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Best Western Wants Your Customers
Look out! The company is shifting its customer acquisition strategy on taking market share from others. Here’s how they plan to do it.
Friday, October 12, 2012
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Best Western is emboldened. Following the strong success of their descriptors program and a resurgent travel economy, the company is thinking about how it can continue to prosper in the coming years. And the way the company’s executive team sees it, the next stage of growth won’t be coming from an ever increasing travel pie here in North America. Rather, these executives believe their future growth is coming from other hotel companies.
As the demand curve starts to ebb – not cease, just slow – Best Western executives are putting together a comprehensive strategy that focuses on connecting with consumers in a variety of ways meant to engage and excite them about the hotel brand.
This week Best Western is holding its annual conference and Hotel Interactive got a glimpse into just how the company plans to get top of mind for leisure, business and corporate business.
According to David Kong, President & CEO of Best Western the company’s two year old ‘descriptor’ program to classify hotels as Best Western, Best Western Plus or Best Western Premier has been a boon to the company as it clarifies with consumers what they can expect at a specific Best Western hotel. Previously, the eclectic nature of the brand worked both for and against is because the system has some very exciting and stand out product but travel buyers were never quite sure what type of property they would get.
That made some folks shy away from the brand. Now that program has laid the groundwork for a series of steps it expects will
“Consumers value our unique attributes. Previously travelers did not know what to expect. We turned diversity into formidable strength and clients are shifting business to us. We have more hotels in more locations than any other brand and that gives us an advantage with leisure and business travelers,” said Kong. “We are shifting business away because of descriptors.”
The program helped Best Western achieve a record breaking year in 2011 and is headed to another in 2012, said Kong. It’s because the company has been able to land more corporate global accounts from companies such as Ikea, Honeywell, Siemens, Airbus and IBM.
In 2012 so far Best Western is up 6.6 percent in net rooms sold and 8.0 percent in North America. RevPAR index is 111.1, its highest level in the past 10 years while revenue growth was 15 percent. Additionally, worldwide sales revenue is up 10.5 percent and corporate business is up and insane 26.9 percent.
In order to continue to see strong growth Kong and his team are looking to evolve customer service into customer care. The philosophy will permeate all levels of the business including an ad campaign and a continued focus to connect with customers as individuals at the property level as well as in the online space. Interestingly, Kong mentioned in a press conference that many hotel companies are focused on making properties more efficient and require less staff. Kong feels it is the human element that will make a difference and they’re training their people to look to connect with guests in meaningful ways at the property level.
“Superior customer service must be a must at Best Western. Day in and out we must live this,” said Devang Amin, Best Western Director of the Board.
For Best Western a good part of that personal connection is aligning themselves with brands people are passionate about. The company has a successful partnership with Harley Davidson, for example, which is delivering 18 percent more business this year than in the past year.
According to Dorothy Dowling, Senior Vice President Marketing & Sales, 70 percent of Harley riders stayed in a Best Western during the last 12 months.
A newly launched BestWestern.com not features reviews from Trip Advisor, which Dowling said was “a bold move to add their ratings to our website. But it builds trust with customers and boosts revenue. It can be scary for any brand but we must embrace this change because customers want it. “
Executives also said the company responds to about 30 percent of all posts and comments made through the internet but wants to get that number to 100 percent since it engages customers and makes them want to stay at a Best Western, even if they had a negative experience.
The company is also launching promotions with Disney for next summer’s Disney Channel original film “Teen Beach Movie,” which I done in the same model as the uber successful “High School Musical” series of films.
Best Western is also doing a deal with the MLB channel and will sponsor all spring training game sin 2013.
A new ad campaign set to debut will utilize the tag line “Stay with People Who Care,” to emphasize the human quality of the hotel stay experience.
Finally, the company reaffirmed its new construction type strategy which will include an extended stay element. The 85 room prototype can be adjusted to include as many or as few extended stay focused rooms as market demands. Essentially the clever design is such that three traditional rooms equals two extended stay rooms so hoteliers can just build it out in any way they feel appropriate for the market. The design also reworks how the hotel is laid out on a piece of land to add more green space directly around the hotel and to create other extended stay hallmarks such as a lobby designed more for this type of clientele.
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