The past two years have had a drastic impact on the world of hospitality. Thankfully, there has been a revival of sorts recently, with wanderlust leading to increased travel for work and leisure. Consequently, competition between various establishments related to tourism is at an all-time high.
As tourists search for new experiences both at home and abroad, it has become vital for hotels to stand out. An easy way to accomplish this is to follow the top emerging hotel marketing trends. A combination of updated classic techniques and ideas in tune with the modern-day travel zeitgeist, these trends allow hotels to reach a wider audience while building upon their existing brand.
Hotel marketing might seem like an arduous task for some. However, it shows promising results for long-term business sustainability when done with care and guidance from a leading digital marketing agency.
Branding
Until recently, branding as a form of marketing was an expense undertaken primarily by larger organizations. However, there’s been a growing acceptance of brand creation amongst smaller hospitality establishments lately.
Whether you are a family-run guesthouse, a three-star motel, or a luxury hotel, branding helps create a link with your customers. Moreover, people are generally more trusting of brands.
Key points to branding include logo creation, keeping in mind colors and typography. Your website should reflect your ethos with its design catering to your target audience.
Another vital marketing tool that connects emotionally is building a narrative around the hotel, its origin, and its people. As a result, brand marketing is multi-layered. It requires proper designing, something to toil on with your digital marketing team.
Local PR and Marketing
The hard fact of the day is that no industry can survive on only one customer base anymore. As such, hotels need more than tourists and business travelers to subsist. So, it’s no shock that one of the emerging hotel marketing trends being adopted by many is the move towards attracting local customers.
Staycation packages, promoting your in-house restaurant, and encouraging city residents to take a day-long spa break are some ideas to keep the hotel finances in the green throughout the year. Moreover, hotels can team up with local businesses to create a community that supports each other. The goal is to become a destination, not just a place to sleep.
More importantly, your hotel needs to be visible online and offline for local marketing to prosper. Thus, one must continue to optimize their website, improve keyword usage, share content regularly, and work on their Google Business Profile. All these factors help place you as a top result on search engines, making it easy for local customers to find you.
Influencer Promotions
Instant, in-your-face, and very much the call of the hour, influencer promotion is among the most effective tools in your hotel marketing arsenal. With everyone glued to their phones, flipping through visual content, influencers lead the way in quick and direct marketing to the masses.
The concept involves collaborating with influencers who share pictures and videos of your property with thousands and millions of their followers. For maximum impact, selecting influencers with an audience that mirrors your preferred clientele is essential.
Furthermore, one should work closely with content creators to spotlight features that include rooms, restaurants, location, amenities, pool, or anything unique about the hotel.
Multichannel Visual Marketing
While influencer marketing admittedly takes away some control, visual marketing places it back into your hands. Posting photographs and videos about your hotel helps create a community of fans across different channels. Most importantly, visual marketing showcases what’s “real,” allowing guests to see what they are booking without relying on outside recommendations or words.
It’s pertinent to note that the visual content needs to be of HD quality and should showcase every aspect of your hotel, not just the rooms. You may even include videos of staff and everyday hotel life, which enables a connection with the customers even before they arrive.
Successful hotel marketing thus involves sharing photographs and videos on your website, OTAs, and social media, from Twitter and Instagram to TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. However, it is equally important to work with a digital marketing agency on the visuals’ format, timing, and SEO. A professional agency can help make your content trend on social media and discoverable on meta-search engines.
Personalized Mobile App Marketing
Personalized marketing involves a multifaceted approach that incorporates elements of service and publicizing. Assisting in this endeavor is creating an individual hotel mobile app. At the outset, your hotel app helps promote your branding, leads to direct bookings, and places all the information a guest needs in their hands.
The app can further lead to a contactless check-in and offer services such as restaurant and spa menus on demand. It may even allow the guest to make a hotel restaurant or spa treatment booking at the tap of a few buttons.
But why is having a mobile app one of the year’s top emerging hotel marketing trends?
Because it is a tool that provides you with in-depth information about your guests. Once you know what your customers enjoy, you can then attract them with personalized offers correlating to their likings and tastes.
