Frightening your website traffic away

I realize that many hoteliers invest a lot in professionally produced videos of their property and services. This is a sensible and effective way to promote your hotel and showcase its best features. So do not squander your investment by auto-playing videos on your hotel website.

You may think you are doing your visitors a favor by setting auto-play to on. After all they probably want to see your hotel and hear about your luxurious, award-winning, relaxing, active, ... amenities. However the reality is more complicated. Here are the reasons why your hotel web videos should default to paused.

• People may be researching a trip itinerary at the office, perhaps when they are supposed to be working. The sound of your video playing will cause disapproving stares from co-workers. As a result, your target customer will end up closing his or her browser before you had a chance to sell your travel brand.

• Whether at work or at home, many people use headphones to listen to music while they are surfing the Web. Playing your hotel video with its background music or voice over is only going to annoy or perhaps even scare the people who are considering booking a room.

• Speaker volume on home computers is often turned up to full blast, whether as a result of watching a movie or talking with family on Skype. So when your auto-play kicks on without permission, your message gets blasted to someone who is just getting to know your hotel business. Not only are you startling your visitors with an unwanted message, you may be disturbing the baby (or husband) asleep nearby.

For a hilarious take on why NOT to auto-play your hotel sales videos, you must read this Travergence auto-play music on websites blog post (which laughed about an earlier blog post on this subject). 

Glossing over your Wi-Fi capabilities

Free Wi-Fi has become the most requested hotel amenity (see TripAdvisor Hotel Amenities Travelers Can and Can't Do Without) with 89% of travelers surveyed wanting it. More and more hotels are offering it as part of the room rate, but many are not "going all the way". Not all free WiFi is truly free when it comes to meeting the expectations of your guests. Here's why...

Regardless of whether your Wi-Fi comes with limitations or not, you may be losing bookings if you don't document what is available. Is your Wi-Fi free in public areas only and not available in most rooms? Is it possible to request a room with a strong Wi-Fi signal? Does the internet connection limit the number of connected devices or the number of minutes per day? If there is a cost to in-room Wi-Fi, what is the price and what do you get in terms of speed and sharing with phones and tablets?

Those are the types of questions people are seeking answers about. They will likely be getting those answers from reviews of your hotel on TripAdvisor or Booking.com and those guests may not be telling a complimentary story. Just read the many easy to find reviews for hotels on TripAdvisor that talk about how their "free" Wi-Fi experience was slow, broken, or frustrating to connect. Every minute spent jumping through hoops to access your Wi-Fi network is a negative review in the making.

That is why you must list your Wi-Fi offering in complete detail. By being complete and upfront about your internet services (avoiding surprises), you will get more bookings from people who must stay connected for business or leisure.