The task of owning, operating, and managing a hotel is no easy feat. With mounting competition and changes to the hospitality landscape, hotels are faced with the challenge of maximizing occupancy while continuing to grow the business and improve guest satisfaction. While many hotels simply focus on optimizing rates and offering competitive packages, guests today are looking for a better experience, which starts at the initial booking and with top-rated hotel CRS Software, all the way to when they check-out.
With that being said, here are 10 strategies properties can utilize to increase bookings and help hotels remain both consistent and competitive.
- Leverage your website and social media platforms to provide information on nearby attractions, restaurants, and spas to help drive interest in staying at your specific property. In addition, by aligning your hotel with local tourist attractions, and even offering discounts to these locations for guests who stay at your hotel, can really provide a value-added benefit to booking with your hotel. Simply by positioning yourself as local experts, guests will instantly feel more comfortable staying at your hotel. The information provided will also help drive more visitors to your website, which in turn while help to increase bookings.
- Focus on promoting what differentiates your hotel from the competition as well as your unique selling proposition. Oftentimes, guests are comparing several properties that are nearby, so be sure to clearly identify what sets your property apart. Whether it’s free Wi-Fi, complimentary breakfast, or picturesque views, identify what your hotel offers best and communicate it clearly to potential guests via your website, social media, and in email messaging.
- Ensure your online presence is as strong as possible. By taking the necessary steps to make sure that your Google business information is both up-to-date and accurate can go a long way to guests finding your website. Google is the most used search engine across the world, so maintaining your profile is essential to the success of your hotel. Additionally, take professional photos of your hotel and make sure those are the ones that are displayed on your website, as poor quality photos can present your hotel in the wrong way.
- Streamline the booking process for guests! While there are many upsell opportunities and additional packages your hotel would like to sell, offering too many options can often result in visitors leaving your website because it is simply too confusing. By making the reservations process as quick and easy as possible, conversions are likely to increase as the booking process will be simple for visitors to complete.
- It’s often said that keeping an existing client is much easier than acquiring a new one, which demonstrates the importance of actively reaching out to guests who have previously stayed at your hotel. By building an email database of all past guests, as well as gathering important information such as age, gender, and preferences, you will be able to better market your hotel. With the ability to segment your lists, marketing efforts such as email or direct mail campaigns can be leveraged to offer unique and interesting packages tailored to each specific segment.
- Make your reservations or ‘book now’ button easy to find and available on all pages of your website. Simply by placing this button in the menu of your website can help to drive conversions as it will be visible at all times and will help to drive even more guests to book their reservations as they browse through your website. By making the button a bright color or even increasing the size of the button can really go a long way to helping increase bookings.
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly! This cannot be understated, as more and more guests are looking to book reservations through their mobile devices. If your website does not show well on mobile devices and tablets, potential guests will be less than impressed and unlikely to book with your hotel. Also, it is extremely important to ensure that your booking platform works on mobile devices, because if guests are unable to complete their reservations via their smartphones, they are more likely to book with a competing hotel that allows for mobile booking.
- Simplify package options and keep them limited. By offering an endless assortment of packages, visitors will quickly become overwhelmed. While more guests are looking to book online, that doesn’t mean all options should be available via your website. The best strategy is to highlight ‘popular’ or ‘recommended’ packages that most guests would be interested in, while providing a custom option for those who want full control over the booking process.
- Create landing pages for specific offerings and utilize online advertising. Utilizing landing pages to drive traffic from guests looking for a specific experience will help provide that added differentiator from your competition. Budget permitting, tools such as Google Ads offer the ability to increase visibility for either your website or landing pages for those who are searching for specific events or attractions in your local area.
- Leverage personalized suggestions and add-ons during the booking process. By offering a competitive rate and providing additional options such as amenities, discounts on attractions, or room upgrades, guests are able to customize their experience. If done correctly and built logically into the booking process, greater opportunities exist to boost revenue for your hotel.
Looking for a way to improve your hotel’s online booking process? Contact us today to learn more about how Jonas Chorum can streamline the direct booking process for your hotel!
