HSMAI Website of the Year

1

• HSMAI Website of the Year
• Winner 2007/2008

2
COMPANY BACKGROUND
3
The Carlton Hotel Group was formed in 2004 to
operate hotels in the Irish market under the
Irish Brand Carlton Hotels. The Carlton
Group operate 7 four star hotels under lease /
management contract in excellent locations
throughout Ireland.
4

• CARLTON PORTFOLIO.
• BEDROOMS 750.
• TURNOVER 35M/40M (estimate).
• EMPLOYEES 700/750

5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
The Carlton Portfolio of Websites 3 stage
Development Process

• Stage 1- The hotel individual sites.
• Stage 2- Launch of carlton.ie - Jan 2007. Group
  site existed along with individual sites, but
  design and branding was not consistent across the
  family of sites.
• Stage 3- May 2008- A fully integrated portfolio
  of websites with consistent branding throughout

10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
Traffic Growth- 2007/ 2008

• Visitor growth has been very strong, gt200 year
  on year
• The brand websites are delivering a very
  significant of business
• Carlton.ie is now a major business driver for the
  company
• Direct internet bookings in the case of many
  Carlton Hotels now out number indirect bookings
• The direct internet channel is now business
  critical

14
Recent Developments

• In January 2008, the company began the process of
  taking more control over our direct internet
  distribution strategy
• By increasing our in-house knowledge and
  expertise, Carlton is now taking direct control
  of the internet channel, bringing
• Content management, online marketing and ezine
  management in-house
• Resulting in
• Better Business knowledge of this business
  critical channel
• Cost Effectiveness and Flexibility
• Transparency

15
Achievements

• Taking control of our ppc spend
• Introduction of a Content Management System (CMS)
  enabling Carlton to
• Place the booking engine on all pages of the
  websites
• Bring consistency of design and navigation to a
  diverse family of websites across the group
• Introduce optimised destination and product
  specific web pages
• Handle Email marketing in-house
• Streamline the management of 3rd party websites
  via Rate Tiger, saving time and resources

16
And Finally some Tips, based on our Experience

• Knowledge and transparency are key.
• Tracking- ensure you can access you website
  analytics tool and monitor it weekly, if not
  daily
• You cant know enough about google!
• Remember on average, 8 out of 10 visitors will
  find a website via a search engine. Google
  control gt 80 of this market in the UK and
  Ireland, your website is google dependent.
• Check out the google forums and SEO blogs
• Question your online marketing provider about new
  developments, SEO is a constantly changing art/
  science
• Check your hotels listing on google maps, is it
  accurate? If not, update it now. Google maps are
  coming to .ie and are already live on co.uk
• Look 2 Book Ratios, your site will live and die
  by them
• What was your sites conversion rate, yesterday?
  If you dont monitor this daily, start now!
• Keep up to date with industry trends via research
  sites, US sites in particular will highlight
  emerging trends for the European markets

17

• HSMAI Website of the Year
• Winner 2007/2008