Aida is one of the great Italian operas, known to everyone in Italy.
AIDA is also one of the fundamental acronyms for marketing communications, ignored by too many Italian hotels and accommodation structures, big and small.
AIDA stands for ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE, ACTION and is the most basic model for the consumer decision making process.
We are finding time and again, especially in this moment of apparent crisis, that many in the Italian incoming tourism business are drastically cutting their ‘advertising’ budget with the chorus of ’only investing in who brings us direct income or bookings’.
With the web in mind, this is a dangerous call.
Firstly, it is playing directly into the hands of who has more and more control of the ACTION, at least for the smaller hotels and accommodation.
Here we mean online booking sites such as Expedia, Booking.com, Venere etc.
Not only are critical margins being handed over to such entities for ‘bringing us bookings’, but the hotels’ room prices are getting squeezed in a game of biggest discount wins.
2, 3, and 4 star hotels are being pushed onto a battleground where the end consumer is now making a choice between a B&B or a four star hotel – so what, the prices are all the same!
Even worse, what marketing and promotional budgets are being spent by the accommodation structures are being filtered into profts for the said booking giants.
Our view is that hotels should look very carefully at the ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE stages of the purchase process.
Not least to position themselves correctly from a marketing point of view, and to sell the benefits of what would be a stay or vacation.
Only then will they get away from price as the key element of the purchase decision and take control of their revenue streams, customer fidelity and the holy grail of ‘word by mouth’.
A holiday is also territory, people, food & unique experiences which have a cost, normally reinvested locally to the benefit of everyone.
Who, Delicious Italy included, does a fine job in creating ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE in a difficult market place should not be undervalued.
