Proven strategies to attract more guests to your hotel and boost bookings

Attracting hotel guests requires the implementation of diverse marketing and operational strategies, both online and offline. The key to success is continuously adapting to market needs, providing high-quality service, and building positive relationships with guests and business partners.

By doing so, the hotel can attract more guests, increase their satisfaction and loyalty, which translates into long-term success. It’s also important to remember past or current guests – some may return to the hotel or recommend it to their friends, reinforcing your direct booking strategy.

Don’t just focus on new guests

In the race to attract new hotel guests, it’s essential not to forget about previous guests. They are a crucial element of any hotel’s marketing and operational strategy. First, loyal guests often provide financial stability.

Second, they frequently generate additional revenue by using more services. Third, they provide valuable feedback, review the hotel on platforms like Google Maps, TripAdvisor, and social media, and act as brand ambassadors, significantly contributing to guest loyalty.

Taking care of regular guests through loyalty programmes, personalised service, and regular promotional offers (e.g., via email marketing) contributes to the long-term success of the hotel. Maintaining a balance between acquiring new guests and nurturing relationships with loyal ones is the key to sustainable growth and success in the hospitality industry.

Acquiring a new guest is usually much more expensive than retaining an existing one.

Convincing a new guest requires intensive advertising campaigns, promotions, and other marketing efforts. Keeping regular guests can be achieved through loyalty programmes, special offers, or direct communication, which is typically less costly.

Loyal guests often prioritise comfort and predictability in their stay, so they are willing to spend more on additional services such as dining, spa, transportation, or attractions. They may also take advantage of last-minute deals or promotional packages more frequently.

It’s important to note that by leveraging the stay history and preferences of regular guests, a hotel can create personalised offers that further delight guests. Personalised services, such as room preferences, favourite meals, or special occasions, make guests feel appreciated and unique. This is also valuable knowledge for online marketing aimed at new guests.

Positive reviews and loyal guests

Most importantly, satisfied loyal guests are the best ambassadors for the hotel. Word-of-mouth marketing (positive feedback and recommendations shared in person) and online reviews (on sites like TripAdvisor) can attract new guests. Loyal guests often share their positive experiences with family and friends, making it easier for the hotel to attract new guests.

The satisfaction of guests who have already stayed at the hotel greatly influences the property’s reviews on booking platforms. These reviews, in turn, play a significant role in encouraging or discouraging new guests from booking. It’s also essential to ensure responsiveness from the hotel, addressing any potential concerns.

Loyal guests build trust in the hotel through regular visits and positive interactions with the staff. A guest who has good experiences is more understanding and loyal, which is incredibly valuable in the hospitality industry. They are also more likely to leave reviews on booking platforms. Information about guests who regularly return to the hotel is a valuable signal for new guests.

Tools to attract new guests through online marketing

Online marketing is an indispensable tool for attracting new guests to hotels. With the right strategy, which includes a professionally designed website, effective social media advertising campaigns, valuable content marketing, crucial email marketing, PPC ads, and sometimes influencer collaborations, hotels can significantly increase their visibility and appeal to potential guests. Using these channels for well-thought-out campaigns helps attract more new guests and lead to more direct bookings.

Website and potential guests

A hotel’s website is not just a basic source of information about the property, its amenities, and pricing, but also, in many cases, a tool for driving direct bookings. Introducing solutions offered by hotel reservation management systems can turn the website into an effective marketing tool leading to bookings. Moreover, such a system allows you to gather valuable information about potential guests, which is useful for future marketing efforts. Finally, implementing such a solution helps the hotel at least partially reduce its dependence on external booking platforms or diversify acquisition channels. To achieve this, the website must be:

• Responsive: Optimised for mobile devices to ensure a smooth browsing experience on smartphones and tablets.
• Fast: Enabling seamless browsing; fast-loading pages increase user comfort and positively impact search engine rankings.
• Intuitive: With a clear menu and easy access to information about rooms, services, prices, and booking options.

Additionally, SEO should focus on:

• Keyword research: Analysing and selecting the appropriate keywords potential guests are searching for.
• Content optimisation: Creating valuable content such as blogs, room descriptions, and articles about local attractions that include selected keywords.
• Link building: Using valuable links from other websites to improve the site’s search engine rankings.

How to attract new guests through content marketing?

Content marketing is a critical element of online marketing related to the website. It includes:

• Blogs and articles: Regular blog posts about local attractions, travel tips, events, hotel news, and other topics of interest to guests.
• Videos and visual materials: Promotional videos showcasing the hotel, its amenities, the surrounding area, and event coverage. Videos can include virtual hotel tours, staff interviews, and event highlights.
• Infographics and illustrations: Visual presentations of information that are easy to understand and grab attention; these can include travel tips, hints, attraction info, or driving maps.
• E-books and guides: Offering tips on travel, packing, trip planning, etc., that users can download in exchange for providing contact information.

These types of materials allow the promotion of special offers, supporting loyalty programmes, and presenting service packages. Both current and potential guests receive valuable knowledge from the hotel and, at the same time, are introduced to part of the hotel’s offerings.

How to attract guests through social media?

Social media is not only an essential element of hotels' marketing strategies but also an indispensable tool for building relationships with guests, expanding reach, improving reputation, and optimising marketing efforts. Through platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn, hotels can precisely target their advertising campaigns to specific demographics and potential guests, increasing the effectiveness of marketing activities. These platforms also allow direct and instant interaction with users, enabling hotels to respond quickly to questions, resolve problems, introduce hotel offerings, and build relationships with potential guests. Social media also helps strengthen the hotel's brand image, which is important in attracting new guests, including business travellers.

Advertising campaigns on social platforms, such as Facebook Ads, offer advanced analytics tools that allow tracking the effectiveness of marketing efforts in real time, which, combined with the knowledge base from the hotel’s resource management system, is invaluable for campaign success. Don’t forget about the power of word-of-mouth marketing and influencers. Collaborating with popular bloggers, YouTubers, and Instagrammers can significantly expand the campaign’s reach and attract new guests.

Hotel email marketing for ongoing communication

Email marketing is one of the most valuable tools for promoting the hotel, its accommodation services for specific time periods, additional attractions, discounts, and loyalty programmes.

Through direct contact, personalisation, segmentation, relationship building, conversion improvement, campaign analysis, low costs, automation, and support for other marketing channels, email marketing allows hotels to effectively attract new guests and maintain the loyalty of existing ones.

A hotel software system should facilitate the creation of such materials, automate their delivery, and extract valuable insights from previous bookings, enabling personalised communication for both potential and existing guests.

Email marketing offers advanced analytical tools that allow monitoring the effectiveness of campaigns in real time. Hotels can track open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and unsubscribe rates. Analysing this data allows continuous campaign improvement and content customisation to meet audience needs, increasing its effectiveness. This way, hotels can attract the attention of potential guests, enhance their positive image, present the property more closely, as well as offer a range of additional services and special events.

Profitroom, through its products, allows hotels to effectively combine sales, promotional, email automation, and revenue marketing activities. All these efforts are crucial to the final sales results. Implementing our products will help you win the battle for direct bookings, allowing the hotel’s sales strategy to be far less reliant, or even independent, from external booking platforms.