With so much competition in the hospitality property space, what can you do to show guests you are their number one choice?

I have 16 tips you can use.

Welcome to another edition of Hospitality Property School.

I am your instructor, Gerry MacPherson.

Classic promotions have become weary and lost their power and if your competition is using the same marketing strategies, how can you stand out?

Hospitality properties need to be creative with their marketing in order to stand out and I plan to give you some inspiration from the thoughts I’m going to share.

Here are 16 tips to make your hospitality property marketing more effective.

1. Market Your Area, Not Just Your Property

Holidaymakers want an experience, not just somewhere to sleep. Your hospitality properties obviously play an important part in this, especially if you offer spa features and other experiential activities, but don’t overlook the importance of marketing the town, city, or area where your property is located. If you do have a countryside hotel, pick out some of the best walks and trails, recommend local bike rental companies, and offer everything your guests can use to improve their stay.

2. Program packages

People’s lives can be stressful enough. You can save them time and effort by creating ready-made itinerary bundles, a guest experience that’s made for specific guest types.

For example:

Tickets to local attractions with vouchers for a meal at your restaurant or a local eatery.

If you are near bike trails, offer a package that includes bike and helmet rentals, a packed lunch or lunch at a local pub, a map, and points of interest along the way.

Tickets to a children’s play centre while the parents enjoy spa treatments in the afternoon.

Family and friends reunions– Create special offers for private groups up to your capacity. Include a special menu and drinks package, and throw in a small accommodation discount to increase your revenue.

3. Offer samples

Try before you buy gives new guests the opportunity to get a taste of your offerings without risk to them.

For example, host a free taster evening for a new menu or wine list. If you use small samples to pique their interest, you may find they stay on to order a full meal and drinks. You could then offer a voucher for a second visit to encourage repeat business.

4. Host Events at Your Property

Host some events to help market your property. Invite groups in to visit and host a luncheon or cocktail hour for them.

5. Supplier promotions

Get in touch with your suppliers and find out what kind of promotions you could pass on to your guests.

You could also find out if your suppliers would be open to holding workshops at your property. Maybe a wine or chocolate tasting session. Or flower arranging or bread making workshop.

After the break from our sponsor, I will share 11 more marketing ideas to attract more guests.

Before the break, I said I would share 11 more marketing ideas to attract more guests.

6. Loyalty programmes

Loyalty programmes are not new, but very few smaller hospitality properties use them to their advantage.

It’s too bad because they can be effective to encourage repeat customers. The rewards need to be something of real value to your guests, while still delivering a profit. They are a great way to keep guests coming back for more. Within loyalty programmes, guests are generally keen to build and claim their reward points, creating more chances for them to book.

Make sure to get your staff to talk about your loyalty program with your guests.

7. Expertise promotions

If you’re an expert on a specific topic your guests love too, you can build new connections with promotions centred on that topic. This will be difficult for your competition to copy.

Use your expertise to arouse interest through blog posts, articles and events relating to that topic. This will help you attract guests exploring the topic on Google, and generate more email signups for future promotions.

8. Early bird promotions

Early bird promotions encourage guests to book in advance. These incentives can ensure you’re not forgotten after they carry out the initial research phase. It means you have a better chance they’ll book then and there.

9. Free upgrade promotions

Offering free upgrades gives guests a taste of your best services, which may entice them to buy better options the next time they visit.

They may also arrive with lower expectations, and by over-delivering, you set them up for a great guest experience which they may rave about to friends, family and online.

Before I carry on, have you seen all the Keystone HDC post downloads to help grow your business? We add new ones every month and they are free. You can find them at

KeystoneHospitalityDevelopment.com/KHDC140

10. Take People on a Virtual Tour of Your Property

By providing a virtual tour on your website, one of the biggest barriers that people face in choosing a property is knowing what their room will look like. By giving a tour, you’ll give your prospects an idea of what they should expect.

11. Use Google Business View for 360-Degree Tours

Google has a program called Google Business View, where you can hire a certified photographer to shoot a 360-degree photographic tour of the interior of your property. This is exactly like the Street View feature of Google maps, where you can take a virtual tour of a city as if you are driving through it, except it is an interior view of a property.

12. Run a Digital Ad Campaign

If you are a smaller property without huge resources, you can try digital advertising. Running ad campaigns on social media is extremely underpriced for how effective it can be. You can get started by diving into your customer relationship manager (CRM) and looking at the existing data you have about your past customers and use that as a basis for your initial target audience. As you gather more data you can use the process to build and refine your audiences and that will help you target new customers. This strategy is guaranteed to increase awareness of your business.

13. Use Fresh Content to Answer Customer Questions

Content marketing is one of the best and most effective ways to increase your property bookings. First, you need to find out all of the different questions or problems your target audience has and create detailed content solving those problems. This will help to build the audience’s trust in your property and will increase the chances of converting them into customers.

Are these making sense? Let me know by leaving a comment below

14. Use SEO to Get Found

The hospitality property space is incredibly competitive both online and offline, so every activity needs to generate a great return. Your property SEO consultants should be working with your property to create content and build visibility for a diverse set of searches that cater to all of your target guests and their needs at each stage of their booking journey.

15. Create Cohesive Branding Both Online & Offline

You will want to have a consistent and identifiable brand both online and offline.

Use your branding to market by using video, your website, offline methods, and more. Wherever you tell your property’s story, be consistent.

16. Create Digital Guides

Lobby brochures are going by the wayside. However, people still need advice about what to see and do. As part of your digital marketing, created numerous city or regional related guides to help our visitors.

In conclusion

We hope these ideas will inspire some creative thought for your next promotion strategy but if they haven’t, don’t despair. I am going to have 16 more ideas in our next edition to help get the juices flowing and give you a winning edge.

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