On average HTR buyers guides generate between 100-400 organic downloads/year in each category.  As such, when clients want to generate leads via downloads HTR invests to drive additional visibility and downloads by running multi-channel promotional campaigns driving traffic to the landing page to generate more downloads, faster and be able to service client demand in a given category. 

As such, HTR is subject to changes in demand and pricing in the digital marketing ecosystem which is why these campaigns fluctuate in pricing.  The below change reflects the change in advertising and acquisition costs and goes into effect for campaigns purchased individually or requested as part of a membership plan after June 1, 2024.

Since HTR launched the lead program back in 2019 we've heard one question time and time again which is, why are all leads priced the same? Today we're excited to announce that the lead program is moving to a demand based pricing model.

What is Demand Based Pricing?

Demand based pricing is a strategy where prices for products or services are adjusted in real-time based on various factors such as demand, availability, and market conditions. This model allows for more flexibility and responsiveness, ensuring that vendors have access to the most competitive pricing at any given moment.

How Does it Work?

With the new demand based pricing model, the cost of leads will be determined based on demand. For example, a 500+ room opportunity in the United States may cost more than a similar opportunity in India (assuming that there is higher demand for opportunities in the United States).  Lead pricing will gradually evolve over time to better fit market demand and reach equilibrium pricing where leads from segments that are less in demand will decrease in price and leads from segments in high demand will increase.

Access Real-Time Pricing

Vendors can access real-time pricing information directly from their vendor dashboard. This allows for greater transparency and enables vendors to make informed decisions about which leads to pursue based on demand and market pricing.

Stability and Predictability

To ensure stability and predictability, lead pricing is capped so that it will not change by more than 5% week over week for each segment. This constraint helps ensure pricing transparency as well as prevent rapid fluctuations in pricing giving vendors time to adjust their strategies to find the most cost-effective market segments based on real-time market conditions.

Benefits of Demand Based Pricing

• Competitive Pricing: Vendors can take advantage of real-time pricing to secure leads at the most competitive rates.  Low demand segments will get leads at large discounts encouraging more vendors to connect with these hotel tech buyers and improve the marketplace experience.
• Flexibility: The demand based pricing model allows for greater flexibility, enabling vendors to adapt to changing market conditions.
• Transparency: Vendors have access to real-time pricing information, promoting transparency and trust in the lead procurement process.
• Stability: With pricing changes limited to 5% week over week, vendors can expect a level of stability and predictability in lead pricing.

Conclusion

The shift to a demand based pricing model will enhance the overall experience for vendors over time by makings leads in low demand segments more accessible via decreased pricing and leads in high demand segments more accurately aligned to lead value.  This will in turn improve marketplace dynamics by encouraging more connections to hotel tech buyers that may be neglected in the market in a flat priced world. If you have any questions or need assistance navigating the new pricing model, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Today we rolled out a few enhancements to the dashboard to simplify navigation and create a more intuitive user experience which means that some features have been relocated within the dashboard.  The primary goal of this update was to reduce the levels of nesting within the side navigation, highlight the most commonly used features and help simplify finding things within the dashboard for new users.  These changes were intended to make the dashboard more intuitive so they should be clear as you navigate the tool, but here are the items that changed:

1. Profiles tab
   1. Products switched from dropdown to tabbed view
   2. Integrations have been moved from their own tab to a sub-tab within the profile editor
2. Reputation Tab
   1. Sidebar sub-menu options have been re-organized into new simplified tabbed view with accordion options
   2. Automated Review Manager
      1. Moved to a single tab and renamed 'Automated Campaigns'
      2. Sub-pages have been moved into the Shortcuts menu
      3. Filters have been re-organized for simplicity  
3. Leads Tab
   1. Instant Connect settings have been moved from the side bar to the new 'Lead Targeting' tab
   2. CRM Forwarding has been moved from sidebar to new tab
4. Posting Tab
   1. Posting types have been moved from the sidebar into tabbed view
      
5. Agency Tab
   1. Sidebar options have been migrated to shortcuts
6. Settings
   1. Settings shortcuts added to side-navigation
   2. Settings is now a single page and options been migrated into new horizontal tabbed view

Listen now

Today we released HTR's 2024 Media Kit with 2024 campaign options, pricing and more.

Download now

What's New

• Updated audience stats
• Updated 2024 pricing for sold out limited inventory campaigns (eblasts, ppc campaigns)
• PPC campaigns are now Exclusive Site Takeover PPC campaigns

Twice a year HTR assesses the categories on the site to determine if there are new categories that need to be added based on the evolving hotel tech stack as well as prune old categories that are no longer relevant or a good fit.  In our end of year analysis we determined that the IT & Building Management category on the site was confusing to users and was serving as a catch all for categories of the tech stack that really didn't belong together.  

As such, we have decided to deprecate this as a department from the site beginning early January 2024.

What will happen to the sub-categories within IT & Building Management department when the department is deprecated from the site in January?

Each sub-category was assessed individually to determine the best approach for how to handle.   Here are the final conclusions: 

1. Hotel Maintenance Software 👉 moved into Operations
2. Payment Processing Tools  👉 moved into Operations
3. Cyber Security & Fraud Prevention  👉 moved into Operations
4. Pre-Opening & Renovations Software 👉 moved into Operations
5. Energy Management Solutions  👉 moved into Operations
6. Parking Management Software  👉 moved into Operations
7. Digital Signage  👉 moved into Guest Experience
8. Hotel Wi-Fi  👉 moved into Guest Experience
9. Guest Room Management 👉 moved into Guest Experience
10. Marketplaces & Integrators  👉 deprecated from the site fully (details below)
11. Metasearch & Ad Tech 👉 Hotel Advertising Solutions

Why was the Marketplaces & Integrators category fully deprecated?

one such category which was the Marketplaces & Integrators category which had several issues that lead to its deprecation from the site beginning in 2024.  The core issues with the category were: 

1. Inaccurate listings: Of the 27 products listed in the category, only two of them were true standalone solutions that were listed correctly as such.  The 25 others did not qualify as true standalone solutions and were therefore listed inaccurately in a misleading way to users.  Instead, these solutions were add-on modules that were essentially just integrations of another product.  For example, the Apaleo App Store was one such product listed in the category.  The problem is that this a hotel cannot leverage the Apaleo App Store without using Apaleo's PMS and therefore not a true standalone integrations solution and should have been listed instead as an add-on module of the Apaleo PMS.  Additionally, if add-ons that faciliate product integrations could be listed as a standalone product then every company would technically have an integrations product which just doesn't make sense and isn't helpful to users on the site.
2. No search demand: In addition to the inaccurate listings issue mentioned above, we also analyzed search demand for this category and found that there is not sufficient demand for a standalone integrations solution to justify having a standalone category for this in the marketplace.  As such, we have decided to deprecate this category.

What if my company had a product in the category? What about our reviews?

If you are one of the 27 companies that had a product listing in the Marketplaces & Integrators category, two things happened when your profile was deprecated along with the category to preserve your content:

1. Product Migration: Your product was migrated from a standalone product in the category to instead become an add-on module of the core product that it was a part of to more accurately reflect the nature of the toolset for hoteliers browsing the site so they can learn about this as a capability of your product even though it is not a standalone solution.  For example, the Apaleo App Store standalone product profile was deprecated and an add-on module was created for the Apaleo App Store within the Apaleo PMS profile. You can update the description of this module via the profile editor of your vendor dashboard.
2. Review Migration: In order to ensure that no customer reviews were lost, HTR automatically migrated any reviews that your company had solely for that product to add them to the core product that the module has been added to.  For example, if the Apaleo App Store had 10 reviews, these reviews were migrated to the Apaleo PMS product profile since the Apaleo App Store is in reality, an add-on/module of the Apaleo PMS.

In November 2021 (view update) HTR implemented new restrictions on giveaway incentives in order to be able to ensure compliance with FTC guidelines for online review collection with manual monitoring.  Beginning January 1, 2024 HTR will be implementing programatic automated monitoring to be able to more effectively enforce compliance for any giveaways provided by HTR to users.  As such, please make sure that your team is away of the guidelines and eligibility requirements if you wish to take advantage of HTR's provided giveaway incentive programs where HTR subsidizes and fulfills giveaways directly to hoteliers who leave reviews. 

• Subsidized Incentive Cards for Premium Members
• Review incentive matching program for Basic Members

IMPORTANT: If your campaign is not compliant with ALL eligibility requirements, HTR will NOT be able to subsidize any giveaways to your users.

How it Works

In order for HTR to be able to ensure compliance campaigns MUST be run through the Automated Review Manager in the vendor dashboard where we have a record of: (a) the campaign templates to verify the way the giveaway was described (b) campaign size to verify the randomness ratio (c) who the campaign was sent to in order to ensure that winners are selected at random only from users who left reviews based on a compliant description of the incentive that was offered.  The Review Manager will track the # of campaigns sent during your giveaway period along with templates utilized and # of users reached to ensure compliance with offering incentives to users. 

Hotel Tech Report's once-a-year limited-time Cyber Monday offers are now live!

• Save up to 70% on posting
• Get up to $6,000 in free banner advertising

Check out the offers

Today we rolled out several updates that aim to make profiles more helpful for buyers.  These updates come as a result of several feature requests from both hoteliers in the community as well as vendors and serve to make profiles easier to scan, digest and understand.

Feature Requests from Vendors 👉 Profile Enhancements

1. See review counts by filters
2. Review tags for country, size and type to more easily find relevant reviews
3. Increased visibility for partner recommendations by moving them out of a tabbed view within the reviews section into their own new dedicated section
4. Add-on modules have been separated into their own dedicated section on profiles

Feature Requests from Users (hoteliers) 👉 Geographic Relevance Indicators

1. Review segmentation and geographic popularity of a product by country
2. Alerts to warn users if a given product may not be popular or serve their country 
   1. Alert #1: No reviews from the user's country
   2. Alert #2: More than 50%+ of a product's reviews are from the same country
3. Ability to find relevant reviews with country flags on reviews
4. Filter reviews by country

This month all HotelTechAwards participants get up to 10x free case studies as a perk of participation ($5,000 value). Not only does this help you share your company's latest success stories with HTR's 300k+ hoteliers that visit the site each month but it also ensures a level playing field in the competition so that it doesn't cost more to share your success stories (one of the variables in the HT Score). 

How It Works

1. Publish a case study to the site between 10/1/23 - 10/31/23
2. Complete the case study refund request form for the case study that you published once its been completed and posted to the site

More info

• How to Build a Stunning & Impactful Case Study in Under 5-minutes
• Why We Built the Verified Case Study Builder
• Section-by-Section Walk Through
• Get Inspired by 300+ Case Study Examples