The Hotel Marketing Blog from HotelSphere

There's a conundrum for you. What DO hotels sell?

A brand new hotel brochure landed on the mat this morning - I must be on some sort of mailing list.

It's a private hotel and they must have spent a lot of money on the brochure. Beautiful finish, lovely piece of design.

However it looks like a triumph of style over function, because it does a rotten job of selling the hotel.

Why?

Continue reading "If furniture shops sell chairs, what do hotels sell?"

Posted by HotelBlogger

Potential leisure customers don't need to buy a stay in a hotel to make them feel good.
Hotels find themselves in a straight fight with everyone else who has in interest in the "disposable income" people have. As we all know - there isn't so much that's disposable these days, but there's still some out there.

It may be a straight fight, but it's not a battle of equals. This is true David and Goliath combat. Your problem, as you sit there in your hotel wondering where the next booking is going to come from, is not just that Goliath is a lot bigger than you. Your problem is that Goliath is a lot better informed about your target market and he knows how to influence buying decisions in such a way that even the buyer is completely unaware of what's going on.

You see the buying decision is not just which hotel or which location? There are competing products out there - everything from new cars to boxes of chocolates and they are considerably - I said CONSIDERABLY - better at marketing then 99.9% of hotels.

They can say to your potential customers "buy me instead".

...and they will obey...

Continue reading "You will buy me"

Posted by HotelBlogger

My old business mentor (rest his soul) used to say to me,
"Businesses only get themselves into trouble when times are good - they only notice they're in trouble when times are bad."
He reckoned that when times were good, managers would invest in things to show off just how good they were - new cars, corporate jets, that sort of thing.
When times become bad, all of a sudden the corporate jet doesn't seem like quite such a good idea.
"But you want to know the biggest problem when times are bad Al?" He said to me one day...

Continue reading "Where do you look when times are bad?"

Posted by HotelBlogger

Yesterday I met with some people from "a big online travel agent" (I promised not to name them).
Normally I save my best bile and vitriol for these people - in the past, they've asked for it.
Online travel agents have been largely responsible for leading hotels down the path of rate dumping. Although I'll admit that for their part, hotel managers must share some of that responsibility by simply not being smart enough when it comes to (a) marketing and (b) the internet.

But these people seem to have turned over a new leaf. They said lots of very enlightened things. They've got my attention.

Did you know that the term "rate parity" is bad?

Further, did you know that using "rate parity" could, in theory, get you into trouble?

Continue reading "Light at the end of the tunnel"

Posted by HotelBlogger

When I was a small boy, my Mum used to make a point of asking me if I was wearing clean underwear before I went out anywhere.
Why?
Because she wanted to be reassured that if I had an accident and was carted off to hospital, at least she wouldn't be embarrassed by the thought that the medics would have to tackle clothing that wasn't in tip-top condition.
You can hear the surgeons now, "I see Mrs Simpson let her boy out of the house wearing yesterdays pants - yes, we managed to put his kidneys back in, but did you see the state of his y-fronts?"
I was always a bit bemused that she appeared to be able to handle the thought of me lying there as a loose collection of body parts. But she couldn't handle the affrontery of somebody else thinking she didn't maintain a clean household.
Do you put on clean underwear every morning before you go out?
More to the point (for this blog at any rate), is your website wearing clean smalls?
Or does it change its' pants every five months whether it needs to or not?

Continue reading "Wearing clean underwear - and the implications for your website"

Posted by HotelBlogger

...and what are they doing today?

If you are not a branded, chain owned property I'm prepared to bet cold, hard cash that they won't be working on marketing your hotel all day today.
In fact, even if you are a chain owned property, I'm prepared to bet a similar amount that your marketing person will experience the same problem as their "privately" run bretheren.

"So what is the problem?", you ask.

The problem is NOW.

Continue reading "Who is responsible for marketing your hotel?"

Posted by HotelBlogger