Case study - Online accommodation provider

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Direct Asia Hotels is an online hotel booking website providing hotel accommodation within the Asia Pacific region. A highly competitive market, the company provides added value by offering instant confirmation and some of the lowest available rates. The challenge was to get visibility when their competitors had a number of years advantage.

Realising we could not compete for visibility in the search engines, we advocated alternative ways to drive traffic to the website. We created a marketing calendar for key events and holidays throughout the calendar year, where the message would be appropriate and geared to what potential breaks people would be considering (sports events, festivals etc). This resulted in a huge increase in website traffic which translated into bookings.

Sponsorship of key expatriate events was also an integral part of the marketing plan. Being a new online business, directasiahotels.com needed a tangible presence for credibility purposes. Specific promotions for those who attended the events were created thus improving the returns. Banners, stand up posters, uniformed promotion girls handing out vouchers and giveaways were all used with a lucky draw prize. Entrants had to leave their details, thereby augmenting the database.

We also participated in affinity marketing, tying up with well-known brands whose customers had the same demographics as Direct Asia Hotels.

Although a new .com, Direct Asia Hotels has already developed significant brand awareness and is a number of months ahead of budgeted turnover. Future projects include multi-lingual search engine marketing, a loyalty programme and sub-brands specialised in certain types of holidays.

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