by Jana Johnson | Nov 16, 2023 | Marketing
The holiday season is a lucrative time for hoteliers to boost their sales and attract more guests.
With people planning vacations, family gatherings, and festive celebrations, it’s essential to capitalize on this opportunity. By implementing effective strategies and taking advantage of the holiday spirit, you can maximize your hotel sales and make the most out of this holiday season.
Create Irresistible Holiday Packages
When it comes to planning their vacation during the holidays, guests are looking for convenience and value. By creating irresistible holiday packages, you can meet their needs while also boosting your sales. Promote special amenities such as complimentary breakfast, or even discounted tickets to local attractions. This not only adds value for your guests but also differentiates your hotel from competitors in the market.
Decorate and Create a Festive Atmosphere
During the holiday season, people are drawn to places that exude warmth, coziness, and festive spirit. Transform your hotel into a winter wonderland by decorating with beautiful lights, wreaths, and ornaments. Play cheerful holiday music in the lobby, add holiday scents of aromatherapy, and offer seasonal treats like hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies. Creating a festive atmosphere will not only attract more guests but also encourage them to spend more time at your hotel, increasing opportunities for additional sales.
Engage with Your Guests on Social Media
As the holiday season approaches, social media becomes a powerful tool for connecting with potential guests. Use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to showcase your hotel’s holiday offerings and engage with your audience. Share captivating visuals of your decorated property, promote your holiday packages, and run contests or giveaways to generate excitement. By actively participating in social media conversations, you can increase brand awareness, build relationships with potential guests, and ultimately drive more bookings.
Offer Promotions and Special Discounts
Everyone loves a good deal, especially during the holidays when expenses tend to pile up. Attract budget-conscious travelers and increase occupancy rates by offering holiday discounts or promotions. Create time-limited offers, such as “Early Bird Specials” or “Last-Minute Deals,” and promote them across your marketing channels. Make sure to highlight the savings guests will enjoy by booking with your hotel during the holiday season.
Collaborate with Local Businesses
The holidays are all about community and collaboration. Partnering with local businesses can provide unique opportunities to increase your hotel sales. Consider joint promotional campaigns, where you offer exclusive discounts or incentives to customers of partnering businesses. For example, you could collaborate with a nearby restaurant to offer a special holiday dining experience for your guests. By leveraging each other’s customer bases, you can expand your reach and generate more bookings.
Conclusion
With some strategic planning and creative thinking, you can significantly increase hotel sales during the holiday season. From creating enticing holiday packages to engaging with your audience on social media, there are numerous tactics at your disposal. Remember to keep the festive spirit alive throughout your property and always strive to provide exceptional guest experiences. Embrace the holidays and watch your hotel thrive!
by Jana Johnson | Aug 31, 2023 | Marketing
In the hospitality industry, online hotel reviews have become an essential aspect of the decision-making process for travelers.
These reviews provide potential guests with valuable insights into the quality and experiences offered by a hotel. As a result, hotels must pay attention to and manage their online reputation effectively. This article will discuss how hotel reviews can help fuel bookings and the importance of leveraging this powerful tool.
Benefits of Positive Reviews
Positive reviews can significantly impact a hotel’s booking rate. When potential guests come across multiple positive reviews, it cultivates trust and confidence in the hotel’s services. Positive reviews act as endorsements from previous guests, suggesting that the hotel is worthy of consideration. It creates a positive perception, validates the hotel’s offerings, and increases the likelihood of a booking.
Increased Visibility and Exposure
Hotels with a high number of positive reviews tend to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). This increased visibility exposes the hotel to a wider audience, including potential guests who might not have discovered it otherwise. Improved search rankings generate more organic traffic to the hotel’s website, leading to higher booking potential.
Guest Engagement and Loyalty
Reviews provide an avenue for hotels to engage with their guests directly. Responding to both positive and negative reviews allow hoteliers to showcase their commitment to guest satisfaction. Addressing concerns mentioned in negative reviews demonstrates that the hotel values its guests’ feedback and is willing to take steps to improve. Engaging with guests through reviews helps build loyalty, encourages repeat bookings, and promotes positive word-of-mouth.
Competitive Edge
In today’s crowded marketplace, hotels face stiff competition. By actively managing their online reputation and encouraging guests to leave positive reviews, hotels gain a competitive edge. Potential guests are more likely to choose a hotel with a substantial number of positive reviews over those with fewer or no reviews. Positive reviews set a hotel apart from its competitors, positioning it as a trusted and reliable choice.
Hotel reviews play a crucial role in driving bookings. Positive reviews enhance a hotel’s credibility, increase visibility, and promote guest engagement and loyalty. By leveraging the power of online reviews, hotels can differentiate themselves from competitors and attract more potential guests. It is essential for hotels to prioritize their online reputation management and actively encourage guests to share their experiences.
by Jana Johnson | Jun 29, 2023 | Marketing, Sales
As a hotel owner, you know the importance of marketing your property to attract visitors. But have you considered looking beyond traditional methods and focusing on your local community?
By getting to know your neighbors, you can create lasting relationships that will not only benefit your hotel but also boost the local economy. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to market in your backyard and why it’s important.
Why Local Marketing Matters
Marketing your hotel locally is essential for several reasons. Firstly, it allows you to build meaningful relationships with members of your community, who are more likely to recommend your hotel to friends and family. Secondly, it’s cost-effective since you don’t need to spend money on expensive advertising campaigns. And finally, it helps strengthen the local economy by encouraging people to stay, shop, and eat within the area.
Strategies for Marketing Locally
Here are some effective strategies for marketing your hotel in your backyard:
Host Local Events
Hosting events is an excellent way to get your hotel noticed within the community. You could organize a charity fundraiser, a wine tasting, or even a community clean-up day. By collaborating with other local businesses, you can promote your event to a wider audience and create partnerships that benefit everyone involved.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool for promoting your hotel locally. Ensure your hotel’s social media profiles are up-to-date and active, and engage with other local businesses and customers. You could also consider running social media contests or giveaways to encourage people to share your content and visit your hotel.
Collaborate with Local Businesses
By partnering with other local businesses, you can cross-promote each other and create a network of support. For example, organize a team sales blitz and go door-to-door with printed flyers of your hotel that outline your specific features and benefits. Mention the idea of cross-marketing services to the local businesses. You could offer discounts to customers who have visited a nearby restaurant or store, share coupons for display, or collaborate on a joint marketing campaign.
Marketing your hotel locally is an effective way to build meaningful relationships with members of your community, boost the local economy, and attract visitors. By hosting events, leveraging social media, and collaborating with local businesses, you can create a powerful network that benefits everyone involved.
by Jana Johnson | Feb 8, 2023 | Marketing, Sales
We’ve all had that “aha” moment. You know this is the time when something seems so obvious after the fact. In sales, it’s often said, if only I knew that before, I could have landed that deal!
The question is, would we really change the way we do business if we experienced that “aha” moment? I’m sure the answer would be yes if it led to making more money and bringing in more business.
But how can we make these “aha” moments more of a reality and less of a dream? The way to do this is by understanding when to make the most important sales calls and what to get out of these calls.
Follow up on Business You Didn’t Land
Once you have been turned down, it’s easy to give up on that potential customer. But this is the time you need to build a trace system and follow up with these potential customers. It really is the best time to learn and can help you tailor your future approach to talking to potential clients.
Technology has made it simple to organize client information and remind you when it is time to place a call. Consider using one of the best free CRM software programs as reported by Business News Daily, like Hubspot CRM, Zoho CRM, Insightly, or Salesforce.
These programs will help you organize your lead data for your follow-up calls.
Ask Your Potential Guests for Feedback
There could be many reasons your hotel did not align with group needs for a particular event and so you lost the business. If this happens you need to ask your customers for feedback. This is probably one of the hardest things to do in your business, but you will be glad you did.
Was it your pricing? Was it due to lack of meeting space? Maybe your hotel is not close enough to restaurants or entertainment. There may even be something you could change next time. For example, if your hotel was lacking shuttle service, maybe you could price out transportation and offer it as a one-time service.
The potential customer has nothing to lose by providing constructive criticism and you have everything to gain. Especially if “no” is a common word you are hearing from potential group bookings.
Re-Engage with Lost Leads
Leads go dark for many reasons. Your contact may be overwhelmed at work but remain interested in your hotel. Chances are, they will still remember you and you don’t want these leads falling off the grid after all.
The follow-up call shows you are interested in their future business. If you know they selected to go with another hotel, maybe the hotel they selected missed an important detail or they didn’t enjoy their stay.
Your follow-up will make an impression. If their event at the chosen locale wasn’t successful, then this could set you up for possibilities in the future. You may not get a commitment during this phone call, but nurturing that lead over time can turn a “no” into a future booking.
Turn Rejection into Opportunity
Create an action plan for future follow-ups. Your goal here is to stay at the forefront of their mind when a potential client is considering where to hold their next meeting.
Trace out another call in a few months. Maybe you have completed a renovation at your hotel. Or, maybe you just hosted a group meeting and you have a success story to share that is a potential idea for your lead.
You want them to remember you and your hotel so that your hotel is at the front of their mind the next time they are planning the next group event.
Communicate with Multiple Mediums
The bottom line is potential business doesn’t come knocking. You must work for it. Your business is the business of sales and while we can consider a small percentage of our business to come from direct phone calls, most of the time you are going to get your business by the effort you put into your follow-up.
Lead nurturing is all about following up. Sometimes it may take multiple calls to make contact, but the point is to keep trying. And, if your phone calls aren’t working, consider email.
Find other ways to keep your hotel in the running for future events. Connect on social media with popular apps for business such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Continue to promote your unique competitive advantage to stay at the forefront of their mind.
by Jana Johnson | Aug 25, 2022 | Marketing, Sales, Travel
If you manage a hotel or are new to owning a property, it doesn’t take long to recognize that the hotel sales position is one of the most integral parts of a hotel’s success.
The sales manager is responsible for generating room nights and increasing revenue during peak times plus building demand during the slow seasons.
This can be a challenge for even the most seasoned sales managers. The process takes a considerable amount of strategic planning, creativity, and forward-thinking to balance meeting sales goals while skillfully representing the hotel.
In this fluctuating environment, it is important to keep in mind that sales is a learned skill. An effective sales manager should be able to produce results despite hotel challenges and market conditions. This is accomplished by practicing a few habits for sales success.
Know Your Hotel and Your Competition
For sales efforts to be effective, you need to know the features, benefits, and weaknesses of your hotel as well as those of your competitors. For example, can you offer concessions like free breakfast, airport transportation, or a one-bedroom suite to give you that competitive edge? Superior sales managers understand the hotel at all levels and how to get creative and outshine the competition.
Be Open to New Technology
There are many ways to reach your end goal of driving occupancy. Successful sales managers try new strategies and the latest technology for reaching their target audience. Test drive new forms of social media to help reach your potential guests. Consider trying sales engagement platforms to help you create email templates and email blasts to reach multiple people at once. It’s also key to consistently review your strategies and question the best ways to spend your time.
Have Integrity and Authenticity
What separates the average hotel sales manager from a successful one? Integrity. Clients respond to genuine people with a core attitude of wanting to help, whether they get the sale or not. Be sure to always do what you say you will. You’ll want to develop a style of authenticity that builds trust, so your clients know you have done your best for them. It also assures them if any problems arise with the booking, you will be there to return their calls promptly.
Listen For Details
You may have heard the phrase, “Be interested, not interesting.” An enthusiastic attitude about your hotel is key, but before jumping in right away with all the features and benefits of your hotel, listen to what your clients’ needs are. Knowing how you can accommodate your clients’ needs will help you gain the edge over the competition. It’s important to ask probing questions and gather information to confirm if you are the right fit. You can never ask enough questions. This is vital in anticipating future needs—something all clients appreciate!
If you are looking to find wins in the competitive market of hotel sales, adopt these habits daily. Committing to a new behavior takes time and practice. Start by initiating one new strategy at a time and celebrate your small successes.
by Jana Johnson | Jul 21, 2022 | Marketing, Travel
Hotel sales teams should keep in mind the benefit of using local surroundings when working on filling a hotel and driving revenue. Gaining a pulse of the local scene will not only draw in guests from nearby companies, but it can also help drive revenue referred directly from locals and local businesses.
So how can your hotel leverage its resources locally? It’s going to take a combination of grassroots marketing plus online advertising. These efforts may include sales calls, word of mouth, free social media campaigns, and even referral bonuses.
The idea is to connect with your local market and build community relationships to help market your hotel and services. To determine the best approach, here are three questions hotel marketers should consider when looking for leads in your backyard.
Who are the companies in my backyard?
Take the time to meet key companies and event planners in your marketplace so that you will be thought of for business meetings and events. Drawing from the local businesses will give you an idea not only of potential corporate travelers but also of leisure travelers coming to the area. Coordinate with top vendors that surround the hotel and put together enticing packages that cannot be found at competitor hotels.
What type of business comes to the area?
It’s about understanding where travelers are visiting near your hotel so you can provide the ultimate experience. The Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) is often an underutilized source, but a great place to start networking and gathering information. Creating a good relationship with your local CVB will keep your hotel front of mind when the CVB works with event planners and group organizers from other locations. Also, the CVB can be a great resource to learn what companies maybe be relocating to the area and may need group travel rates.
What’s happening in the future?
No matter the time of year, there are most likely always weekend events, concerts, workshops, seminars, and entertainment happening in your area, which could be a source of revenue for your hotel. Checking in with apps such as Eventbrite and Ticketmaster can help you search by city, dates, times, locations, and maps.
Encourage your sales team to create a local event calendar that lists all the local happenings. This will help you stay on track and help you determine your target audience for marketing. Consider partnering with a local organization to offer unique packages that give your hotel an edge-up on the competition.
Think of your local community as an extension of your hotel’s sales and marketing team. With a targeted approach, your efforts could increase exposure and facilitate partnerships to help drive new and loyal business to your hotel.
