What is the best hotel strategy to increase occupancy and revenue? How can we differentiate ourselves from other major hotel competitors?

When I opened my first boutique hotel, I had no previous experience in the hotel industry. The only experience I have had with hotels is that I have been a guest in hotels myself . hotel zentrum osnabrück I didn’t study hotel management either. So what did I do to get rolling? I contacted an advisor and asked him for help. The consultant wanted to charge more than $10,000 for just three months, so I decided to do all the marketing myself.

This is how I started:

I contacted the online travel agencies – HRS, Booking and Expedia. I have compiled all information about my hotel: pictures, facilities, equipment, location of the hotel, public transport, distances to certain sights from the hotel, normal prices and fair prices. I have completed all the mandatory OTA training and signed the contracts. As soon as my hotel was available on the OTAs, I received reservations immediately. That was pretty amazing. Therefore, I would like to emphasize to hoteliers / apartment owners that it is necessary to be bookable on the main OTAs on the net. I have to admit that without these mentioned OTAs, my team and I would not have served as many guests as we have in the last few years. As soon as you get in touch with your guests, it depends on you whether you can win them over as regular guests or not. It has to do with providing the best service imaginable. Your goal should be for guests to remember you for your service, quality, friendliness, home-feeling, uniqueness and attention to detail. Make sure that your guests leave your accommodation satisfied. In addition, I use a self-made “Guest Come Back Card” as an Honors / Points program. I provide guests with a GCBC upon check out. If a guest has visited us ten times, they will receive a discount on their next stay. The “GCBC” is a cost-effective alternative to an expensive “point program”. This GCBC is just an example; You can also give away a free night. At check-out, we usually ask guests if an additional reservation is required. This strategy leads to many recurring reservations. While asking this question, it’s a good practice to mention the benefits of booking now. ( cheaper price than OTAs, room availability, room choice, etc.) If you notice that some of your regular guests aren’t coming back, give them a call and ask them why. It’s crucial that you find out what happened; so that you can rectify any problems immediately. Tell them that you want to give them the best service they can find in your city and that you’re dying to make a change. Don’t ask them to come back, but show them that you care and that you’d love to see them again. Another strategy we like to use is reaching out to local businesses. Many companies in our area have regular seminars or events. Sometimes some businesses just don’t know there is a hotel near them. Because of this, you need to get the attention of these companies. A common answer you usually find to this post’s question is Apply to more OTAs and your utilization will automatically increase. Well I disagree with this answer. A few months ago I applied to an additional OTA and after a few days my hotel was available on the platform. Over a few months I received 8 to 10 bookings through this channel. Therefore, adding new OTAs to your existing OTAs is not always the solution for more reservations. Of course, being on different OTA platforms has advantages and it definitely increases your visibility. High visibility is the key to your success. However, keep in mind that many OTAs require you to invest more time maintaining your extranets.

Channel Manager is another way to increase your utilization

A channel manager is another way to increase your utilization. In the first week my hotel opened, I didn’t have a channel manager. That was stressful. I had to manually block rooms on various OTAs because as soon as I received a reservation, say from HRS; then booking. com and Expedia didn’t know about it; and so I had to log into the extranet of these two OTAs and lock the room. As you can imagine, this is a lot of work and you also have to be quick. If you don’t block the rooms immediately, overbooking can occur after a while. I recommend every single person available on different OTAs to use a channel manager. Using the right channel manager saves a lot of stress. I can absolutely guarantee you that!

Caution: Do not drastically lower your room rates; Imagine receiving hundreds of reservations and being fully booked from one day to the next. Firstly, if you love your accommodation and want your guests to respect your facilities and take care of them too, then be careful how low you set your prices. The more I lowered my prices, the stranger my guests were, in my experience. When I was offering cheap rates for two weeks, I had six very strange guests in my hotel. They were so strange to all the other guests that I had to take them aside and explain our house rules to them. Now I know what my rooms are worth and I will never sell them for less than that amount. You don’t have to offer low prices to increase your sales. Also, many guests associate the price per room with the quality of the accommodation. That’s another fact to keep in mind.

The original question of this post was: What is the best strategy to increase sales?

To answer this question, you first need to know what you’re selling. So if you plan to increase your income, make a list of all the items you sell in and around your property. For example, I sell: one room per night, minibar items, early check-in and late check- out option, extra beds, and (sometimes) shuttle service. I could sell breakfast, wifi and parking (but they are included in the price).

Once you have your list in hand, move on to the next step: analyze each item and ask yourself, “What do I need to do to increase the price or sell more of this item?” When I look at my room item and the number of sales in a week, I’m actually happy and confident that slowly but surely I’ll get more and more repeat guests. The price of this article still offers enough room for improvement. However, if I increase my room rates by €10-15, my regular guests will ask me why I did it. I might even lose some of my regulars. I don’t want to take that risk and am wondering what I need to do to increase the price of my room and get my guests to appreciate the price change. Well, in order to increase the price of this item, I need to increase its value. So I will put a pair of flip flops, a bathrobe, a bedspread and a smartphone cleaning pad in your room. Now my regular guests will understand my price increase and even be happy about the upgrade.

Next, I look at my minibar.

Next, I look at my minibar. I am selling 14 minibar items. Because of the modest prices and selection I offer my guests, I have to restock a few minibars every day. The minibar can be seen as a cash cow. There is a lot of trial and error to do here. In fact, I suggest offering a new article every 6 months.

Next on my list are early check-in, late check-out, and shuttle service. At the moment I’m not promoting these items anywhere, but if a guest asks for them, I’ll try to make them available – and charge for them. I cannot guarantee that these items will always be available; so I don’t mention them everywhere. If you can guarantee your guests some of these items, market them on your website and on your booking button. In relation to a corporate hotel, early check-in is always required!

An extra bed is also a nice sale item. You should always have an extra bed ready. This article is a no-brainer.

I use my free parking, free WiFi and included breakfast as magnets to attract new guests. It is very difficult to get free parking in the city. By offering my parking space as an added value to my rooms, my hotel becomes more attractive to potential guests. I think wifi should always be free. Nowadays it’s just part of the ordinary service. Offering free Wi-Fi also increases your attractiveness.

If you offer a fabulous breakfast where guests will find everything they are looking for, then you should pay for it. Charging breakfast increases sales. It is not uncommon for €10-20 to be charged for a delicious breakfast.

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough space to set up many different showcases; otherwise i would fill these showcases with leather purses, belts, umbrellas, adapters for electronic devices, souvenirs, gift cards and self-branded sweets. I have been asked for these items a few times so I know they are needed. If you have enough space, you should think about putting up at least one showcase to gain experience.

Selling bundled products is another way to increase sales. People like to hear about special offers and discounted items. Combine different items with each other, provide them with an attractive price tag and create scarcity through the number of available items or time hotel zentrum osnabrück sensitivity (available until), you will achieve more sales. Look at all the items on your list and start combining them. I am sure that you will come up with interesting offers.

The final question of the post title is How can we differentiate ourselves from other major hotel competitors?

Most of my big hotel competitors/chains have more rooms than me. As a result, they are likely to earn more and have more money to spend on amenities, new gadgets, and fancy design. They can impress their guests with: useful utensils in the rooms, a huge lobby, a pompous reception, a dreamy breakfast/dinner room, a beautiful panoramic view, a precious garden, a terrace balcony and so much more that we as a boutique hotel dream of do. However, we also have advantages. Not serving hundreds of guests at a time gives us the opportunity to be more personal with our guests. In our hotel we always try to remember the names of our guests. In the early morning we greet you by name. We ask how they slept and if everything was ok. At breakfast we make sure they have what they need. For example, if guests stay in our hotel for a few days and tell us after the first breakfast that they would like something special, we try our best to make it available for the following days. Most of the time we build guest relationships. We start with small talk, and sooner or later we end up having long-lasting conversations. We talk about everything: sports, politics, cars, restaurants, popular vacation spots and so on. It’s fun and we really get to know our guests. We make them feel at home and are there for them when they need someone to talk to. Actually, we try to make guests feel like part of our big family.