Marriot International Case Study

Marriott International

How Weboptimiser helped Marriott International increase its revenue by 32% in 4 key overseas markets.

The client

Almost a century after J Willard and Alice Marriott set up a small root beer stand in Washington DC, Marriott International has grown to be one of the world's largest and most successful hospitality brands, with more than 2,600 properties in 64 countries globally.

The challenge

In April 2002 Marriott had 5 web sites; a global .com site plus 4 newly created regional sites for the core markets of the UK, Japan, Germany and Latin America. While the .com site enjoyed excellent traffic from around the world, the company needed to boost the visibility of the regional sites in order to increase bookings on a local basis.

The brief

Weboptimiser's brief was straightforward - to optimise the sites in their respective local languages, for the leading search engines, using a combination of search engine optimisation and pay-per-click search engine marketing.

The solution

Our first task was to make the regional sites more search engine friendly and we worked with native Japanese, German and Spanish-speaking copywriters to ensure that any language-based work, from search term analysis to tag optimisation and link building was appropriate for each local audience. At the same time, we implemented an inexpensive, secondary pay-per-click campaign, with Overture, eSpotting and Google, specifically to attract local traffic to the German, Japanese and UK sites. In order to maximise the results, specifically the clickthrough rate, of the PPC campaign, the same copywriters were involved in the creation of the ads and title tags.

The result

Using a sophisticated visitor tracking system, Weboptimiser were able to show that within the first 6 months of the campaign, search-generated traffic to the UK site tripled, while traffic to the Japanese, Latin American and German sites doubled. Overall, visibility increased by 347%, bookings grew by 40% and revenue rose by 32%. Strategically, Marriott International is now perceived as a truly global brand and Internet users in the UK, Japan, Latin America and Germany can find Marriott and a wealth of useful information, from regional hotels to local attractions, online, in their own language.

For more information about Weboptimiser's search engine marketing services, either email or call Joshua on +44 (0) 20 7953 7199.