A recent USA Today article about business travel started me wondering.

The article focused on TV options offered by hotels. Though every person quoted but one was male, the woman did have the last word: “‘Hotels continue to be under the impression that men are the only travelers,’ says [Cyndi] McKinney, president of a market research consulting company.” “‘How about switching one of the six to eight sports channels for a little Food Network or HGTV?’”

In fact, a few years ago it was estimated that 40% of business travelers are female, and that number is growing. Overall, women make 70% of all travel buying decisions in the US.

Cyndi McKinney has a point: I’ve experienced the same lack of channel choices at hotels. (I’ve yet to find Fine Living at any hotel, and that’s one of my favorites.) That led me to visit the websites of some 4-star hotels I’ve enjoyed in the past to see if they list their available TV channels online. No luck at any such website.

And that led me to wonder: are hotel websites supplying the information women need to make informed buying decisions?

One would think hotels would want to supply useful information on their websites, because doing otherwise could lead to missed sales—the hotel offers something the female traveler wants but fails to list it—or customer dissatisfaction: the woman traveler assumes a hotel will provide something it doesn’t, and now she’s stuck at a hotel that lacks a key amenity.

We already know from my informal survey of selected 4-star hospitality websites that such hotels aren’t supplying information about room TV channels. But what other hotel features are important to women… and important for them to know about before booking a visit?

Bed, bath, and beyond

For me, the bed, bathtub, and room decor are all potential deal breakers. A frequently running airport shuttle and newspaper delivery to my door are less important, but still factor into my decision. An on-site Starbucks is a major bonus.

When I register for a business conference, before asking my staff to book my room I check the websites of all nearby hotels. My first stop: room photos. If the decor isn’t appealing and updated, that hotel is out. If the bed doesn’t look wonderfully comfortable, with a fluffy duvet and airy white linens, it’s also out.

Finding information about bathtubs is much harder; it’s difficult to find a photo of a hotel room’s bathroom on any website, much less one of the bathtub. I’m lucky if the website even identifies whether a bathtub is available or if it’s a shower only. A bullet point that says, “Bathtub” doesn’t tell me whether it’s a cramped one with severe contours that make soaking impossible, or a wide garden tub with a gently sloping back and sufficient light to see.

(Don’t laugh; the last hotel I stayed at had only one source of light that reached the bathtub, a heat lamp, and it turned off automatically every ten minutes. Imagine a relaxing soak in the tub wherein one has to get out, towel off, walk across the room, and turn the light switch back on every ten minutes. What a way to relax after a long day!)

What mass affluent women want in a hotel

What about other women customers?

One of the hotels in my informal survey was the Loews Vanderbilt in Nashville. A quick look at TripAdvisor reviews written by women about that hotel provided a clear picture. After all, if someone takes the time to sit down and write about an aspect of their stay they particularly enjoyed (or hated), that aspect is likely important.

Of every 2009 review of that hotel written by women—17 such reviews in total—these were the aspects mentioned most often:

  Service provided by the hotel staff (71%)

  Wonderfully comfortable bed (47%)

  Convenient location (35%)

  Spacious room (29%)

  Cleanliness (24%)

  Bathroom – large, updated, nice bathtub, and/or nicely stocked (18%)

  Quiet room (18%)

  Flat-screen TV (18%)

Aspects with 12% of the “vote” included attractive decor, a nice view, multiple dining options nearby, live music, inexpensive parking, and feeling “nickeled and dimed”—for instance, having to pay extra for internet service or inflated prices for minibar items.

The remainder (each with less than 10%) included a feeling of safety, turndown service, a neat coffee maker, free continental breakfast and appetizers, a nearby yoga facility, and additional seating areas both inside and out.

How are hotel websites doing?

Some of the smarter hotels have been paying attention and revamping their offerings to meet the needs of female travelers, from female-friendly exercise equipment, smaller portions of restaurant food, and more bathtubs (yeah!) to a floor of 18 rooms set aside for women business travelers at a Miami hotel. USA Today reported in August 2006 that Wyndham Hotels & Resorts had begun a program called “Wyndham’s Women on the Way” for women business travelers while working with women’s organizations on delivering a better hotel experience for female visitors. (Nice!)

With apologies to Wyndham for using it as our guinea pig, let’s see how the website of the Wyndham Miami Airport Hotel, mentioned in the article, stacks up in terms of (a) appealing to female travelers and (b) informing women consumers of its offerings… keeping in mind that 60% of its guests are women business travelers.

The hotel’s home page opens with a large photo of a golf course. Given that the majority of golfers are male, this approach doesn’t win any points… and the heavy black and blue web design isn’t winning points either. So far it’s hard to tell this hotel caters to women.

Ah ha! A “photo tour” image link in the upper right corner catches my eye. Excellent! My excitement quickly fades, though… there’s but one photo of the interior of a regular room, and no photos of bathrooms. On the positive side, the room photo enlarges at a click, there’s a lovely 360-degree viewing option, and the bed definitely meets my criteria for a closer look. 

When I hover my mouse over the “accommodations” link in the navigation menu, five options appear: suites, room overview, clean air rooms, eco-friendly initiatives, and health, wellness & amenities. I’m delighted to see the “room overview” (sounds promising), the clean air rooms (keeping in mind how important cleanliness is to our female reviewers), and eco-friendly initiatives—while eco-friendly initiatives weren’t mentioned by said female reviewers, as a responsible consumer I like it.

Let’s start with the “room overview”. I’m hoping for a comparison chart of the various types of rooms or more room description, and I get the latter: the rooms are “completely sound proof” and feature nice views (”golf course, city, or waterway views”), premium bedding packages including Pillow-Top Serta Perfect Sleeper Mattresses and feather/down bedding (yes!), improved air quality using PURE technology and an in-room air purification system, “modern marble bathrooms” (great—but the website loses at least one point for failing to show these modern marble bathrooms), and 32-inch flat-screen TVs. In-room internet access is mentioned but without any fee information. The hotel offers “excellent service” but no proof points are given; examples of this outstanding service or testimonials from guests about the hotel staff would gain points with me as a customer.  

Of the top eight items most often mentioned by our female hotel reviewers, all eight are addressed either in the room overview description or by the room photo viewed earlier. Unfortunately, the claim to “excellent service” isn’t backed up, and spaciousness doesn’t appear to be a strong point of the average room as shown by the 360-degree tool… but at least women can determine the approximate amount of space before making their decision, and the other items in the description are detailed enough to tempt me as a consumer.

At this point, I’m interested enough to explore further.

Digging deeper

The availability of a variety of dining options is addressed by the “dining” link. Unfortunately, only the hotel’s restaurant and bar are mentioned. Do they offer smaller-sized portions for women travelers, at least? The website doesn’t say. I look for a link to a menu to see if I like the food and prices, but come up empty.

Parking options aren’t mentioned at all. The hotel does offer a 24-hour complimentary hotel shuttle (found by clicking on the somewhat mysteriously worded “Local Area” link), which is very nice, but its frequency isn’t supplied. Does it run every 10 minutes, every half hour, every… ? Nothing beats standing in the rain at an airport curb after a series of flight delays and turbulence, only to realize that while other hotel shuttles run every 10 minutes, yours runs every 30 minutes… and it left one minute before you arrived.

I don’t see any mention at all—anywhere on the website—of the “Wyndham’s Women on the Way” program. Do they no longer offer this? Did they ever offer it? What a shame to leave off such a differentiator for 60% of its hotel guests!

All in all, it’s a decent effort, but there’s still a long way to go.

How does your website compare?

When’s the last time you took a look at your website from the perspective of one of America’s most influential consumers: a woman? Whether you’re in the hotel business or not, set aside a few minutes to review it; improvements you identify today could make your female customers’ buying experience faster, easier, and more pleasant… and improve your bottom line at the same time.

Tags: hospitality, hotel websites, hotels, marketing to women, marketing to women online, women and travel, women business travelers

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Food packagers of the world, imagine that you’re a woman.

You own your own business, or perhaps you hold a leadership position in the community or the corporate world. You’re the captain of your tennis team. You’re accustomed to handling the business of daily life, perhaps not just for yourself but for others: members of your family, employees and customers of your company, and so on. You’re fully capable of functioning as an independent, responsible adult.

Now imagine that in the course of your day, you visit a grocery store like Whole Foods or EarthFare, since you’re concerned about keeping yourself and your family healthy. You spring for organic juice and organic fruit preserves at a much higher price than the goods you’d find at Bi-Lo or Bag-N-Save, but the health boost is worth it.

Later that evening, as you try to open the jar of fruit or juice, suddenly you’re reduced to the state of a helpless child: you’re not strong enough to open the container without help from a burly man, perhaps your husband, perhaps a male next-door neighbor, whom you must ask for help in order to access the fruit you quite capably earned the money to purchase. What a great feeling, no?

What are food packagers thinking?

Let’s review:

~ Women are responsible for 85% of all consumer purchasing decisions and 93% of food purchasing decisions … but a simple fact of life is that most women are physically not as strong as men, making it a challenge to muscle open difficult packaging.

~ Women over 50 make 80% of buying decisions for households that have 80% of the nation’s money, but as women age, many lose strength and begin to suffer from arthritis, making it even more challenging to muscle open difficult packaging.

~ Almost 50% of women say they want more green choices—probably ones they can open.

It would be wise to gain the good will of these consumers, no?

Many marketers have become savvy to the purchasing power of women and baby boomers, and here at Aio we’ve been heartened to see increasing attempts to appeal to these markets—though some marketing campaigns and websites do this more successfully than others.

What’s disheartening is to see all these marketers’ efforts (and their companies’ investments) swirling quickly down the drain at the hands of poorly conceived product packaging.

Because those efforts are swirling down the drain. If there’s anything worse than failing to make a sale to a female consumer, it’s aggravating and embarrassing her once you do make a sale. Women have long memories, and they talk. If they can’t open your packaging, they won’t be foolish enough to buy it a second time… and they’ll probably tell their friends about it.

I know this is true because it’s true in my own life. I’m a healthy 37-year-old woman who works out five times a week, yet I’ve purchased organic food I couldn’t open without my husband’s woodworking clamps, and when I went to the trouble once to contact a manufacturer about the issue, I was met with deafening silence. I stopped buying that product—a shame, because the juice is otherwise one of my favorites.

If you still don’t believe this, consider this website, which offers thirteen methods to open difficult jars, from using a flame (!) to striking the edge of the lid on a countertop, being careful not to cut one’s finger on the resulting chips of glass. Warnings include the likes of “Be careful not to crack the jar, or else it could break while you’re twisting it and cut your hand” and “Be careful when using butter knives to open a jar—they may not seem sharp, but if one slips while you are applying force to it, you can experience a very nasty cut.”

Boy, I don’t know about you, but if a product is so hard to open that I have to break out flames, look out for flying chips of glass or fear cutting my hand open, I don’t want it.

The days of putting something out on the shelves and expecting consumers to like what you give them are over. And for some reason, the packagers of cheaper food items tend to understand this better than the packagers of much pricier organic (“green”) options. The shelves of Bi-Lo are filled with easy-to-open food packages. Why isn’t this the case at Whole Foods, where consumers are expected to fork over extra money for the privilege of buying difficult-to-open jars?

Food manufacturers, stop sabotaging the efforts of your marketers—they’re trying to help you, for goodness’ sake—and alienating your best customers!

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