The worst nightmare as a hotelier is walking down the halls of your hotel and realizing that rooms are empty. There’s a sad stillness that not only marks the sign of a quiet moment but also the sign of a failing business strategy.

Marketing plays a crucial role in helping hotels maximize bookings and as a consequence gross revenue. It is a fundamental manner in which those in the hotel industry can reach out to potential customers, conveying their unique selling proposition and brand values.

Regarding hotel marketing "universe", specifically Content Strategy, which focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. it's a powerful tool that will enhance the performance of your occupancy ratio in the medium and long term.

Nowadays, building a content marketing strategy for your hotel or another accommodation type, shouldn't be something to brag about. That’s because people don’t buy your bed or room. They buy stories, experiences, and how you make them feel. There are the most popular content marketing formats you can use such as blog posts, social media posts, video content, podcasts, email newsletters, how-to guides, photos, etc. As you can see, you can choose between many formats and as well many social solutions and tools to drive growth, build trust, and inspire loyalty on any digital and social channel taking your social media game to the next level and appearing in the best position to the right audience.

Not all hotels are the same, and there are different “hotel products” based on their star classification, hotel concept (boutique hotels, resorts, apart-hotels…), location, business philosophy, etc. Knowing who you are and what you offer is the main step to creating the correct content for your audience that previously was identified. As much as you “show” yourself naturally and honestly, the more the human connection will be enhanced. Quality content is more efficient than quantitative content, and the results are not immediate, however with perseverance and following a consistent content strategic line, SEO position and customer perception will be improved. To add, accurate keyword research, trend analysis, and search behavior predictions plus outstanding content marketing increases engagement with quality leads with a direct impact on content marketing ROI (Search Engine Journal, 2023).

Highlighting here, that great communication begins with connection and constantly talking is not necessarily communicating. Focusing on your core value and your specialty is much better than encompassing multiple services and, not for much as doing so squeezes you harder, that finally it will frustrate the expectations of your customer and hence your reputation. Defining a content strategy based on your proficiency will attract your correct audience and hence your client.

If you are interested to learn more about different social media solutions and how we can support you in rolling them out, please contact us!

One of the most vital solutions from a hotel commerce platform that your hotel can adopt is the Channel Manager. It is the only way to adequately control and grow your business online in today’s demanding market. Comprised of many seamlessly integrated features, a channel manager will allow you to run your hotel to a higher standard, with minimal effort. With an online world that never sleeps and guests that demand attention 24/7, you can’t afford to be “off ever”. For example with a Channel Manager, you can easily update your room inventory, making the most updated information available to all the Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) you do business with. These tools will help your hotel reduce the risk of overbooking, cancellations, and no-shows and, instead, increase revenue and guest satisfaction.  

Online Travel Agencies (OTA) and direct reservations from your own website are, without a doubt, a lifeline for hotel owners, and here are a few steps to get your strategy working efficiently and to maximize your revenue before you implement a Channel Manager tool:

- Find the Right OTA Mix depending on your business hotel model.
- Use High-Quality content as images and texts.Identify your mix – product and focus on your room typology (standard, superior, suite, etc) with the aim of up-selling and cross-selling.
- Allocate resources on “mapping your rooms” is a key point, not all the OTA’s have the same terminology and integration with your channel manager according to your type of room.
- Identifying the forecasting demand in your city, district, and direct competitors will help you to organize yourself in terms of resource planification and optimization.
- Controlling your inventory and avoiding overbooking will improve your brand name and reputation.
- Analyze potential integrations with your existing technology, opening up and optimizing your distribution across the widest range of booking channels.

The impact of technology in the hotel industry has become solid in the highly competitive hospitality industry.  In a nutshell, if you want to increase your hotel revenue, you must keep up with all of the industry’s latest technologies.  

Contact us to know more about Maestros Hoteleros and how we can help you to develop robust strategies using the comprehensive technological tool to increase your sales and revenue. 

We have observed how the year 2022 began with a positive recovery with a considerable increase in the number of overnight stays in March 2022 versus March 2021, although not at the same pre-pandemic level it was a positive development despite the omicron variant (see graph 1).

In the midst of the post-COVID-19 recovery period of the main international airports (TIER1 and TIER2) with regards to their connectivity, traffic and air capacity and  also taking into consideration predictions from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) up to end of 2022; an optimistic scenario where international air traffic will recover 73% and domestic traffic 95% and a pessimistic scenario where recovery will be 58% and 56% respectively. Impacting the above, the outbreak of the Ukraine-Russia war may jeopardize the recovery of international tourism demand due to the application of lasting sanctions such as the closure of airspace that will affect the mobility and connectivity of tourists from the main source markets, bound for Spain.

We must not lose sight of the fact that in 2019, 1.3 million Russian tourists arrived in Spain (1.57% of the total international tourists that Spain received) contributing 1,992 million euros to the tourism sector (www.statista. com, 2022). Destinations dependent on the Russian market to a greater or lesser extent, such as Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, faced with a potential scenario in which the arrival of Russian tourists will fall, will weigh down the operating accounts of multiple hotel establishments, resorts, tourist apartments, residences, etc. In such circumstances of uncertainty and with no sign of improvement in the short term, at Maestros Hoteleros we recommend that management/managers and owners with high exposure to the Russian market do not stop devoting efforts to learning about the environment and strengthening their business in in order to attract customers from other markets. To this end, we recommend the following lines of action:

Surrounding analysis

• Predictive analysis of the destination to identify present and future demand based on its geographical location, which allows the design of highly optimized marketing campaigns on metasearch engines.

• Analysis of air capacity to the reference destination.

• Analysis of the audience and their behavior, having access to key information regarding followers as well as their segmentation by age and gender.

• Measure and control the evolution of followers over time in each social network and by channel.

• Measure and evaluate the online reputation of the reference destination.

• Measure the impact and interactions of each publication as well as their analysis and geolocation.

• Benchmarking of follow-up of other destinations to detect campaigns and growth of fans and search trend of the reference destination.

Internal analysis

• Review and update your technological infrastructure: the following figure (see figure 2) represents the important tools that allow you to understand the markets you are targeting, analyze your competitors and position yourself accordingly in the market.

Important considerations when reviewing or updating these tools are: market trend analysis, e-commerce strategies, increased speed in terms of connectivity and real-time inventory updating, customer segmentation, loyalty programs, experience management of the client, accessibility and generation of an organized and nourished database.

• Analyze your historical data by performing a deep dive into the main KPI's of your business, such as evolution of the average sale price (ARR), revenue per available room (RevPar) and occupancy rate (ORR) among others.

• Detect hidden revenue opportunities by identifying areas for improvement by working to reduce the potential gap between your supply and market demand.

• Combine all these tools to a higher level, which will allow you greater control of online distribution, a high level of reconversion in direct and indirect reservations and, most importantly, greater knowledge of the customer.

Figure 2. Technological infrastructure. Source: Maestros Hoteleros

• Connect all the departments of your hotel/resort through technological systems, achieving greater operational efficiency and increasing customer satisfaction.

• Ongoing training for all the organization's staff, increasing their level of professionalism because, ultimately, a happy and satisfied customer is the greatest asset.

In short, we hope that despite the uncertainties and risks on the horizon, we will collaborate together so that Spain is once again the favorite destination in the short to medium term with more than 80 millions tourist arrivals per year.