Intent to travel in all regions is now on the rise. The coronavirus pandemic had a devastating impact on the hotel industry as governments implemented lockdown restrictions to counter the spread of the virus.
But with infection rates declining, many places are opening up and world travel is returning to pre-pandemic levels. As a result, hotels are preparing to attract more customers.
To capture demand, hotels and resorts must implement strategies to reach travelers at the right time and convince them to book a stay at their establishments.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the best business strategies for hoteliers you can use to attract travelers and grow your hotel business in 2023.
1. Improve the guest experience
One of the most effective business strategies for hoteliers is to provide guests with a great experience.
Satisfied guests are a valuable marketing tool for your hotel business. Satisfied guests will book your hotel again and recommend it to their friends and family.
That’s why it’s important to always give your best when it comes to the guest experience. Here are some of the things you can do to improve the guest experience at your hotel:
- Simplify the reservation process – In an industry where first impressions matter, you want to provide guests with an easy booking process. His direct booking The platform should have all the information visitors need along with high-resolution photos of their rooms and other amenities.
- Secure registrations without problems: Tired guests don’t want to wait too long at the front desk when they check into your hotel. To make your registration process easy, allow your guests to perform no contact check-ins This will ensure guests get to their rooms faster and eliminate long lines at reception.
- Make sure your facility is clean: Housekeeping affects the guest experience at your hotel and determines whether or not they will return. Since this affects your revenue, making sure your hotel is clean and well-maintained is one of the key business strategies for hoteliers.
To ensure cleanliness, spawn your guest list of your lead generation platforms and ask housekeeping to clean them beforehand. Also, make sure each room has a clean set of towels and sheets.
- Improve the amenities in your hotel – Guests have high expectations of their hotels and would not spend another night in a property with few amenities. To attract and retain guests, you need to upgrade your hotel amenities.
First, make sure you have a reliable internet connection so guests can use their phones and laptops. Also, have modern TVs in each room so guests can catch up on the news and their favorite shows.
2. Use social media marketing
Social media marketing is one of the most effective business strategies for hoteliers.
Social media platforms have a wide reach and you can use them to attract more guests to your hotels.
By sharing shoppable videos on your profile where guests can ask questions and make reservations in real time, you expose your hotel business to potential customers and frequent travelers.
Build awareness of your hotel and when the time comes, guests will consider your hotel for their vacation business travel needs. Also, you can get help from social media managers to help you get started with social media marketing.
There are different commercial strategies for hoteliers that you can use to grow your business on social networks such as:
- paid ads – Use paid ads to target specific users on social media. Social media platforms have advanced targeting capabilities that allow you to reach users who meet certain criteria. Use insights from analytics to improve your campaigns.
- Use social media influencers: Work with an influencer marketing agency to create an influencer campaign for your hotel business. The right influencer will persuade your followers to follow your page and book your hotel.
In the example below, the Four Seasons Astir Palace Hotel in Athens partners with travel influencer Naomi Jane Adams (@naomijaneadams) to promote the hotel to travelers.
- Create engaging content – When you have a large following on social media, you can reach a lot of potential customers without paying for advertising. The best way to increase your following is to create engaging content. social media copy for your audience. Also, cross-promote your content on different platforms to drive engagement and grow your following.
3. Create an app
We cannot talk about commercial strategies for hoteliers without highlighting the need to create an app.
Right now, there are around 6.6 billion smartphone users in the world and you want to make it easy for them to book a room at your hotel.
Having an app could drive more bookings because it reduces the steps guests need to go through to make a reservation.
Think about it, if visitors can only book your hotel from your website, they would need to take the following steps:
- Search your hotel on Google
- Navigate through the search results to find your hotel website
- open your website
- Navigate to the booking page
Each additional step in this process could cause you to lose customers. But with an app, travelers are directed to your booking page where they can easily make a reservation.
Marriot has an app that guests can use to book any of their hotels. With the app, the company increases the reach and accessibility of its hotels.
4. Customer analysis
Of all the business strategies for hoteliers that you have at your disposal, the one that you should never overlook is customer analysis.
Studying customer behavior is crucial because it helps you understand what your customers want.
With this information, you can provide a personalized customer experience that will lead to guest retention and increase loyalty, sales, and profits.
Study your small business CRM and accounting tools and learn more about your customers. Some of the things to pay attention to include frequency of bookings, preferred room number, and customer spending on specific goods and services at the hotel.
5. Email Marketing
Junk mail is one of the profitable ones (it’s even free with a ESP as Mailchimp) business strategies for hoteliers. You can use it to capture leads and tell them about your hotel.
It’s also a great channel to connect with repeat guests.
You can use it to get your feedback after a stay at your hotel. you can also use email marketing for hotels to inform frequent guests about your offers, especially during the holiday season, via holiday-themed emails.
Conclusion
With the recovery of the hotel industry, the competition for clients will become tough.
Lucky for you, implementing the business strategies for hoteliers highlighted above will give you a leg up on the competition.
Plan and properly execute these strategies to achieve satisfactory results for your hotel business in the coming years.
