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Hoteliers are more tech-savvy than ever before; while the web remains a strong marketing tool, they are also increasingly turning to social networking platforms and blogs in order to log their presence, find Punam Mohandas and Bindu Gopal Rao.

Not too long ago, getting a hotel accommodation meant making a direct reservation or approaching an agent for a booking. Things have now changed dynamically, and the one single enabler for this has been the web. Today, with high levels of internet penetration, it is normal to make online reservations for accommodation.

“In the current competitive hospitality scenario, a hotel’s website needs to be viewed as the hotel’s most important salesperson,” avers Saurabh Rai Bhatnagar, regional director, India, and director global sales, India, Middle East & Africa, Preferred Hotel Group.

“Gone are the days when a website used to be more of an electronic brochure of the hotel; today, under no circumstances can a hotel afford not to have a dynamic and fully functional website.”

Websites are designed in a manner that allows you to take virtual tours of the hotel from the comfort of your home, and are increasingly being viewed as online marketing platforms.

Says Tarandeep, head, marketing and communications, Jaypee Vasant Continental, New Delhi: “A hotel without a strong web presence means losing out on an average 60% of potential customers. The hotel website not only helps us to shift from passive to interactive relationships with many customers, but also to deliver unique valuable offers and products, and work out a differentiated approach to key customers.”

Abhijit ‘Beej’ Das, senior director development – India, Hilton Worldwide, says that web presence is an incredibly potent sales and marketing tool.

According to him, Hilton Worldwide and the web sites for the entire portfolio of brands are perhaps the web’s most searched hotel sites. He stresses that web content should be constantly reviewed, re-imagined, and refreshed, and real-time responses are important.

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Mamta Sharma, owner of The Estate, a bed-and-breakfast based out of New Delhi, attributes a large part of the web’s growing popularity and success to a decision she took of having the right online presence to market her business, which included using a dotcom address.

“We were focussed on being prudent about the way we showcase ourselves online, that being the only marketing tool we intended to use. For a small business that does not have a big marketing budget, a website is a must-have. It is one of the most effective ways of reaching out to audiences globally on a shoestring budget,” she says.

Over time, hotel websites have become the nucleus of all marketing programmes and activities. Declares Nikhil Kapur, general manager, Ista Bangalore: “Reservations are on the increase; 20% of total bookings are now online. It is therefore imperative for a hotel to have a website. We see about 300-400 unique visitors per day, and we answer queries within the same working day as received. The ratio we are seeing is 70:30 foreign to Indian guests.”

“I would say the ratio is 70/30%, international to domestic,” agrees Romil Ratra, general manager, Intercontinental Marine Drive.

“A website is certainly critical, given that most people today research almost anything and everything online before they buy, but the most critical part is the content and ease of navigation. We see anything from 15 to a few 100 hits per day, depending on the season. 30-35% of our business is generated through online sales; not just the hotel’s direct website, but through other online channels that interface with our booking engine as well.”

Visheshwar Raj Singh, general manager, Trident Bandra Kurla, Mumbai, breaks it down in detail - on a monthly average, the Trident Hotels website gets over 25,000 visitors from approximately 120 countries; of these, over 18,000 are from India, followed by 2,000 from the United States, and about a thousand from the UK.

Says Bhatnagar: “Generally, this percentage is well balanced as the domestic market has lately acquired a huge amount of confidence in booking online through a hotel’s website.