As the year wraps up, hoteliers are busy getting leisure business on the books for 2023 through special deals and packages.

Over the last several weeks, hotel companies and individual properties have launched special offers, some timed around holiday sales events such as Cyber Monday and Travel Tuesday, tempting potential guests with food and beverage credits, longer stays, gifts and more.

The packages bring in some long-term, repeat customers who are taking advantage of the sales and other special offers to book early in the new year, said Hal Powell, regional vice president of sales and marketing at Benchmark, Pyramid Luxury and Lifestyle.

“The target is to build up the pre-sell of transient reservations going forward and to really introduce some new properties to our past guests,” he said.

The Skyline Lodge in Highlands, North Carolina, offers a number of packages for 2023, some of which include the restaurant next door, the Oak Steakhouse. John Woods, general manager of both the lodge and the steakhouse, said the timing for these offers works out well because guests already are in the mindset for finding deals.

“Everybody gets all in the shopping mood right before Christmas,” he said. “After Christmas, everybody’s like, ‘What do we do now?’ because they’ve already spent their money. We try to capitalize on that timeframe between Thanksgiving and the end of the year.”

There’s a big push going on for bookings during Highland’s Snowfest in January in particular, he said. For that offer, guests get a two-night stay with a Skyline Lodge Thermos, hot chocolate and a s’mores kit.

The lodge also offers the Dare Devil Package, giving guests a two-night stay and a flying lesson with a nearby flight school, he said. Other deals include stays with a credit for brunch at the steakhouse.

At Crestline Hotels & Resorts, guests can enjoy a package for a stay at the Dylan Hotel NYC that includes a tin of Marie Belle Hotel Chocolate or a “Baby It’s Cold Outside” package at the Phoenix Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., that includes two complimentary Irish coffees at its Dubliner Bar, said Christina Bresett, vice president of revenue optimization at Crestline, via email.

The company also offers a hot $1 breakfast buffet at the Hilton Garden Inn Houston, Galleria, and a pet-friendly road trip package at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Washington, D.C.

Benchmark, Pyramid Luxury and Lifestyle rolled out a portfolio-wide campaign for a core group of 6,000 past purchasers for a buy-one, get-one deal, Powell said. Guests could buy $50, $200 and $500 e-gift cards for someone and receive a $10, $50 or $150 certificate, respectively, for themselves.

For individual properties, its Hawks Cay Resort in Duck Key, Florida, gave guests 25% off with a $25 per day dining credit as part of a Cyber Monday offer, he said. The Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Washington, had a special holiday treehouse package for the treehouses on the property. The Margaritaville Lake Resort, Lake Conroe-Houston, in Montgomery, Texas, offers a $100 resort credit plus 20% off watercraft rentals.

“It’s always good when these packages have a value proposition but also features something that differentiates you in the market,” he said.

When crafting its hotels’ offerings, the Crestline team has found there’s still high demand for leisure travel as guests continue to want experiences, Bresett said. Travelers also want the convenience of booking a package that already includes the elements they want out of a trip.

“Our packages are designed to provide value-added while creating unique experiences,” she said. "We are also seeing the ongoing trend of families including a pet. So we have created pet-friendly packages that are very popular with today’s guests."

Island Hospitality Management’s sales, marketing and revenue-management teams work closely together to determine what turnout a hotel needs or who the ideal customer is, said Kiley Watkins, director of digital marketing and strategy for Island Hospitality Management.

“We don’t just opt into a package just to do a package,” she said.

For example, offering packages for advance stays are about trying to capture base occupancy through people trying to plan travel for 2023, she said. There’s some flexibility for the guest, who is able to cancel days ahead of the stay if necessary, and it creates other revenue opportunities for the hotel.

Skyline Lodge has changed some of its end-of-year packages this year, Woods said. The lodge and restaurant have been open for a year and a half, but they were able to take lessons learned from last year’s package strategies and refine them for this year.

“To get that first year under your belt, you’re still kind of learning what really the curve is that needs to come out there and to figure out our demographics,” he said. “We really truly honed in on that and realized what their wants are.”

Crestline’s packages are promoted on the hotel website homepages and booking pages, but the teams are also using social media, specifically Facebook and Instagram, to attract travelers, Bresett said. The instant marketing provided by social media has helped bring in many last-minute bookings through these packages effectively.

Guest response has been positive as guests are looking for value-added stays, she said.

“As we launch our winter packages, we are seeing tremendous interest, especially in the packages that add a unique service or amenity that is specific to that location,” she said, citing a package for seven days of free parking for guests who spend a night at the Four Points by Sheraton San Jose Airport to catch a flight.

Benchmark had a nearly two-week “Cyber Week” sales endeavor, one of the company’s largest campaigns of the year, Powell said. It included a series of email blasts to a database, news releases and social media advertising. On the Benchmark side of Pyramid Global Hospitality, the campaign produced $14 million in revenue, an increase of nearly 50% compared to last year.

Though the deals are designed for stays in 2023, the booking window is still relatively short, he said. Almost all of the sales go into January, and most of the guests are buying for stays in January, February and March.

“Seeing those numbers was a good indicator of our overall transient pace,” he said, adding they’re not seeing any signs of a slowdown yet.

As many of Island Hospitality’s packages and deals come through the hotel brands, the brands do much of the marketing on the management company’s behalf through email campaigns and social media postings, Watkins said. Island Hospitality’s individual properties also do their own social media campaigns through their Facebook pages.

“We’re doing paid social as well as organic posts talking about the special packages,” she said.

On property, the teams know what packages are running, so they’ll talk with guests about the offers as well during the check-in process or during check out for a future stay.

While the booking window remains short, overall pace heading into the first quarter of next year is up about 2% in occupancy compared to this year, Watkins said. The segment driving that is the discount segment, which includes advanced purchases and packages.

“Guests enjoy it, especially if there’s a savings attached,” she said.

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