Hotel marketing encompasses a huge array of topics, skills, and strategies that hoteliers like you need to be aware of – and also master – if you want to succeed in optimising the success of your hotel business and attracting as many travellers as possible. There’s much to consider when developing a marketing plan for your hotel. The scope and opportunities are massive in our current climate. What offline channels are still available and useful to you? What online channels should you prioritise? How do you optimise the tools you use? How do you track and measure results to make adjustments? Who do you work with to help achieve your potential?

It’s important that you know your target market, so you can craft your marketing strategy and be tailored in your messages to potential customers.

Consider these traveller categories, and see which one/s align with your hotel:

Value Seekers

Want to get the best out of their trip. Often travelling with young children, they have a medium income and largely fall between the ages of 25-34. They rely heavily on reviews to help them find what they need, preferably a trip near the beach, and usually research on a smartphone.

Luxury Travellers

Are focused on enjoyment and willing to spend more to obtain it. They often travel in a couple aged 25-49. They seek cities that are hot and coastal and tend to look closely at online reviews.

Social Travellers

Focus on sharing and engaging with others, usually travelling in friend or family groups. Their groups often include children so they appreciate babysitting and child services. While they have high to medium income they put a lot of faith in word of mouth and recommendations from other travellers. They tend to fall in the 25-49 age group.

Independent Travellers

Like to have a lot of control over their trip and thus love to travel solo looking for adventure and cultural experience over any particular climate. They’re usually low or high earners who are relatively young and quite likely to share reviews and engage with social media.

Researchers

Maintain a very particular approach to booking their trips. They want to make sure their experience is as good as it possibly could be. They not only thoroughly research their destination and accommodation but also restaurants and activities. Given this, a lot of it is done on laptop devices. They’re commonly higher earners travelling as a couple aged 25-49. Each stage of the journey is usually backed up listening to the voice of other consumers through sites like TripAdvisor.

Habitual Travellers

Look for simplicity and convenience by travelling to the same destinations repeatedly. They place more stock in relaxation than activities and are commonly in the 35-64 age bracket. Mostly male, they tend to be lower income travellers.

The type of hotel you run – budget, boutique, luxury, independent, or a chain – will make a huge difference to how you market your hotel and who you market to, so the initial research and analysis you do is extremely important.

Once you have confirmed your brand and target market, that’s when you can divert your attention to all the nuts and bolts of marketing your hotel and making it a visible, viable booking option for travellers.

AirRentalz offers hotels operators both large and small a variety of marketing and advertising services which can compliment your existing marketing.