Get a head start with a specialised hotel CMS

"Everything on the website has to be right for quick, instant reservations"

Direct reservations are essential to a hotel's success. With Porter, Thomas Dieben, founder of Becurious - a digital marketing agency for hotels in Amsterdam - created a solution for independent hoteliers who want more direct reservations. They do this with a specialised content management system (CMS) that gives hotels an edge.

For almost a quarter of a century, Becurious has been creating high-quality digital marketing strategies for hotels. Now, Thomas Dieben developed a unique solution for independent hoteliers with the Porter label. The concept offers specialised designs as the basis for an outstanding website for hotels that want to tell their own story. According to Dieben, it is crucial that a hotel website works flawlessly: "The technology must be perfect, the loading time lightning fast, booking must be possible in a few clicks and good findability is essential." 

With flexible designs, fully customised to the desired corporate identity, Porter can deliver a high-performing website that generates instant reservations within four to six weeks, with integrations of all popular reservation systems and extensive tracking in the CMS. This gives hoteliers insight into the performance of their website. In Belgium, the sites of Hotel Velotel in Bruges and Landgoed Altenbroek in the Voerstreek, among others, have been built this way.

A telling example of this specialised hotel CMS is the hotel's good findability in search engines. "Basically, the standard FAQ module is configured in such a way that questions and answers end up in the index of search engines in a smart way. For example, if people search for check-in and check-out times, the answer is immediately given on the search engine result page. This technique is also used for answers in voice-search applications such as Siri, Alexa or Google Home. Online travel agencies also use these techniques, so it is important that hotels use this themselves. This is because search engines and guests find the hotel's own information more relevant."

According to Dieben, another important advantage is the user-friendliness of the system. Indeed, hoteliers can easily post new content such as blogs, offers, photos or information. "This way, they don't have to spend too much time on online marketing and can concentrate on the tasks at their hotel," says Dieben. "The CMS is specially designed to manage multilingual websites. We are also ready with unlimited personal support in case of any questions or problems." 

Margreet Pauwe, independent hotelier of four-star hotel De Witte Berken in Epe is very pleased with her website recently completed by Porter. "Last year, my husband and I took over the hotel. A new website was a priority, but we didn't want to start from scratch. In my search for a supplier, I ended up with Porter, specialised in the hotel industry and with a full-fledged CMS, which has grown through experience and learning. The nice thing is that the CMS is considerably faster than what we had before and I can easily manage all the content myself. That way I keep control. Moreover, the site fits perfectly with what we want our hotel to be: tranquillity, space and nature. The developers continued this experience in the look and feel of the website. What I appreciate most is the personal contact. Right from the start, Thomas Dieben visited us. That close contact is important for a good end result."

Thomas concludes, "With Porter, we offer the ideal solution for hotels that want to tell their own story and increase their online visibility. We see that this always results in a significant increase in direct bookings, and therefore commission-free revenue."■