Last updated on 19 Jan 2023
In today's era, it is a more complex matrix and requires a lot of brainstorming to innovate new marketing ideas in order to increase the net revenue and hotel sales through other mediums and various approaches and streamlined revenue management practices. Hotels try to get more and more direct bookings from their hotel booking engine rather than depending on some aggregators or on travel agents for their business.
It is a vastly debated topic as everybody has a different way to approach in order to increase hotel sales. Unlike earlier times where increasing hotel sales or revenue meant simply increasing your room tariff, the modern times where hotels face fierce competition and aggressive sales approaches by competitors make it more difficult for hoteliers to increase their room tariff frequently.
In order to increase their sales, hotels try to channelize their own sales force and enforce aggressive sales techniques and need to regulate new hotel marketing ideas from time to time in order to stay competitive. Nowadays, it has been a common practice for hotels to have their own decentralized sales force stationed at varied locations of the country/world to target and restore their presence in the market.
In order to increase hotel sales there are certain guidelines that are normally followed by the sales force:
- Coming up with creative hotel marketing ideas
- Generating new ideas to increase hotel sales
Coming Up with Creative Hotel Marketing Ideas
In this competitive era it is most important to do something different in marketing your property and to be ahead of your competitors. It is one of the base important factors in laying a foundation for better sales results and thus, one needs to come up with new hotel marketing ideas at regular intervals.
A good hotel marketing idea helps you to mark your presence in the market and provides you a stand-out position among the given cluster.
In lieu of coming up with great hotel marketing ideas, it is very important to carefully select your set of competitors depending on various factors such as room tariff, location, service standards, available amenities, etc.
Once you have a well-decided set of competitors it gives you an insight peek into the actual market scenario and helps you in developing creative hotel marketing ideas.
A few of the general marketing practices are as follows:
Hoardings and Flex Boards
It is very important and an easy way to mark your presence in the market, but it is also important to strategically select the areas where you need to feature your hoardings, as a good hoarding helps to increase your website footfall and chances to get more direct bookings from your hotel booking engine. Now, it is important as every hotel has a set of facilities that cater to a particular persona and your targeted market. A hotel may cater to leisure travelers or to business travelers — depending on these variables one can select their location at entry points such as airports, railway stations, shopping malls, entry points of famous market areas, etc.
For example, if we travel to various destinations in Goa we can find various hoardings and banners of different properties but depending on the location, the persona of the property changes — in the airport area one can find both business as well as leisure hotels, but if you go towards Panjim or Vasco Da Gama you can find majorly business hotels featuring out there.
This is how hotels choose their location of advertising so they can focus on their targeted market and make the most out of it.
Good Website
It is very important for a hotel to have a good website with aesthetic appeal along with a good hotel booking engine. In today's internet generation almost everybody is connected with the internet and they spend most of their time browsing — a good website can fetch you deeper reach directly to your potential customer. Also, a good website works as a decision-maker as a potential customer always visits your website to get a final confirmation of whether your hotel suits their requirements.
For example, if a customer searches for hotel accommodation and after research narrows down their search with your hotel as one of the finalists, the customer goes to your website to get a brief about your property. If you have a good website, it can turn your potential customer into a sale.
Synchronize Your Values with Guest Utility
It is very important to have proper content on the website which translates the exact utility to the guest. Rather than listing amenities as plain pointers, explain them in a way that connects with the guest experience:
- Mini fridge — equipped in all rooms, allowing you to choose from your favourite drinks and snacks at your convenience
- Flat-screen television — all rooms have flat-screen LCD TVs so you can watch your favourite blockbusters the way they should be
- Spa & Gym — a well-equipped gym and spa where you can relax and rejuvenate your senses after a hectic day
- Board room — a well-equipped board room where you can conduct meetings with projector and V.A. systems, also available to rent as meeting rooms for corporate events
Focus on Having a Swift Website
It is very important to have a swift website designed in such a way that avoids large and heavy files which slow down your website navigation experience. A slow website hampers the guest experience and the guest leaves your page in the middle of the journey. Your website should have all the required information in a crystal-clear way without overloading it — smooth navigation helps the guest to decide faster and the presence of a hotel booking engine helps to get an instant booking.
As per a recent study, more than 75% of people get irritated with delays in website opening and avoid returning to that website. A heavy website can significantly hamper your marketing strategies and divert sales from expected hotel revenue.
Generating New Ideas to Increase Hotel Sales
Apart from setting a good marketing approach, a systematic sales approach is equally important. There is a subtle difference between the two: marketing targets the mass — it is mainly concerned with research, understanding and creating new needs in the market, developing new products, creating awareness and generating leads. The sales force's work is to keep following up with the generated leads and converting them into actual sales.
In the process of converting leads into actual sales, the sales force creates new ideas and new ways to boost their results. A few general techniques used by hotels to boost sales and increase hotel revenue:
Organizing Various Events
Various events are organized by hotels to attract more customers and guests, but before taking this step, proper marketing research has to be done — what is the most promising event, what kind of emotional notions are prevailing in the market, etc. For example, during New Year's time every hotel has an event called "Gala Dinner" and every hotel comes up with a different theme — some organize Bollywood night, comedy night, couple dance night. One hotel organizes a special theme night as "Night of humanity and forgiveness" and communicates through advertisement as it is the night to say sorry to somebody who means a lot to you and to forgive old deeds and write a new beginning with the new year.
Decreasing Dependency on OTAs
In order to decrease dependency on OTAs, it is important that hotels maintain a smooth hotel booking engine on their website. Keep a simple booking engine with all information mentioned in a categorical manner so that it gives your guest all information without confusing them with too many choices.
Creating Online Promotions
It is an important tool of hotel sales to create promotional offers and packages on your hotel booking engine to entice the guest to book directly and without hassle. To make it more attractive, hotels add pictorial representation of actual amenities and rooms. If a hotel's booking engine has packages and promotional offers but does not have actual photographs, it creates a state of dilemma in the customer's mind. Actual photographs give a sense of confidence about the services.
Thus, it shows how hotels are streamlining their marketing and sales forces to synchronize their activities in channelizing their revenue management and increasing hotel revenue.
