Integrated marketing seeks to place your attention where it belongs: On your customer. And as successful hoteliers have known for years, you’ll never go wrong caring about your customer.

Online travel planning is far from simple. Today’s travel shopper conducts multiple searches, reads online reviews, browses destination information, discusses plans on social sites with friends and colleagues, and compares hotels, rooms and rates across multiple websites. How else can they be sure to find the right room at the right price?

Given this, no contemporary marketer ignores the vast array of online channels in his or her marketing plans. And most create those plans by envisioning the traditional purchase funnel: the model that suggests consumers’ progress from awareness, through interest and desire to their purchase action.

While this funnel provides a convenient metaphor, it may mislead marketers into believing only one purchase path exists. However, no one follows the same neat, orderly progression from “I think I’ll take a trip” straight through to “Here’s my credit card,” down the same path, funnel-shaped or otherwise.

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