REPORT FROM THE U.S.—To capture travelers’ business, hoteliers first need to refocus their efforts on using all channels to sell the property and then engage them by telling a captivating story, panelists said during the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International webinar “Leveraging the Digital Tool Box to Optimize your Transient and Leisure Business.”
Jaclyn Loo, senior marketing manager at Google, said consumers use all channels, especially the Internet, to research and gather information about travel decisions.
Business and leisure travelers are more digitally savvy, rely on the Internet when researching and booking accommodations and generally like to see rich and engaging content such as online videos to make decisions.
Although travelers make booking decisions based on price, convenience and past experience with a brand, “they aren’t always loyal to a particular chain,” Loo said. They belong to many loyalty programs.
“If they sign up for a program that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be loyal and repeat guests,” she added, so hoteliers need to differentiate their programs to reengage guests.
This year, 56% of business travelers planned on shopping around more than they did in the year prior, 64% use search engines as sources for travel information and 52% expect hotels to have a consistent digital presence. Hotels should have a mobile website, strong engagement on social media and videos to reference to attract travelers, she said.
“Having a great website is not enough these days,” Loo said. “You need to be proactive and have an evolving presence to stay top of mind.”
Business travelers are booking more on their smartphones. Twenty-three percent of business travelers will have more last-minute trips in 2013 than in 2012, and “mobile experience will be even more important for brands that want to capture this audience than in previous years,” Loo said.
“Brands that have consistent proactive presence across all visible channels and bring the property experience to life online will be the most successful,” she said.
Additionally, with unmanaged travelers, hoteliers need to brainstorm new ideas to get their business, said Lisa Barham, president of sales and marketing company Hotel Resources.
Barham suggested researching companies through Wikipedia and using LinkedIn to make connections with employees. “Connect with them and tell them you’d like to help with their travel needs,” she said. “Make it personal and people will respond.”
If hoteliers “find new people to connect with every day for 15 minutes,” they could get three to four new clients a week,” she said.
Telling the story
After hoteliers figure out how to attract guests to their hotels, they need to engage customers during their stay.
At the 86-year-old 150-room Heathman Hotel in Portland, Oregon, the story practically writes itself. But GM Chris Erickson said that story is different every day.
“I want to inspire experience, inspire sharing. I want to inspire people staying at our hotel,” he said, so every day he asks his 180 hotel employees “what kind of story are we telling today?”
It’s not just the story that’s important, but the way Erickson shares the story to attract new business to the hotel.
“We want to communicate our experience and our hotel experience across all channels in multiple ways,” he said.
For example, The Heathman was featured prominently in the novel “50 Shades of Grey,” garnering the hotel a lot of attention. Erickson was hesitant about the popularity at first, but he decided the best thing to do was to create his own narrative.
After the “tidal wave of attention,” he acted quickly and took control of the conversation, adding two packages that referenced the book: “The Charlie Tango No Limits” package that included a helicopter tour of Portland for $2,500 and an “Inner Goddess” wine promotion that featured a local winery for $40.
The promotion took off on social media while also highlighting a local winery and capitalizing on a popular book.
Erickson said the recession reset everything, and now people are looking for experiences above all else.
“If you capture that moment and put it in a bottle and share a story with the guest, they’ll share it multiple times,” he said. “This is how we garnered major interest in our hotel—tell a better story and being passionate about the story we have.”