News for the Hospitality Executive |
by Vikram
Singh The hotel industry has always been a target
for
misinformation about new, emerging, and especially open-source
technology. It
feels like the industry is stuck in a time warp, which I blame on
negative
propaganda unleashed by ubiquitous “marketing experts.” But remember
what the
best philosophers say? Always question the source. Agencies want to
make money.
They want to make it efficiently, without having to revamp their
processes, and
without being asked any questions. This simple truth forms the basis of
every
outdated piece of technology being used today by hotels. I have long been wanting to share my list of
the “reasons”
hotel marketing agencies have given to prevent clients from choosing
WordPress
over their own proprietary platforms. It’s pretty sad for the industry
that
they have decided to spread these lies about a great new resource in
order to
make a few extra dollars. So there you are: the reason why we have
hotel
websites’ clunky, abysmal, and outdated “custom” content management
systems
littering the Internet.* *Excessive use of quotation marks
intentional. 1. “WordPress is just for blogs. It’s not
a CMS for
hotels.” If I had a dollar for every time someone
used this outdated
piece of “information,” I would be on the Forbes annual Richest People
list.
Apparently nobody told these experts that WordPress is a superb CMS. It
did
start out as a blogging platform on May 27, 2003. Seems
like since
then, these agency experts stopped reading tech news. Here is a chart from Google Trends
illustrating the rising
popularity and influence of WordPress as an open-source content
management
system.
The WordPress CMS today serves over 371
million people
with 4.1 billion pages each month. How do you like them
apples? Here are
some colossal websites powered by WordPress today:
Take a moment to soak this in. The websites
listed above are
massive content and ecommerce operations. If WordPress can deliver such
massive
amounts of content and billions in revenue, please don’t have any fear
about
your 10/20/30/50-page hotel website. 2. “WordPress does not handle e-commerce.” Now let’s discuss the “e-commerce
incapability” myth. Heard
of a little company called eBay? eBay made$3.4 billion in revenue in
2012. I
have another one for you: UPS (United Parcel Service). They made…wait
for
it…$54 billion in 2012. Total approximate online revenue in 2012 for
ALL hotels
in the US = $19.38 billion (source: Comscore). Saying that WordPress is not good for hotel
e-commerce is a
fundamentally flawed statement anyway. All ecommerce transactions
happen inside
your hotel’s booking engine. Not on your website. And, e-commerce carts
are a
whole different thing (à la eBay) that cannot be lumped into the
capabilities
of a website’s CMS. So what have we learned today? WordPress can
very easily
handle your hotel’s e-commerce and content management needs. In fact,
it can
power every single hotel website in the US without breaking a sweat. So
relax,
sit back, and take the refreshing plunge into the world of open-source
technology.*† *Still not convinced? Nobody knows more
about making
stacks on stacks on stacks than Jay Z. Even he
selected
WordPress to power his empire! †Still not convinced?? Katy Perry powers her
site with WordPress. I rest my case. 3. “WordPress is not safe.” Here is something I strongly believe in:
Creating doubt is much
easier than being creative. So, the first thing agency expert types do
is start
spreading rumors about the dangers of an open-source platform in
comparison to
their familiar yet obsolete “custom solution.” Repeat after me. Nobody is 100% safe on
the Internet.
If someone wants to hack you badly enough, they will. A hotel marketing
agency
CMS is no safer than a site powered by WordPress. Let’s take a look at a few of the companies
that have been
hacked in recent years.
These companies have entire divisions of
people whose one
and only job is to monitor for hackers. Yet, it happened. Hotel
marketing
agencies who are touting their clunky outdated CMS system as being
“safer” than
WordPress should be vigilant – and avoid invoking the ire of the hacker
community. It happens… call it unbreakable and it breaks into a
thousand pieces
in public fiasco (you don’t want to be The Unsinkable Ship). A recent article by a hotel marketing agency
took
fear-mongering to a whole new level by pinning global DDoS (Denial of Service)
attacks on all WordPress
powered sites! Still feeling anxious? Here are some facts.
You download and
install WordPress for free. From that moment on, it’s your job to host
it in
the right environment. If your hosting company has basic security
features and
you maintain your passwords, you will be fine. On the one in a million
chance
that you get “hacked”? It will take you at the most a few hours to come
back
online. Just look at the list of companies above that survived. You
will too. These arrogant and baseless claims of
agency-designed CMS
systems being safer than WordPress can be shattered by a determined
teenage
hacker in less than 1 minute, and a professional one in about 15
seconds. You
can quote me on that. (And no, I’m not encouraging them to do so!) By the way, technology should be used to
make things better,
not as a tool for fear-mongering among those of us who don’t read/write
code.
Posting a screen shot of some code from one WordPress powered website
template
that was hacked is LAME. A website powered by a CMS powering millions
of
websites got temporarily hacked. So did Sony, Google and Citibank… so
are you
now going to quit using Google because it is not “safe”? Please. 4. “Wordpress can’t distribute content
socially.” Seriously? A CMS that was just called good
enough only for
blogs cannot distribute your hotel website content online? Mashable is probably
the top
social news and trends website on the planet. A WordPress CMS powers
it. I
hereby rest my case on content distribution on the social web. (Vikram
drops
mike on the floor and walks offstage.) 5. “WordPress is expensive.” WordPress is a lot of things to a lot of
people. One thing
it is not is expensive. It’s free, folks… like the air we
breathe. One
of the agency “experts” chalked out this weird
list of expenses attached with owning a WordPress-powered website:
6. “WordPress plugins are hard to use.” This global statement is just not true. The
top plugins are
not only free, but also easy to install and maintain. A global team of
passionate WordPress fanboys constantly improves them. The goal is to
make them
available and usable to a wide audience – of people who don’t know how
to code! 7. “WordPress is not mobile optimized.” Please, let’s not go there. WordPress was
mobile-friendly
when agency CMS systems were still living in a cave (think
Flintstones). New
WordPress mobile themes and ecosystems are just amazing, and push
billion of
pageviews on hundreds of devices worldwide. Modern WordPress themes and
frameworks are doing a phenomenal job of pushing the usability envelope
in an
increasingly mobile world. 8. “WordPress is not SEO-friendly.” This is just plain blasphemous. Not a single
agency CMS on
the planet can come even close to how easy WordPress has made it for
you to
optimize your website for search engines.
Calling WordPress “SEO-unfriendly” and
complicated is just
plain ludicrous (I don’t mean the rapper…he is pretty cool). If
you can
click and type, you can optimize your website effectively. 9. “WordPress limits a hotel website’s
flexibility and
functionality.” WordPress vs Agency CMS
In conclusion… Hotels cannot continue to 100% rent their
entire online
marketing efforts. It’s time to own your single most profitable channel
in the
universe – your website. You don’t have to be a developer to embrace
open-source technology. All you have to do when picking a website
design vendor
is make a simple request: “Please make my website using an open-source
platform
such as WordPress.” Also, one day when that agency relationship
comes to an end
(all things good and bad shall end), you will retain your entire site
+CMS+
SEO+ URL’s intact. Often, when you leave a custom CMS website vendor,
there is
a big surprise in store for you:
I have seen this in the agency world too
many times. It’s
the ultimate kiss (of death) goodbye. It’s so bad that I actually saw
an email
from an agency CEO to his project manager (inadvertently forwarded to a
hotel
manager) with the subject line “please remove SEO optimization.” Three
years of
work the hotel paid for – deleted. About Vikram Singh A dynamic and internationally-respected speaker, Vikram delivers lectures, workshops and seminars worldwide, including an international workshop for the US Department of Commerce and featured presentations for the American Express/American Hotel & Lodging Association Educational Series. He favors topics that are often inaccessible or unfamiliar to audiences, including innovative uses of new technology, and he emphasizes action-oriented strategies that help listeners differentiate themselves in their work. Visit http://www.wordsofvikram.com to learn more about Vikram. |
Contact: Vikram Singh www.wordsofvikram.com
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