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Marketing for a motel hotel chain client

by trip3980
1 replies
Hello all. I am a multimedia specialist with over 20 years of experience and have marketing and branding skills as well. I have somewhat of a challenging assignment. This motel has 20 rooms and in the desert next to a base that has a regular business clientele and is in the middle of nowhere but drive an hour in any direction their are many tourist destinations. So far this is my idea establish a bible for the marketing and branding material. Advise the client to build a conference room with conference web camera wide screen tv and games IE PS4 xbox 360 ect. Provide complementary breakfast early for those who travel to the base and provide a complementary shuttle service to the base once in the morning and in the evening. That I think is enough to satisfy the experience for the clients. My next goal is to send out press releases announcing aspects of the hotel. The problem with this aria is that the hotels close to the base gets on average 60 percent occupancy. Statistics for the motel are unknown as the motel just started business. I plan to avoid all social media platforms such as Facebook, twitter, pinterest etc as it has statistically a very low return for the amount of time and money to reach the target audience. That and facebook has been manipulating feeds IE pay to play with limited results if you pay. That said I will be focusing on collecting user data and emails to update past clients on motel promotions and offers. I do plan to focus on but not sure how is travelocity, cheap flights, etc... I want to avoid "Discounts" But I think the extra searches are enough to maintain a competitive edge IE complementary breakfast, Shuttle, Meal deliveries, Conference room etc. I know the standard seo and web site optimization needs to be implemented but not sure what other standard methods are out their to increase occupancy are and if their are other methods to marketing a location like this. Any advise would be great.
#chain #client #hotel #marketing #motel
  • Profile picture of the author bizgrower
    How close to the base?
    How close are other hotels?
    What hotels are their most direct competition?
    What amenities do they have? (push those to the max)
    They are a part of a chain? A franchise or corporate?

    They need to study these aspects to find the their best market and pricing.

    For my hotel and my market, just as something you can hopefully extrapolate from,
    (your mileage may vary):
    3 hotels in my town, 10 or so in my county. Besides me and the 10 room independent,
    luxury boutique hotel, all of the other hotels go after the tourist business and the long term
    business (construction workers and locals who can't find housing).

    Long term stayers tend to end up treating the hotels and motels like their home, or worse
    because they are not at home. It is not good for the tourists who want a safe, comfortable
    getaway place.

    That boutique hotel and a sub-standard Super 8 are the other two in my town. When I started,
    we competed with the Super 8. We are now $20 to $50 higher than they are, and $30 to $70 lower
    than the boutique (season dependent pricing - I probably change more often than anybody). This has brought us nice customers and revenues. We hardly have any damages or nasty party rooms. We are getting known as a nice vacation place and already getting a lot of reservations for July and August of next year, as well as the ski season about to start.

    Can they afford to build and staff a conference room?
    Is there really a need for a conference room?
    Does the base have enough conference facilities and do the conference presenters
    want to take the time to travel from the base?

    Same for operating a shuttle?
    Can they staff it?
    Is there a need for it?

    Again, my hotel may be really different from your client, but we are an hour from Denver International Airport and transportation services here are almost non-existent. So all of our customers drive their own vehicles or get rental cars. I thought about a shuttle to the ski area, but it would be expensive to operate and insure and difficult to staff. And, all of our customers have their own wheels.

    There are tons of nuances they should look at, but overall, they need to look at their location and facility advantages (we have a year round indoor heated pool and outdoor hot tub, the Super 8 has nothing like that). We are on the Denver International Airport side of the closest ski area and the Interstate is almost always open and I use that to my advantage for pricing as well. Again, examples I hope you can extrapolate and use for your client - their manager/ marketing person should also consider and give you location specific input.

    Well behaved military and business people should be a good mix with tourists who want a nice little getaway place, which sounds like another market for your client hotel.

    IMO, hotels in the boonies like mine and your clients should be about the good experience for
    their guests.

    I am with you on discounting - we've gone significantly higher pricing than I ever imagined and it is paying off
    very well in terms of revenue AND guest satisfaction. And quality of most guests. A single Mom does not want to have a lot of scary looking dudes around. People getting up at 4am to climb a mountain don't want partiers keeping them up until 3 am...

    We pay for the business listing on TripAdvisor so people can click a link to my hotel website... I'd say they are the gorilla to pay attention to and use to the max - keep those reviews good. Something like 60% of travelers use TripAdvisor to find a hotel or area attraction or place to eat. And the banner advertising gets you all over the internet and is effective retargeting.

    We have also done quite well with Expedia and Hotels.com (same company, but you/they want to work both websites). You do pay them commission for reservations that actually stay. While annoying to pay
    those companies, they do get a lot of traffic and again the banner advertising and retargeting.

    Booking.com can be effective, but IMO, their advertising "Booking dot wow" tends to create
    users who think all their hotels are five star. We don't get much business from them and I
    don't like to deal with unrealistic customers. They really think they can get a five star in this area.
    (almost all of us are in the one to two star industry category, and built in the 60's) And, the Booking.com
    customers tend to expect a lot more for $85 or whatever we are charging for the season.

    I should have better tracking, but we do get a lot of repeat and referral business after people stay
    with us the first time after they used TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, or Expedia.com. Also, a lot of people
    see us on those sites and book direct the first time anyway. Sooo, as far as I'm concerned they are very worth it. About 15% of last year's revenues came directly from Expedia and Hotels.com. I don't know the exact results of the indirect results from being on those sites. (I'm spread thin as GM).

    AAA endorsement would be worthwhile. We currently are not, but the previous owner says it was their best marketing investment.

    Other avenues I wish to pursue are YouTube because we are in a the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
    And Facebook to target our ideal tourists via hanging in their groups or advertising. Also, I' m adding
    Health retreat kind of stuff because of our location, the pool, the hot tub, and the Yoga, reflexology,
    and health practitioners in the area.

    That's about it for now. Lucky for you I had a nap earlier. Maybe. LOL
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