Watch now: Hotels are using informative COVID-19 messaging on their websites to keep guests up to date. They are keen to reassure anxious guests and communicate essential information. But are website visitors seeking this information, and is it important to your potential guests?

The biggest misconception about hotel websites is that they don’t have enough data for a reliable indication of demand. Learn how to easily use your own hotel website data as a reliable demand thermometer using Demand Tracker.

While it is common knowledge that demand has dried up in recent weeks, it is perhaps surprising to see that there is still a large amount of traffic landing on hotel websites. From data across Hotelchamp’s customers, we see that transactions (yellow line) have dropped to 8% of where they were on March 10, but sessions (green line) are doing 4.1x better at 33% of their March 10 numbers.

Visitors are still researching,

Many businesses around the world, including hotels, are currently in the middle of one of the biggest social experiments they’ve ever conducted — working from home. The majority of these offices may have never worked remotely before, especially in the hotel industry where so much work is done on-site. Read here to learn how to effectively communicate when working from home!

We spoke with hoteliers from around the world to share valuable insights and discuss the COVID-19 strategies that are being implemented in hotels. 

Hosted by Helen Skiba, a Key Account Manager at Hotelchamp. Joined by Ric van Holthe tot Echten, previously a Revenue Manager and a Commercial Manager for both independent and chain hotels, and now the owner of Revenue Guru, a revenue management and online marketing consulting company for hotels.

The past couple of weeks have been challenging in many ways. Uncertainty is ever-present in the hospitality sector and many questions are left unanswered. No wonder we tend to overlook how the current circumstances have made many brands more creative and also, stand strong together. Here are 5 ways hotels are showing solidarity during COVID-19:

1. Fleming’s Hotels: Solidarity in times of the coronavirus

Doctors, nurses and other members of the community play a crucial role in the fight against COVID-19.

Uncertainty is the word on everyone’s lips at the moment. While website traffic has taken a hit for hotels everywhere, there are still people coming to your website for a number of reasons.

Hoteliers, we recommend focussing your communication strategy around these three themes, so that website visitors can easily see what they’re looking for on your website:

Inform

Keep your website up-to-date with the latest COVID-19 measures your hotel is implementing.

Hotelchamp’s informative messaging through the roof — hotels are using website notifications to update their guests and potential guests about the Coronavirus

Busy times at Hotelchamp HQ, with many hotels wanting to use informative messaging on their website to keep their guests and potential guests up-to-date in regards to the Coronavirus. Since these updates can change every day, hotels are looking for an easy and flexible way to communicate the latest COVID-19 updates at the hotel.

A demand shock in the travel industry can come from many sources; a financial crisis, health crisis, or political crisis. And as the term suggests, they often can’t be predicted. The initial results can be devastating, and quickly hoteliers will try to reduce the negative impact of the lower demand. Still, while needing to make these decisions, hoteliers will be facing uncertainty and unknowns. We’ve taken a look at what’s happened in the past, and what hoteliers can learn from these previous demand shocks.

The Coronavirus is causing uncertainty in the travel industry. With many unknowns and travellers being more cautious, hotels are already experiencing the negative effects. The reluctance to travel has seen occupancy rates drop dramatically. When situations like this occur, it’s understandable that hoteliers feel the need to take drastic action, with many dropping rates to try and encourage travellers to book. However, this isn’t the only option.

We put together our top four points to consider during the current crisis:

1.