A Guide to Hotel Marketing for 2022
When working in a highly diversified industry like the hotel and hospitality industry, where trends constantly change, staying on top is a must. Therefore, hotel marketing is one of the things any hotelier should pay close attention to! A Guide to Hotel Marketing for 2022
To ensure the survival of your business and provide an outstanding customer experience, a company must constantly move forward to meet the demands of today’s guests.
Thus, keeping up to date with the latest advances in hotel marketing is essential to generate new bookings and loyal customers.
Here are some trends that will help you develop and improve your hotel’s marketing.
Direct Bookings Increase
Several tour operators and travel agencies worldwide have gone bankrupt in recent years, which has revealed the significance of diversifying distribution strategies in hotel marketing and the necessity for implementing new technologies and work processes.
As a result, businesses need to spend more time and resources nurturing customer loyalty, improving their reputation, and changing their marketing strategy to increase direct hotel reservations.
Hotels will have to rethink their distribution and marketing strategies to compete in a changing market. In addition to being ready for new trends, it will also be essential to have the technology, economics, and human resources to make it happen.
It is essential to pay attention to the loyalty strategy: attracting new customers is more complex than creating loyalty. It is vital to encourage existing customers to repeat their stay and book directly instead of third parties.
How Can This Be Done?
The first step is to create a quality database validated in real-time and compliant with GDPR (the current Personal Data Regulations of the EU). Hotel WiFi may be a good way to accomplish this. The automation of this process allows us to receive validated data on 60% to 95% of the total guests staying at each establishment.
Rewards are another strategy to improve brand perception, both during and after stays.
Communication is constant and thoughtful – anticipating the customers’ wishes, e.g., utilizing surveys during a stay or congratulating them on their birthday. Moreover, such communications can easily be automated.
Furthermore, segmenting the obtained database over time and running segmented email marketing campaigns is an effective strategy.
All of these strategies require time and effort for hoteliers. However, tools on the market automate these processes and are compatible with hotel PMS systems.
With these integrations, monitoring reservations from direct channels is even easier. Additionally, commissions are safe since automated and segmented email campaigns require less third-party involvement.
The next challenge is to make the most of the establishment’s WiFi once you have achieved your primary goal of acquiring a quality database. Again, it is crucial to examine whether the database can become better before considering any other strategy.
What Are Some Ways to Improve the Database?
By combining the database with the PMS, you can optimize it and carry out more targeted campaigns. Such as targeting by country of origin, age, family or single guests, repeat customers, customers with various interests, etc.
Micro-segmentation is the future of marketing, and this method allows hotels to get the most out of their marketing campaigns.
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains one of the most effective communication strategies for hotel managers to attract returning customers. New tools are still available to help gain more customers, but email marketing remains the star and offers the highest return on investment (ROI). To be effective, we must use the right marketing tools and strategies. Therefore, it is vital to use tools that can manage and segment a large volume of data. Such a strategy can save time and money.
Advertising, display, affiliates, and search aggregators are the other primary traffic sources that generate direct sales. Those usually lead to new customers with much higher acquisition costs.
Reputation management for hotels online
Thanks to social media and review sites, customers are more aware of a hotel’s reputation than ever. As such, loyalty requires understanding what they say about the establishment and where they say it.
It is possible to automate processes that allow customers to leave their opinions on the main review sites thanks to technology.
It is not just the average rating that determines your ranking, but also the number of reviews and their frequency. A system of customer surveys during a stay is in place to detect problems and come up with solutions that satisfy guests. In addition, it is possible to automatically send the guest a request to write a review on a review site in their region after the stay.
Getting to stand out in these sites is vital since they are the starting point for many direct reservations.
Adopting technologies applied to tourism redefines executing processes and offering services. The digital revolution is flourishing. Many hotels use technology to make daily activities easier and offer more personalized experiences to guests.
Artificial intelligence, chatbots, automation, blockchain, the Internet of Things, and facial recognition will continue to be influential in 2022. Still, it may be too early to invest in them all at once.
So pick your choices and if not sure how to proceed, feel free to Contact Us. We will be happy to advise you!
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Photo by Proxyclick Visitor Management System on Unsplash
