People can be on the lookout for a multitude of different things when they’re researching a holiday and hotel stay. They might want somewhere to relax away from the crowds, or a city centre bolthole from which they can explore a bustling metropolis.
However, their needs often revolve around a handful of key factors – and if you can make the most of these by using them to show off how you’re catering for your guests, then you could be rewarded with a boost in bookings and an improvement to your bottom line. So, what are these key factors? Let’s take a look at them and how you can incorporate them into your hotel marketing scheme.Cost All but the wealthiest travellers will be considering price when they’re looking for accommodation, so it’s important to address it in your marketing material. If you have agreements with online travel agents, you may be bound by rate parity – but that doesn’t mean you can’t provide added value to your customers and promote this.
For example, you could offer extras such as tickets to nearby attractions for a special price with a one-night room reservation, or bonuses like free meals on the evening of arrival. It’s techniques like this that will make people think they are getting a better deal. ReviewsPeer reviews have now become hugely important in the hospitality industry. According to recent research by Barclays, three in five people say reading reviews plays an influential role in helping them decide which hotels, restaurants or bars to visit. Meanwhile, 29 per cent said they pay ‘a lot’ of attention to reviews when selecting a hotel, compared to just 12 per cent who didn’t read them at all.
As a hotel marketer, you can capitalise on the emotional engagement people have enjoyed with your property by publishing their reviews prominently on your website or social media. If you find that you’re not getting as many reviews as you’d like, encourage them by providing incentives such as extra loyalty points or discounts off future stays. It may prompt someone who is on the fence about making a booking with you to take the plunge and get out their credit card.
Location Particularly if someone is travelling for pleasure, the location of the hotels they’re looking at will be important when it comes to making a final decision on where to book. They won’t want somewhere in the middle of nowhere if they haven’t got a hire car, for instance. That means if you’ve got a property that’s ideally located for a great holiday, you need to tell would-be guests all about it and make it a key part of your marketing material.And if you’re not as ideally located as you’d like, you can still swing opinions a little more your way by pointing out that you offer free shuttle buses to nearby resorts or town cars to attractions in the vicinity for a cheap rate. Don’t forget that in some cases, isolation can be a draw for certain types of guests – burnt-out city types might want a cabin in the middle of nowhere, for example.
Ease of booking Nobody wants to get all the way to deciding to book with a hotel, only to find that the booking process itself is so complicated they can’t be bothered seeing the reservation through. If yours is like this, you’ll simply lose easy business, so put a straightforward hotel booking engine in place as soon as you can – check out the services offered by World Hotel Marketing if you need to.Once you’ve done that, promote it and inform would-be guests that they’re only a few steps away from their dream break. You can also reassure them that payments are secure and room availability is updated in real time to remove friction points. Travellers may all be different, but they often want many of the same things. It’s your job to demonstrate that you can offer them.
