Summers are coming soon! You think - “There is still time, I’ll plan the hotel marketing strategies later”. However, the next thing you know, summers are here, and you have still not prepared your summer marketing strategy. You are now pissed at yourself, and the opportunities you missed are dancing inside your head. It’s a nightmare for any hotelier.
You wake from your bed gasping for air, relieved that it was all a bad dream. However, since you have now realised that nightmares can be a reality soon, you don’t have any room to slack.
You get up from your bed and keep searching for the best hotel marketing strategies for the summer season. So many articles and so many strategies - confusion is in the air. Don’t worry! We are here to help you. We present to you the best hotel summer strategies to fill up your rooms and have a great summer!
1. Offer
The first thing you will have to nail is the offer. Summers are the busiest time for vacations, especially for families. You need to focus on days of the week that are difficult to fill. Sundays are especially difficult to fill, due to workdays starting the next day.
You can introduce special discounts during Sundays, such as - “Extend your weekend! Get 20% off for booking the Sunday Night. The hotels need to target midweek as well since most people book at weekends. Incorporating them into your hotel marketing strategies will help you gain a more interested audience.
Since it is families and young university students go on summer breaks, you need to target them intensively. Parents are lack time and college kids are impatient. Here are some of the things you can do to gain more hotel guests:
Add child rates in all rooms
Offer Discounts in attractive locations such as museums, leisure centres and restaurants.
Offer deals on pubs and bars for college students, if you have some tie-up with those.
Offer Great deals on breakfast and meals
Offer Discounts on Hotel Restaurants and bar
Special discount for university students in rooms
You will also need to allocate your rooms accordingly and ensure that there is no revenue loss when you give discounts. You need to balance room occupancy with revenue.
2. Promotions
Apart from offers, promotions are another way to gain more room occupancy. Most hotel room bookers use mobile phones for direct bookings and OTA bookings. An average person is on their phones at least 4 - 6 times a day. Social media takes a significant chunk of it. Why making good use of your social media handles for promotions and deals, you gain an edge over your competitors. It helps increase reach, interest and engagement.
Not only that, you can use email marketing as well in your arsenal. Retargeting your previous customers in your database with special offers will encourage them to come to your property whenever they can. In fact, if a guest stayed at one franchise at a location, encourage them to try another hotel in your chain.
Last-minute promotions are an integral part of hotel marketing strategies and for a good reason. Parents often lack time and hence, these promotions can entice them to book your hotel quickly.
3. Channels
You need to optimize your channels to make the most out of the summer season. OTAs, Hotel Websites and Social Media are some of the channels through which you can gain bookings. You need to make sure that all the links lead to the right landing page, as well as ensure that you have a consistent message across all platforms.
Merely focusing on the landing page isn't enough, you should make a blog page too. This will ensure that your page is more than just a host to sell rooms - it's a source of inspiration as well. The content can include topics such as the best restaurants around your area, the best monuments in your hotel location and the best pubs.
The social media handles, OTAs and your website should highlight the USPs of your hotel, hotel rooms, hotel amenities and the special discounts you would offer from time to time.
4. Reviews
Reviews are essential as well, Positive reviews will ensure that the hotel will gain a good reputation and authority. Ignoring this as a part of summer hotel marketing strategies will be detrimental for your business.
Google My Business, OTAs and even hotel websites should boast of good reviews. The reviews should be regular, recent and genuine. Any compromise of these factors can lower the trust a customer can have for your hotel. Good reviews can encourage your target audience to be good instantly during summer.
To Conclude
Summer Break is a great opportunity to fill up rooms and pump up revenues. You need to fine-tune your summer hotel marketing strategies to make the most out of them. We hope you enjoy your summer break and have a fantastic holiday season!
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