Digital Marketing for Hospitality

For most of the hotels and hospitality businesses, the customer journey starts well before the guest has arrived onto the property. Booking research for a business or leisure trip to the area can be done by simply searching online for the destination, browsing through hotels and browsing reviews on the areas using images and comparing room rates and facilities before the guest has even stepped onto the property. Such is the importance of digital marketing for hospitality. Simply having plenty of appealing photographs of hotel rooms on its website and launching the odd pay per click advertising campaign is not an effective strategy in the modern hospitality arena. The hospitality company should be found by potential visitors; clearly communicate the attributes of the business, build, and develop brand confidence and then influence the reader to perform the desired actions on the site and offline. This booklet describes how hotels resorts restaurants, travel accommodation providers and other businesses in the hospitality industry can use search engine improvement (SEO), local search content social media, paid advertising, email marketing and automation to create a more successful online marketing structure. What is the implication of digital marketing on hospitality companies? Hospitality digital marketing is the usage of online platforms to attract the guest through online advertisement for hospitality services, direct booking and maintaining relation with customers. A hotel would want to utilise the likes of search engine optimisation, Google Business Profile, social media, paid advertising, email campaigns, online reviews and their own website. A resort may want to look at destination content, visual storytelling, seasonal campaigns and experience based marketing too. Second, what is crucial is that these channels should be integrated. For instance a traveller will search for the hotel on Google, explore the hotel’s website (maybe to compare hotel rooms), explore the hotel’s Instagram account (for pictures), read the reviews and then through paid advert again book the hotel. If all the channels gave a consistent experience then the business stands a greater chance of being considered. So, hotel online marketing should be seen as a full customer journey instead of one bunch of stand alone promotions. The Main Digital Channels for Hospitality Channel Primary purpose Typical hospitality use SEO Organic visibility Hotel, destination and service searches Local SEO Local discovery Maps, directions, nearby searches Content marketing Education and engagement Travel guides, destination content Social media Awareness and visual discovery Rooms, experiences, events Paid advertising Targeted traffic Hotel offers and booking campaigns Email marketing Retention and nurturing Offers, confirmations, guest communication Website marketing Information and conversion Room pages, amenities, bookings Reputation management Trust Reviews and guest feedback Marketing automation Efficiency Follow-ups, segmentation and personalised campaigns The right combination depends on the property, location, audience, seasonality and commercial objectives. How Does the Hospitality Customer Journey Work? Few hospitality customers will place a booking upon first contact with a single piece of marketing. Their process continues through many procedures. A traveller planning a trip might first of all look for things to do, then later on might search for hotels, look at locations, look at room types and read reviews. But a very busy business traveller might search a whole lot more directly for the hotel next to the business district or event venue. So a hospitality business needs content and marketing activities for differing stages of their customers’ decision-making process. From Destination Discovery to Booking the journey can broadly move through four stages: Awareness:The traveller encounters a destination, hotel, experience, or hospitality brand. Consideration:They compare accommodation, types, locations, prices, facilities, reviews, and experiences. Decision:They verify availability, look into deals and determine to agent or book directly, or.. Post-booking and retention:It extends over pre-arrival communication, through the stay itself, and post-stay intervention, review, and other products offers. This is an interesting implication for hospitality marketing. It would be wrong for a business to have the same message for a person who just found the destination and a person who is comparing room options. Information about the destination may suit one person. A comparison of a room or special deal may be more useful at an earlier stage. How Can SEO Bring Hotels and Hospitality Businesses to Be Found? The hospitality SEO is optimizing your business to be listed when potential guests search for hotels, destinations, attractions, conferences, accommodation, and entertainment. Following Google’s own SEO Starter Guide is a good way to get the basics right, and a professional SEO company can help you scale results faster. Search behaviour in hospitality can be extremely specific. A traveller, at any given stage of their search, might search for ‘hotels near airport’, ‘family hotel in [destination]’, ’boutique hotel near [area]’, or ‘best hotels for business trips’. This opens up opportunities other than ranking for the hotel name itself. Build Pages Around Guest Search Intent Have valuable pages on the services and experiences that matter to your audience. Depending on the business, this could include: The objective is not to create pages simply because a keyword exists. Each page should provide information that matches what the visitor is actually trying to find. For instance, a hotel is close to an airport and a guest is interested in travel distances, photo’s, check-in times, parking and room facilities. A vacationer interested in a family holiday resort and a guest might be more interested in room configurations, activities , dining and local sites. Use a Content Structure That Supports SEO Why Is Local SEO Important for Hospitality? Location is by far the most influential factor in hospitality search behaviour. Guests will frequently search for a place to stay by city neighborhood attraction, airport railway station, business district or other nearby area. It makes hospitality local SEO very relevant. The Google Business profile for a hotel should list accurately details about the hotel like the name address telephone number, opening, and closing hour, photographs, and services provided. Reviews too are important. Customers frequently consider reviews while shopping and so your business needs to have a robust process in place to solicit