As 2020 draws to a close, we want to take a moment to reflect on the unprecedented year we’ve had in the hospitality industry. COVID-19 swept the nation early in the year, and it presented both challenges and opportunities for us to overcome alongside our hotel partners. Through continuous innovation and pushing to provide exceptional results for our clients, we launched several exciting updates throughout the year while providing crucial support during the pandemic.

We wanted to take a moment to step back and reflect upon this year’s challenges alongside the crucial updates and developments we’ve provided to better ourselves and our clients within the industry.

The 1st Impression Score®

Early in 2020, we unveiled a new metric for our hoteliers to measure how guests feel about their hotel. Combining the recency of a review with its star rating, the hotel’s review responses, and lifetime score, we were able to give our hotel partners a far more accurate representation of a guest’s experience. The metric updates in real-time, so each time your hotel receives a new review, the score is updated to reflect the current impression guests are getting when they research your property.

The year’s events emphasized how important a regular flow of new reviews is for a hotel’s reputation. Our priority is always to ensure hoteliers could accurately and efficiently diagnose gaps in their guest experience, making the 1st Impression Score® ideal to use. We have a brief video and full page with additional information available.

TMG’s COVID-19 Response

When the first Stay in Place orders were issued across the United States, and hotels began closing or reducing staff, we knew we had to step up and offer our support. As part of our COVID-19 response, we ran a 3-part webinar series to help hoteliers identify ways to maximize revenue. We focused on managing your communication strategy, optimizing market share, and offsetting group travel loss to ensure we covered major industry areas that were affected by the pandemic. 

For our current clients, we continued to support them in their unique needs throughout the summer, offering advice where we could through our blog, podcast, and additional webinars. Our dedicated product team continued drafting and scheduling social media content and writing expert review responses to ensure all our clients could put their full focus on needs at the property level.

In addition, we launched our first Virtual Trade Show over the summer to help connect with hoteliers who needed help balancing marketing alongside regular operations. Offering unique, personal conversations with Brand Ambassador Ryan Embree allowed us the opportunity to forge a stronger connection with partners in the industry. We aim to continue hosting virtual events regularly through 2021.

New Solutions Packages for 2020

In 2020, we revisited our solutions packages’ structure, taking feedback from hoteliers of single properties and multi-property hotel groups. We released a new structure that helped streamline our services to be most beneficial to our clients moving forward. Each new package is integrated with TMG OneView®, which further aids hoteliers in generating reports and managing their reputation from all sites congruently.

Our press release contains further information about each updated package and how the new focus will drive the way we collaborate with hoteliers in 2021 and beyond.

OneView Feed 2.0 Launch

Two years ago, we launched our innovative, industry-leading platform TMG OneView®, which offered a way for hoteliers to view all their feedback, upcoming social media posts, and more all in one place. This year, our development team launched a comprehensive update to the feed. The rollout included updates to multi-property reporting and sorting capabilities and general streamlining to maximize efficiency for all OneView™ users.

An industry-leading feature of the updated OneView Feed is the ability to view real-time content for all of your hotels at once, making it the ideal tool for regional managers, management groups, and brands. Our update to this platform was guided by ongoing feedback from our multi-property hotel partners. We shared a detailed press release covering some of the details of our launch, and we are proud to innovate and support the needs of the industry. 

Ranked Top 10 in Digital Marketing on HotelTechReport

At Travel Media Group, we value client feedback, and we were glad to partner with HotelTechReport to gather reviews from our partners. With the help of honest feedback from our clients, we rose to the Top 10 Digital Marketing Agencies listed on HotelTechReport’s website.

Reviews such as the one pictured below made this possible. We are grateful that hoteliers find our services innovative, easy to maintain, and that our teams are recognized for consistent, responsive client support.

Social Media Solution Expanded to Include LinkedIn 

With LinkedIn’s growing popularity as a platform, especially during COVID-19, our development team worked to integrate it into our TMG OneView® platform to support hotels with LinkedIn pages moving forward. The development occurred as we phased Pinterest out of our social media package – we believe this adjustment will benefit hoteliers and work to capture business travel opportunities most effectively.

The updated integration into TMG OneView® will allow our social media team to create and share posts to your hotel’s LinkedIn business page. From there, you can invite your team members to share them with your connections, building long-lasting relationships, and invite local business travelers to stay connected with your hotel.

Looking Forward

This has been the most challenging year for the hospitality industry in recent history. Hoteliers remained resilient amid the fluctuating demand and pivoted quickly and efficiently during unprecedented times. We’re still on the recovery path, but know that Travel Media Group is always here to help your hotel with expert marketing strategies and dedicated customer service.

We look forward to what 2021 has in store for us, and we remain optimistic in terms of travel and business recovery across the industry. Together, we are #HospitalityStrong.