What can you do to increase your hotel bookings? With more and more consumers choosing to stay in hotels instead of booking vacation rentals or visiting family and friends, it’s more important than ever to get new guests to stay with you!
Introduction
Hostels and hotels are an important part of the travel industry. They provide a place to stay for weary travelers and a place to stay for business people on a long trip. However, getting bookings is an increasing challenge for hotels. This is particularly true in this time of social media. Here are some tips from a hotel booking expert.
1. Have a good website presence.
2. Market your hotel online and offline.
3. Ask your guests to review your hotel online.
4. Use Social proof to your advantage.
5. Build trust with customers by listing positive reviews.
6. Know your target audience.
7. Ensure your information is correct and up-to-date.
8. Make it easy for your guests to book.
9. Encourage local guests to stay close to home.
10. Consider how you can make your hotel more welcoming.
Taking the first step toward increasing your hotel bookings can seem like an overwhelming task, but it doesn’t have to be. Whether you want to increase your hotel bookings in the short term or over the long haul, these ten simple tips will help you get started on the right path.
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1. Have a good website presence.
Having a good website presence is crucial. In today’s online world, not having one is almost like not existing.
Today, web surfers can search for hotels on their smartphones while still in their city or even in another country and make a reservation before they get on an airplane.
If you don’t have a website, how will your business capture these potential customers? It won’t, and they’ll book elsewhere instead.
Make sure you have a website. It has all of your contact information (address, phone number, email) prominently listed somewhere for easy access by potential customers who might need that information in an emergency.
2. Market your hotel online and offline.
Increase your hotel bookings by 200% by tapping into local, national, and international tourism associations.
- Consider marketing at travel shows, expos, and even local events you’ll be invited to attend.
- You may also want to use blogs, social media sites, and directories like Yelp.
- Put a copy of your business card in every guest room so that guests can take it with them on their travels (and so they’ll have your contact information when they need to contact you). Consider creating the best digital business card to complement your physical cards.
- Make sure your website is updated regularly and easy to navigate.
- Look for ways to increase your hotel bookings through partnerships with other businesses or organizations.
- Increase your hotel bookings by offering special deals or packages for groups such as schools, senior citizens’ groups, or sports teams—these are often overlooked groups that you could easily tap into for new customers.
Think about ways you could reduce costs associated with running a hotel, such as buying bulk supplies or finding cheaper alternatives and pass those savings onto customers through lower rates.
Offer incentives for repeat customers: People who stay at hotels will appreciate loyalty programs that offer points toward free stays or discounts on future stays if they refer friends who end up staying there too!
3. Ask your guests to review your hotel online.
Aside from customer reviews and ratings, one of your best weapons for increasing hotel bookings is making sure people know you exist.
Word-of-mouth has always been an effective advertising tool, but it’s amplified by social media these days.
Using easy software like TravelStack, travelers can share their experiences with hundreds (or thousands) of people at once using Facebook or Twitter.
It’s a simple way to increase your hotel bookings if you get your guests talking.
Create new content that shows off your property: Once you’ve got a strong foundation in place, build on it.
Regularly adding new content to your website is another great way to increase your hotel bookings because people will come back more often, and they’ll see what they’re missing out on when they look elsewhere.
Be careful not to overload them with too much information; after all, nobody likes clicking around aimlessly on websites trying to find something useful.
To increase your hotel bookings, create content showing why your property is unique and worth visiting. It could be photos, videos, or contests where visitors can win free stays.
4. Use Social Proof to your advantage.
Social proof is your best friend when it comes to increasing hotel bookings. For potential customers to know that you have a high rate of repeat business, you must publicize it.
WiserNotify is one of the most effective social proof solutions for increasing your hotel bookings. It has the ability to help your business develop by establishing trust, generating interest, and automating lead conversion.
Social proof and FOMO marketing solutions help you capture potential clients’ attention. Add the WiserNotify Social Proof app to your website to boost sales and receive notifications about-
- Numbers of booked rooms
- Reviews from customers
- Discount offer for special booking
- Live visitors of your website
Ensure your website or other marketing channels are equipped with trust indicators, such as customer testimonials, case studies, or awards.
These signals will help convince others that they can rely on your company and services. They’ll also be more likely to book a room at your establishment if they see that others have done so in the past.
After all, what better recommendation could there be than one from someone who has already been through your experience?
Make a list of things you can do to increase it, from hosting special events to offering loyalty programs.
Remember: Don’t wait until these things are perfect before promoting them! Use them while they’re still in progress; you can gather real-world feedback and tweak them accordingly.
Related: 50+ real examples of social proof
5. Build trust with customers by listing positive reviews
Customers trust hotels more when they know other customers have had positive experiences. People are naturally inclined to trust other people, so putting together a great collection of customer reviews can greatly increase your bookings.
However, don’t just list random reviews on your site. Make sure you take extra care in ensuring that every review is trustworthy and relevant before posting it up.
Make sure each review tells a story (not just a sentence or two), and make sure you’re getting new reviews regularly from happy customers; old, irrelevant reviews will quickly get flagged by search engines.
To increase your hotel bookings effectively, work on building customer loyalty with authentic and honest testimonials about their experience at your hotel.
6. Know your target audience.
In order to increase your hotel bookings, you need to know what kind of traveler is most likely going to visit your hotel.
Knowing who you want staying at your establishment will help your team focus on creating guest experiences that are tailore
d toward their preferences.
Once you’ve identified a few possible target audiences, think about where they’re likely to look for information on hotels and yours specifically.
- Is it online?
- In print publications?
- Social media platforms?
For example, if your business tends toward younger customers (and who doesn’t?), start with social media channels and try advertising directly on popular sites like Facebook or Instagram.
If older travelers make up your primary audience, then maybe you should consider partnering with travel magazines or buying ad space in airports.
The point is: You can’t increase your hotel bookings if no one knows about them! So take some time to research how people plan vacations today, then make sure you get involved.
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7. Ensure your information is correct and up-to-date
Much of what travelers are looking for when they look for hotels is correct and up-to-date information.
Your website should be easy to navigate, offer good search functionality, have room pictures and rates listed, have a Make a Reservation button that works, and answer potential questions about travel distances from airports or other landmarks.
You can’t control whether or traffic, but you can ensure that your potential guest will find all of their information with minimal clicks.
This can help increase hotel bookings by giving visitors one less reason not to check out your establishment in person (or digitally).
- Make sure your reservation process is simple and streamlined. : If it takes too many steps to make a reservation on your site, people may simply give up.
Whether you’re using third-party software or an internally developed system, there should be one step where guests input their contact information to be added to your booking database and shared with another vendor if applicable (like Airbnb).
And if you want them to add special requests or leave comments, don’t hide those fields behind drop-down menus. Let them know they need to fill these out right away!
Once someone has successfully made a reservation on your site, it doesn’t hurt to send them an email confirming everything was done correctly before going further.
8. Make it easy for your guests to book.
This may seem like a given, but if you’re serious about increasing your hotel bookings, you need to make sure that it’s as easy as possible for guests to get their reservations in.
- Incorporate a prominent Book Now or Reserve Your Room button on your site so that potential guests can easily find and complete their reservations online.
- Take it a step further by using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter; in doing so, you make it super-easy for users to share their travel plans with friends (and drive more bookings). If your hotel has a mobile app, consider adding an integrated booking function.
9. Encourage local guests to stay close to home
Many hotel bookings are made on vacation packages. If you’re looking for an edge over your competition, encourage guests to stay close to home.
They will be more likely to choose you if they can plan their trip and discover local offerings with all their information in one place.
10. Consider how you can make your hotel more welcoming.
A lot of hotels have meet and greet staff that can show you around, answer questions, and generally makes guests feel more at home.
A small increase in hotel bookings could be achieved by showing your interest in each guest who stays with you.
Ask them if they have any questions about local sights or eateries or anything else that might make their stay even better. If you’re an all-suite hotel, consider offering a warm breakfast for early risers or hosting a happy hour for those who want to unwind after work.
These types of gestures are sure to increase your hotel bookings in no time!
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Conclusion
For many businesses, location is an important factor for visitors. If your hotel isn’t in a location that works for travelers and potential guests, you may have trouble filling rooms. The best way to increase your hotel bookings is by making sure that you’re putting yourself in a location where travelers will want to stay. It’s all of these strategies that will work for you; don’t just pick a few that sound interesting. Try them all! The more strategies you test and optimize, the more money you’ll make from hotel bookings. Good luck!
