Up your marketing game in 2024, by utilizing these 7 trends.
You’ve already heard the stories about ChatGPT been used to replace copywriters and hotel blogs been filled with AI generated content. Whatever the debates may be, hotel marketers are continuing to utilize AI and other technologies to increase productivity and reduce costs of marketing.
Another way to save costs is to automate customer queries where possible, using AI Chatbots, saving time for reservations and customer service teams. The most common questions potential guests ask are related to ARI; Availability, Rates and Inventory. While offering real-time availability via a chat-bot might create some complexity with connectivity to booking engines or property management systems, offering standard rates, room categories, offers, booking terms and similar can be easily automated through AI chatbots (with switching to real-life agents when needed).
We also recommend building out your chatbot database by scrapping your entire website, uploading your brochures, location guides and any other data you feel a potential guest may want to know. Remember, the average first time hotel website visitor usually browses only three pages on your website. The ability to summarize information or answer specific queries might be the difference that prompts that booking.
Need an AI Chatbot? Contact Us today.
War in the Middle East, rising global tensions and an expected increase in International Airfare in 2024 is likely to result in an increase in Domestic tourism. The domestic traveler can be fundamentally different from an International Traveler. A domestic traveler might have a prior affiliation with a location (went on a vacation as a kid), might have friends or family in that location, they might be more cost conscious, they may even have specific aspirations with their existing exposure of the destination, such as wanting to visit Montana for flyfishing.
When understanding this sometimes-subtle difference in behavior, it becomes important to tailor your content strategy accordingly. One key recommendation is to create detailed destination content and connect your property directly to that content. An example of our recommended structure is given below.
Let’s assume your property is in Stowe, Vermont, USA and you are writing about Moss Glen Falls. Your article should include:
This structure will help create visibility for your brand at the research and planning stages of the domestic traveler buying cycle.
For recommendations on content, SEO optimization and best practices, speak to us today.
“Nearly six in 10 travelers are more likely to choose sustainable lodging; and over one in three travelers would pay $25 more per night for lodging with sustainable amenities.” – source: https://www.travelagentcentral.com/your-business/stats-nearly-6-10-travelers-would-choose-sustainable-lodging-if-given-choice
We, however, have a different statistic. Most hotels, whether they seriously practice sustainability or not, tend to have a dedicated page for sustainability and less than 1% of website visitors actually visit the sustainability page. Furthermore, consumers are growing increasingly vary of claims of sustainability, without direct evidence to the fact.
For quite a while, we’ve been advocating to our customers to include sustainability practices in their content and overall narrative. For example, while talking about the bathtub in your suite, call it a guilt free soak and explain how bathwater is recycled and used for watering your gardens. For guests to care, and to consider your property as a serious practitioner of sustainability, make it tangible and an overall part of the guest experience.
In 2024, tangible sustainability initiatives on display might just be the winning differentiator in your competitor set.
Short-form video and user generated guides are increasingly becoming a popular source of information for planning holidays. Destination discovery based short-form video content with intros such as: “A day in the life”, “come spend a day in XYZ city with me”, “What I spend a day in XYZ city”, “top things to do in XYZ city”, “10 of things to do in XYZ city” and similar have started to litter TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts. And the view counts just keep increasing.
This type of content combines three of the most prominent marketing trends in the last 10 years.
Millennials and Gen Zs have started to use these types of thematic content in their planning.
“Over 2 in 5 Americans use TikTok as a search engine. Nearly 1 in 10 Gen Zers are more likely to rely on TikTok than Google as a search engine.” – source: Adobe.com.
Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become vital for hotels looking to attract local and regional travelers. This includes optimizing Google My Business listings, garnering positive local reviews, and creating content relevant to the local area and events.
Google My Business listings occupy the top of Google SERPs and can be a great traffic source. As a best practice, post at least once a week on GMB and do remember to ask your happy customers for reviews.
Leisure travel has always been about experiencing something new. And any new place you travel to, tasting the local cuisine is usually high up on the list. Most hotels though, haven’t improved their marketing game in the last decade. Dining sections of hotel sites talk about restaurant opening times, seating capacities and the menus served. Pictures of dishes are usually static or there is a picture of the chef. These same images flow on to social media with dry captions.
Over the last few years, TikTok and Instagram have given home cooks, chefs, food reviewers and everyone in-between a platform to show off their food. Ranging from quirky to tastefully shot, these creators show the process and highlights of preparing their favorite dishes. Some are so good; you can almost taste it through the screen.
These videos create such a desire that some restaurants, street vendors and food trucks make it to the travel bucket list purely through their social media.
Taking this inspiration, in 2024, how you present your dining choices and cuisine can play a large role in the booking process. Use a blog or vlog to tell stories about your sourcing, create shortform cooking videos, show your kitchen operations, answer questions and host discovery sessions of local ingredients. The possibilities are endless.
There is a wealth of data that you generate everyday during normal operations. During a typical rate search on your booking engine, a potential guest might set their specific dates, number of adults and children. Through this simple search, you’ll know the lead time, specific travel dates and whether the potential guest is booking for a couple, family or group. Connecting this rate search with an analytics platform would tell you the country of origin, time of day, device used and how they arrived onto the website.
Through one rate search, you now have a wealth of data that can be used to personalize your messaging and offers, potentially increasing your looker to booker ratio. These types of tools and platforms have existed for quite some time. In 2024, personalization is becoming a trend that cannot be ignored.
And guess what, Antyra Hospitality’s advanced websites include personalization based on Geolocation, device, time of day, Ad messaging and more.