While providing exceptional service and running efficient operations are fundamental, a hotel’s sales and marketing engine plays a crucial role in generating awareness, attracting bookings, and ultimately driving profitability. The strategies and initiatives orchestrated by sales and marketing leaders directly impact reservations, average daily rate, RevPAR, and overall revenues.
Table of Contents
This blog will explore the core objectives that hotel sales and marketing teams focus on to fill rooms, maximize occupancy revenue, support operational teams, and grow the bottom line.
Let’s jump straight into it.
Driving Room Night and Occupancy Revenue
The central goal of sales is generating bookings across targeted customer segments to maximize hotel occupancy and room revenues.
Demand Generation
Proactive sales initiatives create new booking opportunities through channels like corporate accounts, tour operators, OTAs, wedding planners, DMOs and more. Sales managers persistently prospect new accounts, while monitoring group/corporate opportunity pipelines and booking pace to meet quotas.
Conversion Optimization
Engaging digital presence, compelling promotional offers, and effective sales processes convert prospects into booked guests and higher occupancy rates. Tools like CRM, marketing automation, and messaging align to sales workflow to nurture prospects until booking. Offers drive urgency.
Customer Insights
CRM analytics, recency/frequency/spend data, and segmentation profiles help sales teams understand and market precisely to valuable customer subsets. Behavior analysis identifies best prospective customers to receive specialized promotions and loyalty rewards driving incremental bookings.
Negotiations and Contracts
Securing group, conference, corporate, and other contractual bookings guarantees room night production over set periods. Legal oversight ensures contract terms around commission, attrition, cut off dates, and other details sufficiently protect hotel interests.
New Market Cultivation
Tapping emerging guest segments, underserved niches, and geographic regions exposes new demand channels through tailored marketing. Local DMOs provide data on rising feeder markets, while social listening surfaces growing niche traveler groups worth targeting.
Driving Revenue Through Rate Strategies
Beyond occupancy, hotel sales and marketing leaders focus on maintaining optimal average daily room rates and RevPAR.
Competitive Benchmarking
Monitoring local competitive markets helps position rates to attract bookings while optimizing revenue. Rate shopper data is analyzed regularly to calibrate pricing advantage versus parity across segments and seasons.
Rate Fencing and Parity
Enforcing minimum stays, advance purchase, and channel rate restrictions while maintaining rate consistency across channels preserves ADR integrity. Rate integrity is enforced through strict contracts with OTAs and group booking channels. Last room availability is restricted.
Dynamic Pricing
Adjusting rates continually to reflect changing market conditions, demand shifts, and competitive factors maximizes revenue. Sophisticated automation reprices allotment availability across channels based on algorithms and booking pace data.
Seasonal and Event Calendars
Reviewing annual demand cycles, citywide conventions, and local happenings guides strategic rate adjustments over the calendar year. Major citywide events, holidays, school breaks justify elevated dynamic rate floors to capture peak occupancy demand.
Corporate and Group Negotiations
Negotiating corporate, consortia, and group rates involves balancing room night commitment with discount levels given. Minimum night, room block, and food & beverage commitments safeguard value. Review data shows historical deal performance.
Building Brand Awareness and Customer Loyalty
Broad brand exposure leads potential new guests to the property, while retaining existing guests increases loyalty.
Public and Media Relations
Seeking earned media exposure through press releases, partnerships, awards, and publicity highlights spreads brand reach and reputation. Hiring a PR firm provides media connections and content to secure feature stories in relevant publications read by target travelers.
Social Media and Influencers
Engaging social content and influencer partnerships gets the brand in front of targeted audiences primed for conversion. Research influencers with an audience persona matching prime targets. Collaborate on creative campaigns benefiting both parties.
Promotions and Events
Compelling offers, packages, on-site events, and experiences bring new visitors on property to experience the brand, stimulating engagement. Branded hashtags collect user generated event content into curated collections displaying property vibrancy prospects discover online.
Loyalty Programs
Providing elite benefits, personalized promotions, and VIP services increases repeat visits and share of wallet from valuable regular guests. Surprise upgrades, anniversaries, customized offers, priority service, and access show loyal members they are cherished.
Referrals and Ratings
Proactive referral rewards programs and reputation management facilitate organic advocacy among existing satisfied customers. Public reviews are monitored and issues addressed. Review feedback provides operational insights. Referrals are rewarded.
Providing Insights to Optimize Operations
Analyzing performance data enables continuously refining operational execution to better meet guest needs.
Performance Analytics
Monitoring metrics on sales, bookings, segmentation, occupancy, ADR, market share, attribution, and other key data provides operational intelligence. Shared dashboards make trends on metrics like RevPAR index, feeder markets, channel costs, customer LTV, and other analytics transparent.
Guest Surveys and Feedback
Soliciting post-stay, on-site, and real-time guest feedback offers insights into improving service delivery. Tablets gather quick guest ratings on housekeeping, F&B, check-in, etc. allowing supervisors to address weak areas in real-time.
Site Selection and Viability
For new projects, analyzing market potential, feasibility studies, and demand modeling informs investment decisions grounded in site viability. Verified data on potential occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, operating costs validate site selection and determine maximum investment supportable.
Competitive Benchmarking
Regularly comparing performance across local and industry competitors identifies operational gaps requiring improvement. STR reports allow benchmarking against local competitive sets on occupancy, RevPAR, ADR, market share and channel costs.
Emerging Travel Trends
Identifying and analyzing trends around guest preferences, disruptors, and habits helps evolve the property's offerings and experiences. Social listening, surveys, experimental concepts, and data synthesis spot shifts to stay ahead of evolving guest expectations and values.
Conclusion
By leveraging data-driven strategies, executing innovative promotions, forging local partnerships, maximizing distribution channels, and building brand exposure, hotel sales and marketing has a measurable impact on achieving occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR goals that drive overall revenues and profits.
To discuss sales and marketing solutions tailored to accelerate your hotel’s profit growth, partner with the experts at Emersion Wellness today.
