How do you attract your customers to choose you from hundreds and thousands of other hotels near your city, state, and country? Do you lower the price? Make a creative promo? Or make it easy for them to actually book the place? How about a little bit of everything?
Probably a little bit of everything. However, there is just that factor that attracts certain people or customers to your hotel — a streamlined reservation service.
When people know that you have a reasonable price partnered with great reservation service and customer service, you have hit the jackpot!
How to attract customers in hotel business
With the traveling industry getting its all-time high revenue and growing steadily every year, the hotel industry or accommodation is, of course, included in that part. According to Statista, “the market size of the global hotel industry was just over 570 billion U.S. dollars in 2017.”
With that huge amount of money, of course, as an owner, you would want a piece of it, if not more. How would you do that? By attracting more customers at your hotel’s entrance. There are many ways to attract travelers, businessmen, and families to your hotel.
The first would be to put yourself in their shoes: What would you want to have if you are going to stay in a hotel? You would immediately think of the room, free breakfast, and WiFi. However, that is not the first step people take in getting a hotel for their vacation because, before everything else, they first need to reserve it.
You need to make their life easier by streamlining your reservations services. When it is the peak season, many customers are left in the dust. They are ignored and forgotten by many lodging operators and concierge. And if that happens to your own hotel, that will not be a good look.
A customer with a negative experience can bring bad reviews and give you a bad image. It isn’t like before. Times have changed with the help of the internet and social media. One bad move would take a long time to rebuild. With an industry that relies heavily on customers — their opinion, loyalty, and word-of-mouth — it is vital to accommodate every inquiring and booking customer.
According to SiteMinder, it only takes one bad experience for 25 percent of customers to never set foot in a hotel ever again. Just imagine how much damage your hotel would get if you are not careful enough with handling your customers.
You should also follow and even exceed the expectations they have of your hotel. When they book and reserve from you, of course, they would have a clue about what it would be like. It is part of the conversation they would have while reserving the room or suite. Your employees should be honest with what they are relaying to your customers and prospects. They also should show the personality of your hotel. How you want your customers to be treated inside the hotel should be seen in how you treat them even before they check in.
Hotel strategies to attract customers
Like mentioned above, there are tons of ways to attract customers. Hotels have used different tactics to get their name out there. From a 50-percent off to a weird theme of the room or the overall appearance and feel of the hotel, any gimmick is a noise marketing.
There are many websites like Traveloka, Agoda, and the likes that help hotels manage and get bookings from customers. However, an online site would not cut it. It is not as personalized and as efficient as one hotel owner would think.
Outsourcing reservations call center services to accommodate every customer is the edge that you are looking for. It adds not only to the personality of your hotel but also to the element that will differentiate you from others. With the high expectations of Millennials and Gen Y, which has more buying power now than Baby Boomers, it is safe to say that you need to tailor your services for them.
Creating a cool and trendy way for them to reserve a room in your hotel would definitely attract them. Or having a personalized way to reserve their hotel room would have the same effect. By not being a robot or an automated machine, showing emotions and being enthusiastic would surely make your inquiring customer’s day brighter. It would make them think that this hotel is a happy place and would make them consider your hotel.
Other things like price, availability, promos, and customer service are also as important. Making sure that your customer is satisfied all throughout their stay and even after is important too.
The key in everything is putting your customers first and showing them how important they are from start to finish. Contact us now and we can discuss as to how to achieve that goal of yours!