Sometimes I will visit the official Internet web site of a hotel property in order to conduct some research for an article — or perhaps I may be in the middle of planning for a trip — and I either postpone or abandon my research for a variety of reasons…
Do Those Reminder E-Mail Messages Really Work?
…only to check my e-mail account and find messages which “remind” me to complete booking my reservation.
For example — for one particular hotel property which I was researching — IHG Rewards Club tells me that “You’re just a few clicks away from completing your Holiday Inn® room reservation. Remember that as an IHG® Rewards Club member, you can book with us with Your Rate for extra savings. When you book direct you receive our lowest price—and your rewards like free internet and points towards hotel stays.”
Another example is that Hilton Honors tells me to “quick — book our lowest prices for” a resort property whose official Internet web site I had visited hours earlier; or to “grab this price at DoubleTree by Hilton” hotel property in Europe — and the room rate was nothing special
Summary
I cannot remember one time when I received one of these e-mail messages and thought to myself, “Oh! I forgot! I was in the middle of booking a reservation at this hotel property and I neglected to finish it!”
I also cannot remember one of those e-mail messages convincing me and prompting me to book a reservation at a particular hotel or resort property in general.
Yes, I realize that those automated custom e-mail messages are part of a personalized marketing technique which is based on the “surfing” habits of the recipient — but I personally find them irritating and only a step or two above “click bait” or “spam” at best; and the method does not work for me…
…but it must work, because they keep coming.
Having that pop-under window for Room Key — which is a search tool formed by a partnership of hotel companies designed to offer one-stop shopping to the customer searching for options of where to stay — is annoying enough when attempting to find a hotel property in a particular location, as I first wrote in this article back on Tuesday, August 21, 2012…
Photograph ©2017 by Brian Cohen.
