12 hints a Hotel should know before booking their photographer

Hotel Photography

12 hints a Hotel should know before booking their photographer;

• A good outside shot of the property should be the first image on the site.
  Visitors want to see very quickly what time of property they are dealing with to save time ‘Are you a 5 room B&B or a 100 room ‘Novotel’?

• Room Images are very important photos on a website.
  Room images are one of the most visited section of a website. Logically enough customers want to see where they are spending 10 hours other life!

• Make sure the rooms are 'dressed' before taking photos.
  Don’t go mad, but a tea tray/folded newspaper on a bed or a bedside light on can go a long way.

• Others area of the property should be next on the photo priority list.
  After rooms consider the Food and Beverage locations for photos.

• The Photo Gallery Page is the 2nd or 3rd most visited page on a hotel website.
  A picture tells a thousand words, so customers often head direct to the gallery to get a sense/overview of your property

• Include people wherever possible in the photos to add interest.
  Simply a business man at a desk in a room reading a newspaper or the maid opening the curtains can add a level of interest to a room photo.

• Make sure photo file size is not are not too large when uploaded to the website.
  Ever sat watching an image appear bit by bit on your screen? That’s an oversized image that someone has forgotten to resize when they were uplladed. You can feel your web visitors draining away as the image loads!!!!

• You cannot download ANY photos from the internet or you face copyright infringement.
  We have seen far too many hotels get caught out by their over enthusiastic staff members ‘borrowing’ an image from another website.

• Create a folder and download a batch of free photography (ie Pixabay) for future marketing campaigns.
  How many times have your promotions been stopped in their tracks for the lack of a photo!! Get a batch into a folder ready to go ie Fathers Day/Mothers Day/Christmas/Valentines/Easter/Gift Vouchers etc)

• Request your photographer deliver the photos in several different resolutions (ie low res and high res)
  Some people will want low res photos and some high. If you have both folders ready to go you will not have to spend time converting them.

• When you receive the photography put them into a central folder ie Google Drive, that makes them easy to send/share to companies that may need them.
  Remember that OTAs or that Magazine or Newspaper Editor who rang looking for photos? Simply ‘share’ your GDrive/HotelPhotos if its sitting on a Google Drive ready to go.

• Dont go overboard on staged photography or you risk raising expectations too far.
  If you are a 4 star product delivering a 3.5 star experience you are in trouble. If you are a 3 star product delivering a 3.5 star experience you are in heaven!!