Within the hospitality industry, competition is one of the single biggest challenges for individual hotels to contend with. Hotel marketing is essential, as it is the way hotels are able to promote their property, highlight its unique features, ensure it stands out from rivals, and establish the benefits of staying there.
Ultimately, keeping up with the latest hotel marketing trends and engaging customers through marketing can help hotel owners to maximise the number of bookings they generate, and the revenue they bring in. The hotel marketing landscape isn’t the same anymore. It is much more fun, easier, effective, and even trickier. And that too for hotels of all shapes and sizes. And there’s a reason behind this drastic transformation in the marketing trends in the hospitality industry.
Every single trend in hotel marketing is now directly related to travelers’ changing behavior. People nowadays do not conceive a brand the same way they used to a couple of years ago and this changes every year. Today, there are gazillion ways to market a hotel, and sticking to one method of hotel marketing isn’t the correct approach.
“The world is growing at a fast pace, and new marketing trends are emerging every now and then. Meaning, hotels must explore all of them and turn to the ones that are relevant. From the known strategy like influencer marketing, video marketing etc, there are a few new techniques that hoteliers might be seeing it get flourished in the year 2023.”
Personalised marketing
Also known as one-on-one marketing, this technique involves curating campaigns to individually promote your hospitality business among guests. This strategy is one of the hotel marketing trends to watch out for in 2023. Personalized marketing is done by leveraging guests’ data, analyzing it, and creating a targeted ad that highlights the particular person’s preferences.
For instance, you have a guest with celiac disease (who cannot eat food items with gluten). So, while you are promoting your hotel to him, emphasize the food part. Showcase the gluten-free dishes from your menu.
This kind of marketing will boost your sales amongst guests looking for hotels with a specific preference.
Thought leadership marketing
It is not just a fancy term; it is one of the most effective marketing strategies you can implement as a hotelier. Thought leadership is about sharing ideas, views, and opinions that show you have the knowledge and expertise from your domain.
Although some people confuse it with influencer marketing, it is way different. Because an influencer can be from any field with wide popularity among the global audience, however, that doesn’t mean s/he has the all-around knowledge. That’s a whole different story, so let’s keep it for some other day.
Let’s understand thought leadership marketing better.
For instance, you have been working in the hospitality industry for the past 15 years. This means you must be aware of problems faced by hoteliers, and trending marketing techniques, and have a vast knowledge of hotel operations.
Visual marketing
While we talk about content, images, and videos cannot be left behind. They are a vital component of content marketing. As they say “you believe in what you see”. This applies perfectly to visual marketing. Let’s understand it with an example.
If you search for a hotel online, you’d access the gallery section to browse the property’s pictures and videos. If they are of high quality and seem appealing, you’d instantly opt for them.
However, if the same are blurred, out of focus, or are of low dimensions, you are sure to skip that property, even if it’s way better in reality. This is exactly where visual marketing comes into the picture.
By using HD videos and high-resolution photographs (of every nook and corner of your property) you can garner guests’ attention. Moreover, visual marketing plays a pivotal role in multichannel marketing.
WhatsApp marketing
WhatsApp today is an integral part of a hotel’s entire operational infrastructure. And when we are talking about the new trends in hotel marketing, this messaging tool is making a great impact. If you’re not aware of WhatsApp marketing for hotels, it is basically a way to keep in touch with your existing and potential guests and promotion of your business.
Be it in terms of sending promotional messages or sharing your hotel’s services, WhatsApp offers you everything you need to market your hotel better.
Local marketing
One thing that many hoteliers ignore is focusing on local guests. As a matter of fact, in India, the majority of hotels focused on outstation guests only for a long time. However, after Covid-19, the situation changed. Many people opt to stay in hotels in their locality, to experience luxurious services and take a break from their routine. In fact, co-working spaces in hotels have become the latest trend in the hospitality industry.
It’s high time for hoteliers to focus on this marketing strategy, and open their doors to welcome local guests to their properties. Trust me this is one of the hospitality marketing trends that would be game-changing in 2023.
User-Generated Content
In relation to the hotel industry, user-generated content refers to online content that is created and shared by customers. Examples of this range from customer reviews and video blogs, through to hotel photos or holiday snaps. User-generated content is most commonly shared on social media, or via personal blogs.
This kind of content has the benefit of coming from real customers, rather than from a brand, increasing audience trust. For hotel marketing strategies to truly harness the power of user-generated content, they must provide opportunities for it to be easily created and shared, with digital photo booths being one such example.