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Marketing Your Hotel During the Down Times of the Week Here's some great advice on how to fill rooms during typically quieter times. Thursday, July 24, 2008 Mr. Mark van Hartesvelt

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Every property has slower times during the week. Urban hotels that are geared toward business travelers must work harder to fill their rooms during the weekends, while resort properties and those near major attractions have a decline in business on the weekdays. Our gut reaction in this industry has always been to offer deep discounts during these down times.

But, perhaps there is a better, more effective way to bring incremental business to hotels without practically giving away rooms. Having smarter solutions are especially important now in a recessionary economy, where both leisure and business travel has been curtailed. The often robust summer season of travel is anticipated to slow down this June, July, and August, as road trips are cut back because of the record high prices of gas. And, even the F&B business we obtain from our locals who are not are guests has been cut back as cash-strapped consumers choose to either eat out at less costly restaurants or not dine out at all and substitute a backyard barbecue for a dinner outside of the home.

Here are some smart, savvy strategies for enticing both additional guests, as well as locals to your hotel during slower times:

Provide Clever Room Night Packages
Don’t just discount your rooms; that may not always even work as a way to raise occupancies.  Provide a value-added experience that will make leisure travelers want to come to your hotel or a deal that will encourage a business traveler to bring the spouse or the whole family along.

For instance, provide a one- or two-night package on the weekends featuring your regular room rate, but adds a brunch special, specially priced room service for two, tough to obtain tickets to a popular concert or two-for-one massages or facials at your hotel. By adding these value added options, you are targeting your package offer with add-ons that hopefully boost occupancies. You can provide similar packages during the week, if that is your slower time.

Reach out to the business community as well. If you only have one or two small meeting rooms, but you offer great acoustics and personalized catering, reach out to local companies as THE venue to host their meetings. Offer special prices on catering packages and/or rental of AV equipment. Even in a recession, there are always businesses that continue to meet and/or utilize hotels.  Find out who is hiring in your market, by checking out sites such as Monster.com and other employment websites.  Whose businesses or what business categories are thriving?  Perhaps you can attract local consultants for banks facing workouts, or accountants and attorneys handling bankruptcies.  Even reach out to energy companies and government officials, who have to meet, train, and may need to utilize a hotel like yours.

 Continue to reach out to others in your communities. You may not have a large ballroom to host mega weddings or other big parties, but you can be THE hotel of choice that local wedding guests stay at with a special brunch offer added in. Contact local churches, synagogues, and wedding planners and start a dialogue. This could be an excellent way to put heads in beds, especially on the weekends when weddings and other big affairs take place. They may be price sensitive, but they often bring attractive F&B with their rooms. 

Remember to keep your promotions unique to your hotel. For instance, it would be tempting in today’s economic times to offer $50 worth of free gasoline. But, that is a promotion that can be easily matched by your competitor down the block. You have then lost the luster of your promotion. Provide something that makes your hotel stand out and showcases all that you have to offer your guests – from great restaurants to totally pampering spa treatments and exercise facilities to well appointed meeting space. 

Offer Value-Added F&B Promotions, Without A Guest Room Component

Pump up your volume at your restaurants with food and drink specials that don’t just give something away, but offer great value with top-notch culinary options. If consumers are saying that they need to eat at the Olive Garden instead of Olives because money is tight in these tough economic times, then hotels need to respond to this. Capitalize on the strengths of your F&B operations by offering promotions that mean something and have real value.

For instance, if your restaurant is known for its awesome wine list, make use of that reputation and provide two-for-one wine specials during your slower times of the week. If your wine list is very limited, then obviously this would not be as exciting an offer and would not bring out the locals or your guests to try your restaurant. The same is true if you have a large specialty beer selection – offer a two-for-one beer special for diners.

 If your hotel is known for your great food or amazing desserts, again capitalize on those elements. You need to have the goods behind you to make a promotion work. Offer an entrée special or provide two desserts for the price of one from your renowned pastry chef. Have a special pasta night or a Mexican fiesta night with killer fajitas, tacos, and tortillas. By providing such promotions, you won’t be incurring any additional costs – which is the last thing you’d want to do during a down time – and the additional business you bring in could result in profits of as high as 20 percent.

Invite Your Guests To A Manager’s Reception
If your restaurant is new or has not yet established a definitive reputation for itself, you can expose guests to your F&B offerings by hosting a manager’s reception with drinks and hors d’oeuvres in the early evening. By doing that, you have a captive audience in your restaurant, and they may be tempted to stay for dinner. Worse case, your management team will have met some of your customers and these personal relationships are important when demand is shrinking.  Who knows, you may learn about some new ideas for attracting and retaining guests to the hotel. 

Market Your Promotions
A great F&B promo or a spa special does you no good if your guests and locals don’t know about it. Hand out information at check-in time and put flyers on the beds in your guest rooms. Include pictures of your great food or your luxurious spa on these flyers as a visual stimulation. Provide details of your promotions when you send e-mail room confirmations and include this information on your website. If you are already taking ads out in local publications, try to incorporate details of these promotions into your ads. And, don’t forget the press – print and electronic.  Your promotion should be newsworthy, and if it isn’t, make it so. 

Try these ideas. Play with them. Explore clever packaging, without giving away your rooms. You’ll be happy that you did!