Revenue management for many small hotels often amounts to discounting as a knee-jerk reaction to anticipated poor occupancy. I’m always surprised that so many hotels are prepared to reduce prices in the longer term in order to try to fill rooms, when there is the Late Availability opportunity. This is simply a rate that applies to selected days in the immediate future when occupancy is not looking good, up to say four days hence. Of course, someone in the hotel needs to be managing this on a daily basis and as soon as rooms fill to a certain level, Late Availability is no longer available.
So, your website needs a Late Availability page that is linked from the Home page and the Rates page and anywhere else considered appropriate on the website. I’m assuming here that your website is fully content manageable, thereby allowing you to update pages as and when required. You will see, via your statistics, that this page quickly becomes the second or third most visited page on your site, indicating its potential.
Do you know how well your website performed for you during July? My client hotels have all seen a significant increase in traffic with a consequent beneficial effect on enquiries and bookings. These are some of the comments extracted from recent emails:
“…the hotel was certainly busy in July and we had a great occupancy rate and the best ever month in terms of finances…”
“…and we are full this week again.”
“…great results – last month was a record for us too on revenues.”
I’ve just checked the statistics so far this month and it looks as though August is going to be another record. So, how often do you check your website statistics? You should be looking at them at least once a week. Then you’ll know what needs attention to improve performance…here’s an example:
The most visited page of a hotel website, after the Home page, is often the Accommodation page. I noticed a couple of days ago that this was the case on a client hotel website but I also noticed that the link page featuring the individual room details with links to photographs was the 11th most visited page. This suggested that many people were not looking at the rooms, so I edited the page and made the links more prominent. I checked the following day and the Accommodation page had jumped to 9th which means more visitors are now looking at the photographs which, incidentally, are beautiful!
You need to keep watching the statistics and tweaking your site to improve performance.
I posted this article over two years ago and am prompted to post it again. Let’s assume your website is doing what it’s supposed to be doing, i.e. competing effectively with your competitors in generating enquiries. Your own website should be your biggest source of business by far, so I naturally get paranoid about all the enquiries that are lost at reception. Imagine the difference to the bottom line of your hotel if the reception team treated every enquiry like a hot opportunity and did their utmost to convert it. 10% increase in revenue, 20%, 30%, who knows?
No matter how successful your website is or, for that matter, how much effort and money you are putting into other forms of marketing, if the resulting enquiries are lost by inexperienced or untrained reception staff or staff that do not realize they are supposed to sell the benefits of the hotel in order to secure a booking, then all that effort and money is wasted.
I’m amazed that hotels are still recruiting people simply to occupy the reception desk and to answer the telephone. Receptionists should be capable of converting telephone enquiries into bookings; they should not be there simply to answer callers’ questions, quote a rate and then leave it to them to think about it. Also, these are frequently the people who are expected to respond to email enquiries when their command of written English is lamentably poor. What’s worse about email responses is that all too frequently, nobody in authority checks them.
I dread to think how many times I have sat in Reception and heard the girls say, ‘No we’re full on that date. Thank you. Goodbye’.
I have even witnessed receptionists welcoming walk-in prospects and, when asked what the price of a room would be for the night, quote without hesitation the lowest rate possible, a ‘distress’ rate. When asked why, the answer was ‘because I’m allowed to and it’s more likely they’ll book.’ I’m sure that’s why the hotel’s average room rate was so low!
I frequently ask reception staff if they think their hotel is expensive and well over 50% respond, without hesitation, ‘Yes’. In their worlds, of course, the price of a night in a luxury hotel might well seem expensive but in the luxury hotel market, the rates relate directly to the experience at that level. How are these receptionists supposed to be convincing to callers who ask for a cheaper rate?’
This might sound a bit of a rant and I suppose it is. My business is improving the performance of hotel websites, resulting in increased numbers of enquiries, and inspiring reception teams to convert them. So, for what it’s worth, these are my top ten tips for improving the performance of receptionists in small, luxury hotels where a specialist Reservations dept. or specialist training are not options:
When recruiting receptionists, look for those with a vivacious personality. You need enthusiasm and conviction at the end of the phone.
Ensure they understand they are there to convert enquiries, especially phone enquiries (more people still prefer to enquire/book by phone), as well as to be ‘on Reception’.
Ensure all receptionists are always familiar with the hotel’s primary selling points, especially those that give you an edge over your primary competitors. They need to be quoting these to all enquirers.
Make mystery phone calls and send mystery email enquiries to your hotel. Then log what was said on the phone and file the email responses for review later.
Ensure all receptionists understand why your hotel is not expensive.
Every so often, treat them to dinner and a night in the hotel so they understand what makes your hotel special. They will then be able to convey the character of the hotel far more effectively over the phone or in an email.
Prepare for them an email response template that features the primary selling points of the hotel. The mystery email exercise will ensure they’re doing it properly.
Hold monthly receptionist meetings (more frequently, if necessary) to:
Review the mystery phone calls and the emails and discuss how they could be improved.
Review the average room rate being achieved and discuss how it might be improved.
Ask them to list the primary selling points of the hotel at every meeting
Review the guest welcome process. A guest arriving at your hotel for the first time might well be impressed by the building and the grounds but his first impression of the ‘guest experience’ is the receptionist. You know what they say, ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression.’
Make receptionists feel really involved and take pride in what they’re achieving. They can make a huge difference to the bottom line.
Review how they can clinch the booking without reducing the rate
Create performance incentives. I suggest these are based on average room rates achieved by the team and an individual incentive for the most revenue generated by ‘upselling’, e.g. bottles of Champagne, flowers, beauty treatments, etc
Finally, and perhaps controversially, pay them more! Good receptionists can do more for you than mediocre sales people (I’ll be talking about them another time!) who can be paid twice as much.
You need to convert those website enquiries before your competitors get the chance.
There are many small independent luxury hotels in the UK who have a website but pay it little attention day to day. These same hoteliers are now trying to stimulate enquiries by focusing on Facebook and twitter. The fact is that a hotel’s own website is by far the most important element of the marketing effort. If the formula’s right, the website will be high in Google for around 2,000 individual search phrases every month generating a good number of enquiries, a good percentage of which are converted to bookings by receptionists who can sell the hotel’s benefit.
Most importantly, as long as the hotel’s website is fully content manageable, it can be updated as and when required with Late Availability rates for the next few days, special breaks, events, etc., activity which improves the enquiry rate and the booking opportunity.Furthermore, if the search phrase for a specific page is not in the Google top ten, then an hotelier can edit the text, meta tags and links to improve its performance. Remember, every page of your website is a potential landing page, depending on what the browser is searching for. The website of a small independent hotel is the marketing opportunity that enables it to compete very effectively with larger hotels with greater resources.
Social networking sites are good for generating followers and, of course, previous guests need to be encouraged to follow you or become ‘friends’. You can then use your social media to ensure they know what special breaks, events, etc are available, as well as keeping them up to date as to what’s happening at the hotel. However, managing social networking activity is very time-consuming which is why PR companies have adopted them as part of the services they provide…another revenue opportunity for them.
I’ve just been reading an article that was advocating the appointment of a Social Media Manager by hotels. Firstly, this presupposes that there’s sufficient loot in the budget to make such an appointment, and for most small independent hotels, there most certainly isn’t. Secondly, there is much trumpeting about the marketing potential of social media activity but I have not yet seen one piece of research that says how effective it is in generating bookings.
My advice to independent hoteliers, before diving into the social media maelstrom, is to concentrate on ensuring your website is generating an ever-increasing amount of traffic and generating an ever-increasing number of enquiries. Then ensure that your reception team is capable of converting the enquiries to bookings. Incidentally, do you ever check the emails that are sent out from your hotel in response to website email enquiries? If not, why not? Your hotel might be the exception but very often the responses are lamentably poor…poor spelling and grammar and no evidence of ’selling’.
Also, if you employ a Sales Manager, either full or part-time, make sure he/she is not languishing in the office planning wasteful advertising and making endless phone calls in the hope that a conference prospect might call back. He/she should be out there knocking on doors and promoting the hotel
I have just spent a couple of hours with a client on bookings for this weekend. I was amending the website every 15 minutes and within the two hours, we had filled Saturday and now we’ve almost filled Friday. (Incidentally, I’m not paid by the hour!) The point is that you need to be working your website to fill the hotel and that means constant attention.
Your website is your primary selling tool and, used properly, is a very powerful weapon in the fight for business. Once you’re confident it’s generating the necessary traffic, then you need to be updating it all the time with whatever it takes to generate bookings.
Top priority: make sure your website is ‘content manageable’ so you’ll be able to update it yourself whenever you want to, otherwise the costs will be prohibitive.
It’s 2010 and the economy is going to remain difficult for a while. It’s therefore imperative you ensure your websites are performing to the maximum. It’s the middle of January and the traffic to your website should be showing a steep climb. You should have been full or almost full during the first two or three weeks of this month before the snow hit and wiped out much of your business.
I was at two of my clients over the last couple of days. The first, having been hammered by the weather, was full, the restaurant very busy and the conference room booked. January is not going to be so bad after all. The second hotel reported a very busy 2009 but was concerned for 2010. Their website will be promoting some exciting new initiatives in the very near future.
Your website should be fully or partly content manageable so you can update it yourselves…and you need a Late Availability page! This you can update whenever you have too many rooms to sell. It’s a facility that really works.
Most importantly, though, your website needs to be ahead of your competitors (and the hotel portals) for a host of relevant key search phrases. This means treating EVERY page of your site as a search opportunity.
If you have been relying on hotel portal sites by paying to be on there, you MUST keep track of the traffic they’re sending to your website. One of my clients was persuaded to join a well-known portal about six months ago (I negotiated a very good price), in spite of my reservations. Business generated - none. Traffic to the client website from this portal last month - 0.
Your website is your primary marketing tool but it needs your attention all the time.
The arrival of snow can have a devastating effect on small independent luxury hotels. Having been almost full for the first two weeks of January, the snow arrived and with it the cancellations. All our marketing activity which had been so successful will not generate the anticipated revenue whilst the bad weather continues. One of the hotels whose website I manage was, a couple of days ago, still full for this coming Sunday. Then the weather forecasters started predicting heavy snow for the weekend and the cancellations started coming in.
What to do. Firstly, it’s imperative to secure the bookings for a later date. You might have to extend any offer for a further period for these people. You might even have to offer a very small incentive. Secondly, make sure you put a snow report on your website to say that the roads are all clear and there isn’t a problem, if this is the case. Make sure this is also on all the emails leaving the hotel.
If you have a twitter account, keep posting positive messages, especially if the snow isn’t bad where you are.
The chances are you will have taken some lovely photos of the hotel during the snow that makes it look ‘fairytale’. Post these to your website and include some stories of people having a lovely time whilst with you during the snow. You’ll not get back the revenue you’ve lost due to the cancellations but at least you can make something positive of it.
Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Flickr and more; social networking sites that so many people are devoting so much time to ‘developing’. Fine if you’re part of a hotel group and have the luxury of a marketing department but even then, how do you know those charged with managing these sites are devoting all their efforts to the task. Social networking is addictive and the temptation to manage one’s personal networking activities in company time frequently proves overwhelming. The number of man-hours lost to companies as a consequence can be very substantial.
Small independent hotels don’t have the resources to devote to this activity. It takes time and there’s no real indication yet as to how effective it might be in generating bookings. I am managing twitter activity for a couple of hotels and have succeeded in generating a few bookings that I know about. However, the big opportunity is to increase the profile of a hotel and to tempt people onto the hotel’s website. It can be particularly beneficial locally. This is where the small independent hotel can score over its larger competitors…by being local, personal, distinctive and, if possible, unique in the ‘tweets’ posted.
The success of twitter very much depends on how many followers you can generate who are the sort of followers you want to reach. Alas, there’s a great deal of rubbish out there and many followers will never by guests. I weed out those who are undesirable!
So, how effective is social networking in achieving your marketing and sales goals as a small independent hotel? Well I can see the big boys blitzing twitter with promotions but I believe that being selective and focused on the messages you post can be effective. It’s also important to observe the twitter activities of others and to react to them whenever you feel there’s an opportunity.
There doesn’t seem to be any proof anywhere that social networking activity actually produces bookings…and it takes up time. A hotel’s website is still the most important marketing resource and will continue to be so. A successful website with high Google ranking for a host of key phrases will generate as much as 80+% of your bookings and this should be reflected in your budgeting.
This winter, in my opinion, is going to be difficult for all hotels at whatever level. However, I believe small, independent luxury hotels have an opportunity to outperform their larger competitors by being more active locally. Conference business has been knocked for six in the economic downturn but as things improve, many will be turning their attention once again to conference budgets…and this is when they might well be in the market for change.
It’s always important to appreciate that, when chasing new conference business, you’re asking companies to switch from hotels that are tried and trusted. Why should whoever makes the decisions put their heads on the block for you by giving your hotel a try? They’d be in serious trouble if you cocked up. However, they might have suspended their conference activity over the last 12 months and so might be in the market for somewhere new, somewhere that’s not so corporate, somewhere that’s run by passionate owner/managers who really care.
You now need to ensure that EVERY potential conference/board meeting/partners meeting/etc client knows you exist and why you would be such a good choice. Someone needs to visit every company/firm/organisation within a given radius with a presentation package for each individual director/partner…yes, I’m talking about cold calling. (Trying to make appointments over the phone can be a waste of time.) You won’t get to see the people concerned but your research will tell you their names and handing over a personally addressed envelope in reception is far more likely to hit the target than a letter which could well be regarded as junk mail.
I was once in the offices of the biggest solicitor in the area and created quite a stir in reception with the hotel’s brochure and what I wanted to do. One lady was very interested in the hotel as a wedding venue for her daughter and she hadn’t known the hotel even existed and several expressed interest in the restaurant!
My message is simply, there’s an opportunity for you over the next few months but you need to get out there and seize it.
If you’re designing or redesigning your website, you need to ensure the developers do not present you with a design that includes text reversed out of a dark background. Designs that incorporate reversed text usually indicate that the developers have little experience of direct marketing, and a website is an exercise in direct marketing writ large. It’s a fact that reversed type is more difficult on the eye and not as easy to read. I despair when I see a hotel website that has a black background. The designers are simply impeding the performance of the site.
When selecting a website developer, ask what direct marketing (or general marketing) expertise they have and whether or not they have any experience of the hotel industry. I don’t believe developers can be qualified to produce a performance website without direct marketing expertise…good direct marketers are always looking for response and the need for response should influence design and content. Without hotel experience, your developers won’t be able to think ahead and contribute to your success.