Value of Events to Small Luxury Hotels

Creating a calendar of good in-house events is one of the best ways of raising the profile of your hotel locally and of building a rewarding local database. If you’ve never done this before, it might take a while but you’ll get there in the end.

One of the most popular of such events is ‘Cooking with Chef’. I know of hotels who admit guests into their kitchens to allow chef to create a two course lunch. They teach both how to prepare the ingredients and then how to cook dishes. After a thoroughly enjoyable morning, they all sit down to lunch and a glass of wine. If you are a little embarrassed by your kitchen, then a demonstration elsewhere can be equally successful.

I once arrived at a hotel mid-morning to hear a commotion in the kitchen with lots of raised voices and hoots of laughter. The GM then told me it was a typical ‘Cooking with Chef’ event.

I know of small luxury hotels that now have thriving events calendars and an ever increasing band of followers. One such has a dining club with strictly limited membership that members pay to join. There’s now a long waiting list.

One of my favourite events was a 16 course taster menu with a specially selected ‘taster’ glass of wine to complement each course. It was even part sponsored by a wine merchant! As you might imagine, a fair proportion of the diners stayed overnight.

These are my tips for organizing a successful events calendar:

  1. Ensure there is someone competent to organize your events. If things go wrong, word will quickly spread and you’ll never get the programme off the ground. It will also adversely affect your hotel’s reputation locally
  2. Once you’ve decided on an event, post the details on your website. Devote a whole page to it and put a link to this page on every other page. Write the event details with great care so it sounds wonderful and of real benefit/enjoyment to participants
  3. Create an overnight package around each event, i.e. offer a special rate for those attending the event, thereby creating a special break to feature in your Special Breaks list.
  4. Try promoting your event(s) with a simple lineage advert in the ‘What’s On’ page of your local newspaper, featuring prominently your website address and your phone number. It’s very cheap and one interested person is likely to bring a friend or two.
  5. Invite feedback and add all the favourable comment to your website Guest Book and add a link to your Guest Book from every Event page
  6. Always consider sponsorship. Your wine merchant might be interested in sponsoring your wine events and they probably have someone who can talk passionately and amusingly about the wines being tasted.
  7. Treat your event guests as special. They are often instrumental in increasing food and beverage revenue and conference revenue at other times. For instance, they could return for dinner with friends, they could suggest you as a conference or meetings venue to their work colleagues, they could recommend you as a wedding venue to relatives or friends.
  8. Remember your event guests by name if they bring friends to dinner, for instance. Guests love to be flattered by recognition, especially in front of those they’ve invited along.
  9. Communicate with your growing events database as often as you like. Send them a regular Events Calendar update. If you’re doing it properly, they’ll keep coming back for other events
  10. Plan well ahead. Successful events can make a useful difference to revenue in times of need. 

 Alberghi Marketing