If you’re looking to make a change, you’ll need to dig deeper and do some research into what kind of atmosphere and amenities your preferred customers will be looking for.
How to keep attracting guests is on the minds of most hotel owners and managers. You may be willing to throw money at the problem, but you want to make sure that you are throwing it at the right problem. The tips below can help.
Know your customer
Who are your customers? Do you want to keep the same customer base, or do you want to change who you are attracting? Maybe you're mostly a place where business people stay and you want to switch to families, or maybe you're a budget place that wants to go more high-end. On the other hand, maybe you're perfectly happy with the clientele you're getting but you'd just like to see more of them. If the latter is the case, you can survey your guests to see what they're looking for. If you're looking to make a change, you'll need to dig deeper and do some research into what kind of atmosphere and amenities your preferred customers will be looking for.
Keep standards high
No matter who you are trying to attract, you need to make sure that your standards of cleanliness and customer service are high. While this would seem like an obvious step, anyone who's ever spent much time in hotels is all too well aware that this is not always the case. One of the best ways to make sure that your guests are happy is to have employees who are happy as well. Train them well, support them in their job and reward them when they go above and beyond.
Provide fitness equipment
People don't want to give up their workouts when they're on the road, and having fitness equipment available can make the difference between you and your competition. If nearby hotels already offer this option, think about how you could set yourself apart. For example, what if you had outdoor gym equipment in hotels for guests? This is an option that you might have seen in city parks for locals to use. Outdoor gym equipment for hotel guests can be an attractive option for those who would like to enjoy some time in nature at the same time that they're getting a workout in.
Create a narrative
Think in terms of how to create positive emotions associated with your hotel and structuring a kind of narrative that invites guests to stay and become a part of that. How you do this will vary a great deal depending on whether you're inviting your customers to embrace the cosmopolitan chic of the big city where you're located, enjoy the slow pace and relative solitude of your small-town inn or something in between. Essentially, consider your brand and how you can best sell that to potential guests. You can do this with your website and any promotional print material that you produce, using words, images and video to convey a certain feeling and highlight your best features. Any social media accounts that you have should reflect and reinforce the main values of your brand.
