Hospitality Marketing in 2022 – Part I
We decided to present you with a series of educational articles covering a spectrum of actions you can trigger to achieve excellent results in your hospitality business. ‘
We will try to give you an overview of many different aspects, starting from a marketing channels overview to strategy. Finally, we will try to finish with reputation management as the last tip, having covered many different topics in between.
This series of articles is planned to run for one month, with one of two articles per week. We are starting with Hospitality Marketing Part I.
So here goes the first t hint!
As a hotelier, restaurant owner, or brand-new entrant to the hospitality industry, you know marketing plays an essential role in attracting guests and optimizing your business’ success. As a result, you need a marketing strategy combining multiple strategies to reach the best customers using various channels. You can use hospitality marketing to promote your business, attract guests, and sell services. To help you decide on your priorities and create a marketing plan that works for your business, we have created a series of articles that outline various marketing strategies in the hospitality industry.
Our first topic today will be devoted to
Overview of the Hospitality Marketing Channels
The first step is to list online and offline marketing channels for hospitality that can help you attract guests and customers. As you develop each channel, you’ll have a broader range of potential customers to reach.
Company website
It is a well-known fact that most businesses consider the company website as their number one marketing distribution channel since it can generate traffic and sales. Your content is controlled, and you can curate the guest journey as you see fit. Utilize high-quality photos and interactive content, such as videos, testimonials, and virtual tours. Utilize this channel to show guests what makes your company unique. In addition, you should consider a live chat option to reach more customers through your company website.
Online travel agencies (OTAs) and Online Delivery Providers (ODPs)
Airbnb, Booking.com, and Expedia, or OpenTable for restaurant reservations, are popular OTAs and ODPs in the hospitality industry. While you may not be able to directly control your property listing on an OTA or ODP platform, you can enhance it by offering exclusive amenities, creating attractive offers, and offering competitive pricing. To maximize the potential of an OTA or ODP, provide as much information and rich content as possible.
Global Distribution System (GDS)
We could not miss the GDS for accommodation providers only. GDSs are channels connecting your property to travel agencies.
This system allows them to view room availability and rates. Worldspan, Sabre, and Travelport are some of the most well-known GDSs. Using this distribution channel, you can keep your hotel’s information up-to-date with various travel agents and update room availability and pricing in real-time.
Telephone bookings
Booking through the phone is preferred by target audiences such as event planners, travel agents, tour guides, concierge services, and older generations of customers. Customers with specific requirements and questions may also benefit from phone bookings. Call centres, front desks, and reservation lines offer direct phone booking, establishing human contact. Despite this, they require a lot of resources and can only process a certain number of bookings at a given time.
Metasearch sites
Sites like Tripadvisor, Google Hotels, or Trivago charge hotels and OTAs on a pay-per-click or commission basis for bookings; the same goes with Skyscanners for flights and maybe Quandoo a few others for restaurants. Metasearch sites offer a smooth user experience and have a simple booking process with easy-to-find business information.
Business Directories
Excellent source for bringing direct visitors to your website. Using all the tools, from text to contact information, photos and videos, your company can be beautifully presented. And do not forget the great SEO benefits of those presentations. Those companies usually have lower costs and one annual fee. And here, not to brag, but we are not a regular business directory; we are a lot more than that! So join us.
In our next article, we will go into more detail about Hospitality Marketing Strategy Overview. So stay tuned. To avoid missing any interesting articles, check our Media Sections for more exciting topics and news.
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Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash
