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Our world has moved far beyond the days of randomly choosing a hotel as you pass by.
In recent decades, the tourism and hospitality industry has been a rollercoaster ride, from surges in tourism to the curveballs thrown by COVID-19 and subsequent recovery efforts. But one thing remains constant: new hotels keep popping up. That’s why nailing hotel marketing is absolutely crucial. Miss a beat, and your competitors could swiftly outshine you.
Today, we’ve curated 40 savvy hotel marketing ideas that will help you stay ahead in this ball game. Shall we begin?
40 Hotel Marketing Ideas
1. Define Your Brand Proposition
First hotel marketing idea: differentiation. Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is your ticket to standing out, captivating potential customers, and delivering real value.
By delving into your target audience’s preferences, you will have more insights on how to highlight your hotel’s most alluring features and transform them into irresistible benefits. You can also consider some offers that your competitors forget or are unable to add. This strategy not only convinces but delights your audience, setting your hotel apart in a crowded market, and ultimately impacting your hotel’s bottom line.
2. Create Branding
Elevate your hotel’s allure with the power of strategic branding — the bedrock of hotel marketing. Ever noticed how top hotel chains like Park Hyatt, Mandarin Oriental, or Four Seasons effortlessly draw in crowds? It’s all about that instant recognition of their logo and the promise of a consistently delightful stay.
Whether you’re rebranding or starting anew, always leverage your unique selling points to infuse every aspect of branding. From logos and core values to visual identity and storytelling, ensure that your brand essence resonates throughout. This holistic approach not only enhances recognition but also fosters a deeper connection with your audience, setting your hotel apart in a competitive landscape.
3. Conduct Market Research
Understanding what customers want and predicting future trends is vital for hotels to make smart decisions. Market research is the compass that helps guide these decisions.
In the hotel industry, market research involves breaking down data based on the type of hotel, like luxury, boutique, budget, and more. This helps hotels tailor their strategies to fit their specific market.
There are many ways to gather this important information, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and simply observing customers. By using these methods, hotels can truly understand what guests prefer and stay ahead in a competitive market.
4. Define Customer Persona
To attract more guests to your hotel, more than simply having a unique selling point and good branding is needed. You’ve got to understand your guests on a deeper level.
It’s not just about knowing their age or where they’re from. You need to get into their heads – what they like, what they need, and what makes them tick. That’s where customer personas come in handy. These are like imaginary profiles of different types of guests, helping you see what they have in common.
When you understand your guests this way, you can customize your marketing to speak directly to them like speaking their language, which makes them more likely to choose your hotel for their next stay.
5. Create Marketing Funnels
Just like any business, hotels need to guide potential customers from their first interest to booking a stay. To ensure your hotel gets noticed at every step, follow these simple marketing funnel stages:
- Awareness Stage: Make your hotel visible through various channels such as social media, content marketing, SEO, press releases, and offline events to attract attention from your target audience.
- Interest Stage: Capture the interest of potential customers who are actively seeking accommodations for their upcoming trips. Offer captivating promotions, and personalized deals, and encourage sign-ups for discounts to entice them further.
- Consideration Stage: Highlight your hotel’s unique selling points and benefits to help customers make informed decisions. Use virtual tours, social proof, and user-generated content to provide a glimpse of the real experience. Offer personalized instant responses to inquiries to enhance engagement.
- Decision Stage: Create a sense of urgency using FOMO marketing tactics to encourage interested guests to book immediately. Streamline the booking process through a user-friendly website and mobile optimization to minimize friction and facilitate seamless bookings.
- Retention Stage: Keep your guests coming back by engaging in post-stay communication. Encourage them to leave reviews in exchange for discounts, gather feedback to improve services, and express gratitude for choosing your hotel. Implement a membership program with exclusive deals to incentivize repeat bookings.
6. Plan Your Content Pillars
When you’re diving into social media marketing to boost your hotel’s sales, having a solid content plan is key. This means setting up clear content pillars to guide your communication and maintain consistency in engaging with your audience.
Your hotel’s content pillars should highlight the unique benefits of staying at your place. From showcasing accommodations and services to sharing captivating stories and experiences, your content should resonate with your audience’s interests. You can also offer tips on local attractions and inform your audience about promotions or events.
By organizing your content into distinct pillars and sticking to a regular posting schedule for each, you can streamline your content creation process. This ensures a consistent and engaging presence that keeps your audience hooked and coming back for more.
7. Keep Brand Consistency
If you stumbled upon your hotel’s social media and saw stunning, luxurious photos, but discovered less-than-glowing reviews and experiences from past guests, would you still consider staying there?
What if you came across a hotel that seemed incredibly posh at first glance, but upon browsing its social media, you found nothing but pushy, sales-driven content and haphazard posts focused solely on promotions? Would you still believe that the hotel truly lives up to its luxurious image?
In the hotel and hospitality industry, maintaining quality and consistency in marketing efforts, and effectively communicating unique selling points in a tone that resonates, are crucial for enhancing the hotel’s reputation. Whether it’s an online presence, offline strategies, shaping organizational culture, or event planning, all efforts must align with the brand’s image and core philosophy.
8. Building Brand Loyalty With A Reward Program
From point 5 onwards, we’ve been discussing the Retention Funnel, and there’s no denying the immense impact of implementing a Reward Program, commonly known as a Membership Program, in enticing customers back to our hotel, surpassing other travel opportunities.
Take the Marriott hotel chain, for example, with properties scattered worldwide. They’ve crafted a membership program called ‘Marriott Bonvoy,’ offering members exclusive perks for both accommodation and dining across their vast portfolio of 7,000 hotels globally. Furthermore, members can accrue points to redeem free stays and indulge in special menu items from their dining venues.
9. Partnership With Local Business
Many hotels miss out on the power of partnerships, a crucial strategy for attracting new guests and boosting revenues. Teaming up with local businesses can bring a range of benefits, including more exposure, access to resources, and better connections with potential customers.
For instance, The Standard, a trendy hotel, collaborated with Onia Swimwear to launch a special swimwear collection featuring a ‘yellow-and-white striped pattern’ that perfectly matches the hotel’s vibe. This partnership showcases their thoughtful approach to branding, lifestyle, and engaging with customers.
10. Give Discount For Repeated Guests
If you think your hotel isn’t as big as Four Seasons or Marriott to manage a rewarding program as we recommended earlier, simply offering discounts for returning guests can be incentive enough and easy to implement.
You could give 10% or 20% discounts, or even offer complimentary services like a spa session or a small workshop within your hotel if they come back for another stay. However, make sure to communicate this offer clearly, especially when guests are checking out, with some lighthearted thank-you messages to enhance their overall experience.
11. Create Affiliate Marketing Program
The global affiliate marketing sector is set to grow by a whopping 63% in the next four years, offering a huge opportunity for hotels to boost their sales game!
Creating an affiliate marketing program for your hotel doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s about harnessing the power of referrals from friends, benefiting both the affiliate and the guest who books your room through them. Affiliates often include bloggers, travel experts, or social media influencers with a strong following on platforms like Instagram and YouTube.
When setting up your affiliate program, consider payment options like Pay-per-click, Pay-per-lead, or Pay-per-booking. Choose the one that best fits your hotel’s marketing goals to maximize the impact of your affiliate partnerships.
12. Build a Hotel Website
There’s no denying it – since the 2020s, our world has been fully immersed in the digital age. Not having a website for your hotel means missing out on nearly 99% of opportunities for people to discover it. So, if you haven’t already, it’s time to get started on building your hotel website – don’t say you weren’t warned!
Your hotel’s website should have a captivating landing page that lets people explore what makes your hotel special, while also allowing them to sign up for updates and book directly, hassle-free. Plus, the information they provide on your website can become valuable leads for future guests or be used for targeted advertising.
13. Expand Reach On Social Media
With the vast number of people using social media, hotels can use these platforms to boost their online presence and attract new guests.
To reach more people on social media, it’s important to understand how each platform works and what users like to see. For instance, take Rosewood’s Instagram account as an example. Instagram is all about visuals, so the hotel shares stunning photos and videos that showcase its style with the curated gallery. They also write captivating bios and captions that keep their luxurious vibe alive in every word.
14. Leverage on Influencer Marketing
One important trend in social media is how people increasingly trust influencers’ recommendations over brand messaging. By sharing genuine experiences and real hotel stays, using influencers to promote your business has become a powerful hotel marketing tactic.
You can invite influencers to stay at your hotel and share their honest experiences or invite them to join your affiliate program for a mutually beneficial partnership. Travel bloggers are also a great option, as they have audiences similar to those interested in hotels.
15. Encourage UGC Content
Fun fact: Did you know that 97% of guests share pictures of their trips on social media?
That’s like striking gold for your hotel’s social media! It gives potential guests a real glimpse of what to expect before booking. To keep a steady flow of authentic content, create unique hashtags and encourage guests to use them when posting. You can also create a location tag for your hotel, so others can explore posts from your spot. Just be sure to ask for permission before sharing guests’ posts on your social media!
You might also be interested in:
- What is User-Generated Content? | Its Benefits and How to Use
- UGC Creators: Definition and Complete Guide to Become One
16. Create a Social Media Giveaway
Here’s another fun hotel marketing idea to jazz up your business’s online presence — social media giveaways! By hosting occasional or seasonal giveaways on social media, you’ll boost engagement and get people talking about your brand by offering exciting prizes.
From small rewards like discounts on food and drinks to a free stay at your hotel, there’s something for everyone. Keep the entry rules simple or make them a bit challenging, depending on the prize size.
17. Create Valuable Content
These days, people are tired of constant sales pitches. They’re looking for content that enriches their lives. Instead of just showcasing your room designs or food, share helpful and interesting content related to your offerings.
For example, the luxury hotel chain Kimpton has a blog called “Life is Suite” on their website. It offers valuable insights for travelers planning their trips, like must-do activities for first-time visitors to New Orleans or exciting things to do in Mexico City.
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18. Boost Visibility With SEO
When running a hotel, it’s important to be visible online, especially since most travelers search for accommodations on Google. This is where SEO marketing comes in handy. It helps your hotel show up higher in search results, driving more traffic to your website.
To boost your hotel’s online presence, focus on making your website user-friendly and creating content that travelers find helpful and engaging. Check out our article for actionable SEO tips that can help your hotel stand out in search results!
19. Invest in Top-notch Videography & Photography
When you look up big hotel chains like Kimpton, Marriott, or Four Seasons, you can’t miss how stunning their visuals are. That’s what draws guests in. So, investing in professional photography and videography can significantly make your hotel shine and show off its best side. Plus, using captivating visuals in your storytelling adds a touch of quality to your hotel’s communication.
20. Partner With The Right Online Travel Agencies
Teaming up with online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Agoda, Airbnb, and Booking.com is a tried-and-true method in today’s digital age, helping hotels boost their revenue significantly. But it’s vital to choose the right partners for your business to thrive.
Consider your target audience demographics and look for reputable OTAs that cater to their needs.
For instance, if families are your main guests, opt for an OTA known for family-friendly options. And always remember to negotiate fair fees for a win-win collaboration.
21. Create Joint Promotions With Sightseeing Packages
Instead of just being a place to sleep, make your hotel become the starting point for amazing adventures. In today’s world, people want their travel experiences to be as easy and enjoyable as possible. That’s why hotels in tourist hotspots are offering packages that make everything simple for their guests.
Take the Disney Resort at Walt Disney, for example. They’ve come up with something called ‘Magical Extras.’ These extras let guests book their rooms and tickets to Disneyland all at once.
22. Themed Packages Tied To Seasonal Events
When do people love to travel the most? It’s during festivals! That’s when adding a little extra flair to your hotel can make guests excited to stay.
For example, picture this: On Valentine’s Day, offering couples a special package with discounted rates on luxurious suite rooms and a romantic dinner. Or during Chinese New Year, providing families with a spacious suite package and an in-room celebration feast.
Another great idea comes from The Standard Hua Hin in Thailand. During Pride Month, they get creative with their ‘Pride in Paradise’ package. Think cute couple activities like the Mud Clone Spa and sipping on Pride cocktails in your room. Plus, the hotel lights up in rainbow colors, with light shows and DJs for a month-long celebration.
23. Offer Complimentary Services
Travelers often appreciate the little things, so hotels can make a big impression by focusing on those small details. These thoughtful touches can really enhance a guest’s experience and make them feel special. It’s important to understand what your guests want, whether they’re families, business travelers, or couples looking for a romantic getaway.
By offering complimentary services that cater to different types of guests, you can set your hotel apart from the rest.
For example, if your hotel is a popular spot for celebrations and get-togethers with friends, consider adding fun extras like portable karaoke machines, tasty wine, and snack baskets, or the option for a late check-out. These simple gestures can go a long way in making guests feel valued and ensuring they have a memorable stay.
24. Discount During Off-Peak Times
A timeless hotel marketing strategy revolves around pricing, ensuring steady revenue even during quieter travel seasons. To attract as many bookings as possible, it’s important to offer flexible rates that respond to changes in demand, market trends, and what competitors are doing. This applies all year round, whether it’s peak vacation time or the slower months.
During busy periods, you can adjust your rates to match the high demand, allowing you to maximize profits from guests willing to pay a premium for accommodation. On the other hand, during slower seasons, offering discounts can entice travelers who prefer to explore during quieter times.
By keeping an eye on market dynamics and adapting your pricing strategy accordingly, you can keep bookings flowing and maintain a healthy bottom line throughout the year. This not only helps to keep your hotel competitive but also ensures that guests have access to attractive rates that suit their travel plans.
25. Special Offers During Local Events
Local events, especially big international ones, are a prime opportunity for hotels to attract guests who need a place to stay. By understanding why people are flying in and what they need, hotels can create packages that cater to their needs and make their trip easy and enjoyable.
Take, for example, when the Singapore government brought Taylor Swift for her Eras Tour concert. Marina Bay Sands saw this as a chance to offer VIP packages that included accommodation and tickets to the concert. They even themed the packages around Taylor Swift’s songs to appeal to her fans, known as Swifties. Despite the high price starting at SG$ 10,000, fans were eager to grab these packages for a shot at seeing their favorite artist live.
In addition to concert tickets and accommodation, these packages often come with extra perks like all-access passes for sightseeing and exhibitions, curated dining experiences, and resort dollars to spend.
26. Paid Advertising
Merely being on social media isn’t cutting it anymore. With countless brands, including hotels, vying for attention, standing out requires more than just a presence. That’s where paid advertising steps in. By investing in ads, you’re essentially paying to ensure your content gets seen by your target audience, giving you a competitive edge in a crowded space.
Paid advertising isn’t just about boosting visibility; it’s a versatile tool that can help achieve various marketing goals, from raising brand awareness to driving bookings.
In today’s digital world, where competition for attention is fierce, paid ads offer hotels a way to break through the clutter and connect with potential guests in a meaningful way. It’s an investment that can pay off big time in terms of brand recognition, engagement, and, ultimately, bookings.
27. Leverage Remarketing Audiences
Although guests often explore various destinations and may only visit a hotel once, retention strategies are vital for hotel businesses. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow hotels to use guest data to create remarketing audiences during paid advertising campaigns. This means they can target users who have previously visited their hotel.
What’s even more powerful is that hotels can create lookalike audiences based on the preferences and behaviors of their past guests. This helps them reach individuals who share similarities with their previous guests, increasing the chances of turning them into future guests.
28. Create Packages for Corporate Travelling
For hotels, bridging the gap between work and leisure travel can be a smart move, especially during slower seasons. Offering amenities that cater to both purposes is key to attracting guests seeking a balance between business and relaxation.
Make sure your hotel provides features that enable guests to switch between work and play seamlessly. This could include fast Wi-Fi for productivity, cozy common areas for meetings or downtime, meeting rooms of various sizes, and access to printers and copy machines for business needs.
29. Offer Incentive For Direct Booking
While using OTAs such as Agoda or Airbnb can broaden our reach to travelers, the commission rates can be a concern. That’s why having a robust website and active social media presence can be advantageous. Direct bookings not only mean more revenue for us but also allow us to keep a larger share of the profits. To entice customers to book directly, we can offer incentives that encourage them to make quick decisions, like a 10% discount on room rates or complimentary spa and massage services, along with free breakfast.
30. Create Flashsale Promotions
Another great FOMO strategy for hotel marketing is to run flash sales or limited-time promotions with a set number of available bookings. This creates urgency and scarcity, encouraging customers to act quickly before missing out.
To make these flash sales effective, keep them short, around 2 hours, and limit the number of bookings available to avoid overselling. It’s also important to offer convenient payment options and communicate the promotion’s validity dates and any conditions.
31. Partner With Travel Bloggers or Vloggers
In a world where planning a trip can feel overwhelming, many travelers rely on travel bloggers and vloggers for inspiration and tips. These influencers, with their experience and insights, offer valuable guidance on where to go and what to do.
For hotels, teaming up with these influencers can be a game-changer. Imagine having bloggers showcasing your hotel, creating exciting travel packages based on their adventures, and even offering special discounts for their followers to stay with you.
By partnering with travel influencers, hotels can reach a wider audience and become top-of-mind destinations for travelers.
32. Optimize Your Google Profiles
Apart from the usual paid advertising known as ‘SEM’ on Google, this top-notch search engine offers something called Google Business Profile, which can be a game-changer for hotels looking to boost their SEO.
Optimizing your hotel’s Google Business Profile is key to staying ahead of Google’s ever-changing algorithms. It’s like giving your hotel a digital boost, helping it climb higher on the search engine results page (SERP). Whether it’s verifying your hotel profile, clarifying your primary category, making it easy for potential guests to find essential info like phone numbers and addresses, or highlighting your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) under Hotel Attributes and Details.
33. Hop On Trends
If your hotel isn’t all about luxury and extravagance, staying current with trends is key to modern marketing. It’s how you connect with online audiences and keep your brand image vibrant, especially on platforms like TikTok, where people crave engaging content. So, as the marketing guru for your hotel, it’s vital to stay tuned to the latest sentiments and conversations in the world and weave them into your content or new offerings.
Take, for instance, the TikTok account @ibishotels by the Ibis hotel chain. They’re masters at creating trendy content that both entertains and showcases their unique selling points. This approach consistently sparks engagement from audiences.
@ibishotels
34. Promote Local Sustainability
Another hurdle facing hotels today is the growing worry about their environmental footprint. With more people caring about eco-friendly practices, prioritizing sustainability can make a hotel stand out. Guests who value genuine, responsible, and eco-conscious experiences are increasingly seeking out accommodations that align with their values.
Hotels can make a difference by adopting energy-saving technologies, cutting down on waste, and supporting local sustainability initiatives. But these efforts must be sincere, not just a facade. This genuine commitment to sustainability not only enhances a hotel’s reputation but also contributes positively to the environment.
35. Leverage On PR Events
Many hotels have earned a solid reputation over the years, thanks to their presence in the media. Just like social media, traditional media helps hotels become known worldwide. This recognition makes hotels stand out and increases the chances of attracting guests.
That’s why organizing PR events and issuing press releases are crucial. Hotel public relations should highlight what makes your property special, get media coverage, and host events to connect with journalists. And don’t overlook inviting influencers—they can greatly boost your hotel’s visibility on social media.
36. Optimize User Experiences With A Chatbot
In today’s business landscape, many companies and brands are turning to AI innovations like Chatbots to improve customer communication. These Chatbots swiftly respond to queries, provide information, and even handle common questions, saving time for front desk staff. The aim? To enhance customer experiences and speed up guest check-ins.
With various user-friendly chatbot platforms like Asksuite, HiJiffy, and others on the market, hotels have plenty of choices to upgrade their customer service and efficiency.
37. Personalized Hotel Experiences
While personalization in hotel marketing demands a lot from your data, content, and tech resources, it’s also a powerful idea that can set your hotel apart, especially in 2024 as consumers increasingly seek personalized services.
There are several ways to create personalized hotel experiences. For instance, hotels can let guests set their preferences, which can be stored in their data systems. Then, hotels can use this information to suggest activities, dining options, or packages tailored to each guest’s preferences.
38. Virtual Reality Tour
Utilizing VR as an interactive experience presents a fantastic opportunity for hotel marketing. It’s not only great for attracting online guests but also for leveraging VR content in marketing campaigns and featuring on partner platforms like OTAs.
The typical VR tools for hotels involve 360-degree cameras and software, allowing you to capture and edit panoramic images and videos of your hotel’s interior and exterior. Moreover, engaging VR games can immerse users in virtual tours of your hotel, accessible through their mobile or computer screens.
39. Optimize Guest Experiences With Hotel Customer Apps
In today’s world, mobile apps have become personal assistants, postal services, cooking guides, and even our private healthcare advisors. But for the hotel industry, mobile apps are a revolutionary tool, connecting guests and hotels to make their interactions more convenient and enjoyable, ultimately transforming the guest service experience through seamless communication.
Consider Four Seasons, for example, with its app that lets customers explore hotels worldwide and plan their travel itineraries in advance or on the fly. With touchless service, accessing the hotel is as simple as tapping your phone.
40. Showcase Local Artists’ Work
Conclude your hotel marketing ideas with a playful suggestion that hotels of all sizes can embrace: Dive into the art scene! Hosting art exhibitions or teaming up with local artists adds a delightful touch to your hotel. It’s a small yet charming tactic that can draw more visitors while also reflecting the core values of supporting local artists’ work.
Take a cue from ART Hotel Denver, nestled in the vibrant arts district and just steps away from the Denver Art Museum. This hotel has turned its public spaces into a showcase of original artworks that pay homage to the creative spirit of 20th- and 21st-century artists worldwide.
Attract Guests and Boost More Bookings
Absolutely! The 40 hotel marketing ideas shared here are a mix of timeless strategies and innovative insights applicable to hotels of all shapes and sizes. It’s crucial to grasp evolving tourist preferences and understand your customer base.
To stay ahead of the curve, consider using tools like Mandal AI. They provide valuable industry insights and data analysis to fuel continuous marketing growth.
