your money before you start the project.

Both Open Rooms Classic and Plus packages are built entirely around your current brand and your pages driven by our tourism focussed Content Management System.

Based on our hotel style sheets, your site will be professionally designed to fully reflect your brand and feel – it will facilitate online reservations, promote your key products and make navigation as easy as possible for your guest

It will allow control of news, promotions, vacancies and events and you will be able to create new pages and sections and simply drop them into the website structure.

You will have image galleries with high resolution pictures available for press and PR and your administration panel features on line help, easy to navigate menus and the ability even to update and submit keywords for the search engines.

It will work with your current social media strategy providing the conversion necessary as it is built seamlessly around our award winning booking engine Bookassist.

We take great pride in what is created and that is why we ensure that the client is happy with the designs that are produced before the project goes ahead.

If a client wishes plain and simple that is what is created; background images and intricate graphics? Done.

We will always give an opinion and advise on what works best for the site visitor – the ability to merge good ideas with good practice has always been what defines an Open Rooms website and indeed our ongoing client relationships

Content is Still King

Open Rooms Classic and Plus recognises that you will be publishing fresh dynamic content on a regular basis to a variety of sources and (if you have them) the site integrates your Facebook, Blog and Twitter into the website itself and the Share buttons allow site visitors to Like your pages and share them with their friends and colleagues at the click of a button

Our content management system allows you to create new pages at will for any subject to ensure that whatever you want to say you can say it now: add images, embed video, links, upload documents and create your own MetaTags for the search engines. And no more difficult than a word document.

Once you’ve created the page you decide where it is to be displayed in your website navigation. Drag and Drop the page into Special Offers or Accommodation or Your What’s On pages and that’s it live.

Now you can link to it from your other distribution channels.

Open Rooms Plus helps you communicate your multiple messages through your multiple channels as easily as possible to drive traffic to your website with the aim of converting more.

Site Map

Once the site has been designed the site map has considerable flexibility built in to change headings and Open Rooms Classic and Plus both feature drag and drop page creation – this allows the user to create multiple pages and insert them automatically into the site’s primary navigation bars.

We’ll map out the initial site map with you at the development stage to suit your business’ services and facilities and you can add your own pages from there.

The site is also designed to have “Feature Boxes” – graphic navigation that quick links to special features, offers or promotions. These can be managed by the content managed system providing high visibility links.

Content Management – The Claymore Project

All the key areas of the hotel website are powered by our Destination Management System, The Claymore Project, which allows for the easy updating of new information, content, external links and uploading of images. The Content Management tools within the system are no more difficult to use than a word processing programme and full support on using the system will be given both by your Account Manager and a comprehensive online help function.

The Claymore Project’s new user interface has been completely rebuilt for 2012 and features even easier to use content tools.

Drag and Drop Page Creation Google Mapping Manage PDF Brochures Create Multiple Image Galleries Add and Distribute Vacancies Add and Promote Events Create Packages and Offers Individual Page Optimisation Social Media Tools Full booking engine integration

Developing an Integrated Distribution Strategy for Your Business

Where does your website currently sit?

Well it should sit at the core of everything you do - both on and offline.

Your website is the definitive source of everything you do and should be able to accomplish this without too much difficulty. It is also your lowest cost of sale – selling direct saving you on commissions, heavy discounts or promotional costs.

It should be able to feature your promotions, offer downloads of all your brochures, have the most up to date information on events and attractions in your area, allow visitors to share the information with their friends and colleagues, it should reflect your brand and styles in what it says and how it looks.

You need to make sure that your website is at the heart of your marketing and business development plans and, if you do, you can reap real benefits. Make your team, however small, aware of the critical importance of having offers, menus, events, updated prices, brochures on your site – make your website everyone’s tool and watch it convert.

Being at the core means that every activity you undertake either on or offline should be linked to your site. Your social media feeding back to more detailed pages on that new event or offer; your Pay per Click campaigns going to specific promotion pages rather than simply the homepage; your Press and PR for that seasonal offer linking directly to the room type in your booking pages; your wedding blog article driving back to the image gallery on your site; your tent cards in the restaurant or rooms promoting your Best Available Rates on your own site; even your room bills offering a Promo Code for a discount next time for direct bookings. All these put your website at the core.

Open Rooms Plus starts the process of bringing all of these elements together to give hotels the best possible chance of reaching their target markets. Here is what come with the Pro Package…

A Guide to Your Google Account

Your Google Account is one of the first things that you should spend time getting to understand and your Open Rooms Pro website integrates the most important tools seamlessly into your marketing activity.

The Apps in your Google Account are an increasingly important management tool for so many aspects of your business, providing you with analysis of your website performance, management of your web content, advice on being found, market research on your competitors, image management and a whole lot more and should become very close to the centre of your online marketing strategy.

Open Rooms Plus will ensure the following tools – and more – are set up for your business use

Google Adwords will be set up to allow you to manage your adwords campaign from your own account. You can control spends per click, daily spends and switch off instantly if required. The reports will give you an idea of whether you need to change your budgeted expenditure, amend the words of your advert.

YouTube - A branded YouTube “Channel” will be set up and integrated into your website encouraging uploads and sharing of video clips and again should be used by your business to promote their products, events, promotions, personnel, training videos or any aspect that may be increase positive

interest and awareness of the business.

Google Places is an important search application and with the introduction of Google’s Hotel Finder and other specific search tools it should be regularly maintained. We shall upload images, content and video if you

have it to maximise the hotel’s ability to be found

Picasa Gallery is Google’s online gallery allowing the upload of images from the hotel and is another one of those tools that can both increase your online profile by providing images of your business and save costs.

Google Alerts provides an invaluable market research and even reputation management tool and for your business and we will help set up your initial key terms and Google will notify you when there is a web site article or blog featuring that term. Track your own business name to find out who is saying what about you and where.

Blogger is Google’s Blog publishing tool and if used properly its key benefit is in generating traffic for specific niche terms. They are indexed quickly and can drive traffic back to your website.

A well written and managed blog can greatly assist in generating focussed traffic back to a hotel’s website. Open Rooms Pro includes the creation of a complementary blog to support your site and feed news and features directly into it.

Search and Analytics

A well designed website without search optimisation is like printing 10,000 brochures and leaving them in a back office!

All of the pages created for an Open Rooms website are set up with the necessary metatags to ensure that your page is properly indexed by the Search Engines. A Google Site Map is created ahead of the new site going live and submitted to the free listing search engines.

Search Engine Optimisation is not a science and need not have hundreds of pounds a month spent on it – hoteliers simply need to create pages with the right content and right search tags that their customers are looking for and the results will come.

Analysing website performance is also increasingly straightforward.

Your Google Analytics will be set up with Goals and E-commerce targets which will allow you to measure how your key pages are performing. Your ecommerce targets will give you an easy to monitor “Look-to-Book” conversion rate on your Bookassist booking engine.

Open Rooms Pro clients will also receive a three monthly report giving an overview of traffic, conversion rates and suggested activity to improve visibility. Open Rooms Plus clients can subscribe to these reports at any stage should they wish to upgrade.

Making Social Media Part of your Online Marketing Activities

Facebook

If you already have a Facebook account we’ll give it a refresh and drop in some nice artwork and tools. Otherwise we’ll set it up for your from scratch to include the following

Set up or edit of Facebook content Creation of Promotion Banner Inclusion of Email Marketing Sign Up Creation of image Galleries Inclusion of Bookassist Booking engine Guest Reviews Special Offers Facebook Like Buttons and Links added to every page on the website Add your Facebook Feed directly into your website

Twitter

As part of an Open Rooms Plus Package we’ll set up or review your Twitter account and ensure that it will work in both sharing and gathering content.

Set up review your Twitter account Brand your page and Background Add Twitter Feeds to your website Add Twitter share buttons on all webpages

Make Sharing Your Webpages and Content Easy

Love it or hate it, hoteliers cannot ignore it and even if your own strategy is to not publish content through your own Facebook pages or Twitter account, social media still cannot be ignored - Facebook users will (often in spite of your best efforts!) share your business content online. What you actually have to do is make that process easy for them

Open Rooms Classic and Plus all have social media share functions built in – but what does that mean?

Well we ensure that the share buttons are on each page of your website and every page you create can be shared on a user’s own Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn with the click of a single button. Sharing your content must be as straightforward as it possibly can be and Open Rooms Classic and Plus websites ensure that this will always be the case.

E-Mail Marketing

If the past year has reinforced anything it was that the power of the email was still alive and very much kicking.

While social media has helped in building relationships it has been email marketing that has supported the boom in Flash sales sites such as Groupon, LivingSocial and others.

If hoteliers need assurance that properly developed email marketing converts to sales then these price lead promotions have more than proved that point!

Email marketing complements your on and off line strategies and should be developed as an integral part of the business’ marketing plan.

As part of Open Rooms Plus we will set up your email campaign to ensure that you’re ready to start emailing your target markets immediately.

Open Rooms Mobile

The world is going mobile.

Mobile is the fastest growing method of accessing hotel information online. This is not the future – it is very much the present.

eMarketer reports 25% of leisure travellers use mobile devices to book rooms, and Google reports that 19 % of all hotel searches happen on mobile devices. (Oct 2011)

It is becoming more and more important that hotels have a relevant workable mobile presence and whilst all of the Open Rooms website will be optimised to perform on mobile devices having a slimmed down version of a hotel website specifically for mobile users makes a lot of sense.

Our Open Rooms Plus MM12 package includes the ground breaking Content Managed Mobile Website with the full power of the Bookassist Booking Engine inbuilt. The technology automatically redirects visitors browsing on iPhone, Android and other touch devices to the mobile version of the hotel’s website.

The Open Rooms Mobile site has been designed to be both fast and lightweight ensuring that the customer gets the best experience possible on every platform - on desktop with Open Rooms Plus and on the go with the Open Rooms Mobile.

The Mobile hotel site features:

Location-aware mapping with automatic routing from current location to the hotel (where supported by the phone)

Room descriptions and photos Integrated customer reviews Integrated photo gallery Fast and easy-to-use full transaction engine for

booking PCI-DSS compliant security, credit card

verification and SMS booking confirmation Feature entire hotel groups, seamlessly

interlinking each hotel. Trackable Mobile Bookings

Helping Build Your Distribution

But it doesn’t stop at launch, on-going online support is available to Open Rooms users to help them progress and keep up with changes in distribution channels, technology and online marketing; throughout the two year period there is full online support available through our websites, blogs and social media channels to ensure that your business continues to move with the changes to tourism marketing.

Business to Consumer Support

Supporting your accommodation product online is just a natural part of what we do. The database used to power your website can also – and does – automatically feed your content into any number of third party member websites such as Golf Tourism Scotland. We have our own destination website that features your property – Scotland’s For Me!

Scotland’s For Me

Publishing your offers and news with our own channels is easy – complimentary access to our tourism blog for publishing news and offers, distribute through our consumer facing Facebook page and our email marketing campaigns and make use of a complimentary full listing on Scotland’s For Me – all linking directly back to your own website.

Business to Business Support

We provide contracted business support for the period of the website contract for Open Rooms Plus and Pro – you can use this time as you wish for changes or training or just marketing advice.

PlanB2B Blog

Oscar Wilde said the only thing you can do with good advice is pass it on. “It is never of use to oneself!”

We believe that knowledge- and opinions! - should be shared so in that vein we also offer a business to business blog, Facebook, Google and Linkedin groups and a document sharing facility to assist our businesses in collaborating and sharing best practice as well as publishing regular industry briefings on what’s going on out there and how it impacts on your business.

Website: www.planb2b.co.uk

Tourism Matters

Tourism Matters is our industry facing site and was set up to distribute B2B news and information from across Scotland – it is a mix of straight news and lots of opinion.

It acts as an outlet for other Scottish tourism businesses to make their own comment on what the public sector are doing or how other factors impact on their business. You can follow updates of Facebook or have a browse on the Blog.

www.tourismmatters.co.uk

www.facebook.com/tourismmatters