Marketing Trends in the Hospitality Industry
The hospitality industry is an ever-growing bustling industry in which lots of money are circulated every day. It’s a wildly competitive field and every hotel owner or service provider must make sure that the travelers’ needs are catered to in every aspect. In order to stand out from the crowd and make their names known in the travel and hospitality world, companies must keep up to date with the latest industry data and trends.
Below we list the most recent hospitality marketing trends businesses must know about if they want to remain competitive in the industry.
Mobile marketing is the new norm
The mobile customer experience is ever more important in all industries nowadays, considering that Google is planning on basing search rankings on a website’s mobile performance. So mobile marketing will become even more important in the near future. In the hospitality industry, bookings made via a mobile device have registered a tremendous growth between 2011 and 2015, of 1700% to be more precise.
Specialists predict that mobile marketing will become a priority for many and the norm will be
for clients to book, check in, get updates via their mobiles.
OTA Marketing Strategy
Understanding the OTA marketing has also become quite necessary, as such a strategy can help business owners improve their chances of getting known and attracting more customers.
Online Travel Agencies have become marketing powerhouses lately. They use the latest technologies, and have a worldwide reach considering they own large email lists with millions of subscribers from all over the world, so exposure on OTAs can help increase direct bookings and hotel occupancy.
Some of the best-known OTAs at the moment are Orbitz and Expedia, which already have their own ad platforms, taking visitors directly to the landing page for the hotel they’re interested in.
Experiential Marketing
More and more service providers in the hospitality industry are turning to social media platforms to promote their services via experiential content. They know that people are more likely to book a room at their hotel if it is recommended by a friend or family member who has stayed with you.
Personalized content
Most customers want to feel unique and special, so personalization is an effective marketing effort. Some ideas to offer personalized experiences include using data you know about a customer to create a customized experience, automating email messages with personalized marketing messages, offering social media logins, etc.
Marketing through video content
Video is not only very effective for brand awareness, it’s also a more catchy means to promote your services. Hotels have begun putting together videos presenting not only the services they offer but also surroundings and nearby attractions. And that’s because studies have shown customers are more likely to watch a video about a product than read a text about it.
