Create a hotel promotion

It is time to create a hotel promotion.

Whether to increase hotel occupancy during slow periods, to drive early booking for room, Food & Beverage and event, to improve length of stay, to increase number of meetings and social events, a hotel promotion will have several objectives with the focus to drive pick-up and increase hotel revenue.

It is often that a promotion is created without a proper planning and in a rush, which then give a dissatisfied result.

Who’s to blame? Rather than blaming someone, it’s better to study and analyze the root cause, understand the problem and identify the action for next promotion with a good result. 

One failure can become as a learning curve for the next successful experience.

What aspects to consider when creating a hotel promotion?

1. The objectives

• Identify the purpose of creating a promotion
• If you plan to create a room promotion, then is the objective to increase the occupancy of specific room type, or is it to increase leisure market during weekend, or is it to boost booking on Monday from small and medium size group meeting?
• Prepare several questions with such as, What, Why, Who, to assist in determining the objectives. For example,
  • Why do you need to create a deluxe room promotion for Monday arrival?
  • What is your incremental revenue targeted for this promotion?
  • Who will be interested to stay on Monday?
• Be precise on the objective of a promotion in order to support the planning stage and other necessary preparation as well as to measure the result

2. Proper planning

Create a check list to ensure all the steps and actions in the planning stage are covered. A well-prepared planning can help to support the creation of a promotion in details with a thorough thinking to generate the targeted results.

3. Sufficient preparation time

Do not rush and allow sufficient time to prepare a promotion.  You can do some market intelligence to understand what the market need and want as well as do some research on the competitors.

This is to ensure that the promotion will be meaningful and achieve the goals that have been set.

4. Who are the target audiences?

Identify who will be the target market of a promotion.  I will not recommend to create a promotion targeted to all market, since the type of publicity might not be focused.

Decide on which target audiences to capture and choose the right promotional tools to reach them.

5. Prepare the promotion in details

Prepare an excel spreadsheet and include the points below to help in developing a promotion.

• Name of promotion – Create an attractive promotion name and yet, simple and easy to understand by the market.
• Price – If you will create a room promotion, are you planning to drive occupancy or to gain higher average rate?
• What is included in the price? – Determine what will be the package inclusions depending on the target market. An example for a room promotion, the package can include such as, breakfast, lunch or dinner voucher, shopping voucher, a free pass to a not-to-miss exhibition, airport pick up, free use of half day meeting room, and many more.
• Booking periods – When do you want the market to start doing the booking? Do you want to encourage the market to book early, then offer an early booking gimmick? Do you want to apply a specific booking period so you can estimate and measure the number of booking earlier and adjust the rate accordingly?
• Stay periods – This is usually applicable for a room promotion whereby you aim to increase the revenue on certain days or months. The stay periods term can also be changed to promotion periods which are more universal and can be used in other department, such as, Food and Beverage.
• Restrictions – Ensure that the restrictions applied in a promotion are communicated clearly to the client. For example, the reservation cannot be cancelled and modified once the booking is confirmed or the payment cannot refund if there is any cancellation.
• Terms and Conditions – It is often seen an abbreviation of ‘T&C apply’ in a promotion material. Do ensure to inform to the guest in details on what terms and conditions applied in the promotion to avoid misunderstanding later.  An example of T&C can be related to method of payment, for example, the booking will be confirmed only after the full payment is received.

6. Promotion tools

When the details promotion has been set, then decide on what promotion tools will be used to support.  I would recommend to create a  detailed plan in an excel spreadsheet on what promotion tools will be used, for example,

• Which promotion channel to use – Is it printed media, electronic media, Social Media?
• What message to deliver – Do ensure that the message is eye-catching and has a push aura for the market to buy
• Which target audience to reach – Is it business, leisure, family market? Is there any ages range, any certain geographic of origin or nationality as the main target market?
• The frequency and the timing – How often the message must reach the audiences? Is it best to send on certain days and certain time?
• The cost, if any
• The target and achievement

7. When to launch the promotion?

When do you plan to execute this promotion? You have done the market intelligence, then you can decide on the launching schedule so that it will incorporate with all the strategies, actions as well as the promotion plans.

8. Who are the target audiences?

Develop a simple tracking system of each promotion to measure the successful and challenges occurred. You can review the tracking report on weekly basis in order to monitor the progress and take any necessary action to strengthen or to improve the result.

Tracking report can also include the cost investment in which you can calculate versus the conversion to understand the ROI.

9. Review result

One promotion on room has completed and it is time to review the result.  Create a list to identify some points on what’s good and what’s to improve to be able to support and to become the foundation for the next promotion.

Have a creative day and all the best be with you.