How Independent Hotels Can Convert Last Minute Summer Vacancies - Top Five Tips

In our accompanying podcast, Aró Digital’s commercial director Ciara Clancy gives us her advice on how luxury, independent hotels can convert those summer vacancies which are proving hard to fill. Crucially none of these ideas involve cutting rates or giving rooms away to OTAs – hotels can fill their rooms with profitable business via their own Internet booking engine. Here are her top five tips.

1. Leverage your client database

Realise the value of your client database - for these type of last minute bookings it is a goldmine. Your past guests know you and the property and they should be your first port of call.

Assess your market segments e.g. over 55s, retirees, families, consider their preferences and come up with appropriate offers to send them via an email marketing campaign.

Although the Irish market in particular is very price sensitive it doesn’t necessarily have to be a money off or room discount offer. Guests will consider the overall cost of their stay so a free leisure centre pass is a very attractive proposition for families as is a room upgrade to a retired couple.

2. Paid advertising

Look straight away at your pay per click (PPC) budgets. Although these may have been set for the year, in conjunction with your account and PPC managers look at whether you can possibly invest more for these crucial summer months or manipulate the budget for a higher monthly spend now and a lower one later in the year.

PPC is a dynamic tool and is under your control. As long as your tracking data is up to date in GA4, you have complete clarity on how your investment is performing. While the ad spend is driving revenue for you then it is worth continuing to invest.

There are also some emerging ad markets such as podcasts which provide good value for money. There are a plethora podcasts which are aimed at luxury travellers, health and wellness.

3. Social Media

In a similar way that you can leverage your guest database, your social media community provides a great way of positioning yourself to your market. Regular posting of relevant content about your hotel should be a core strategy for your marketing team. This also ties in with Google’s latest algorithm update which prioritises content demonstrating real, first-hand experience - particularly in the travel and lifestyle industries.

This content can be tweaked to showcase the value adds you are offering with a last minute summer booking and, again something that Google values, you can highlight local deals for restaurant bookings all of which drives revenue.

The beauty of social media is that you can also use the content for cost effective advertising and this can be geographically targeted according to your target audience.

Another interesting development this year is the use of social media, particularly TikTok, as a search tool. For example while on holiday a user might search for hotels in their location which offer a particular massage or a restaurant with a sundown cocktail experience.

4. Partner with a local attraction

If it’s possible and if it suits your branding, consider partnering up with local attractions. This could be in terms of offering something in conjunction with them or just being an affiliate.

The value is that you're opening yourself up both to their customer database as well as their presence on social media – hence the need to consider your positioning and branding carefully.

Depending on where you're based, consider the demographic of your guests and what they're going to do when they're there. So for a family market, adventure parks or activity centres; for couples, food tours or walking excursions; and for US visitors genealogy tours or golf.

Many visitors will be travelling around anyway so it’s worth considering attractions up to 30-40km distant. As these might require a day to travel and enjoy, it provides an opportunity to offer them an extra night’s stay with you rather than moving on elsewhere.

5. Piggyback on local events

The high season doesn’t necessarily end in August – September and October generally see good weather and provide an opportunity to target different demographics.

There are many big events which happen once the school holidays are finished and also some smaller localised events which are very well promoted. These give you an opportunity to attract a new customer base.

It may be that you can partner officially with an event or simply piggyback off it for high quality content on your website and social media channels. Again this gives you a paid advertising opportunity. For Google, local authority now trumps national reach; they want to show users the best local results, not just the highest domain authority. Localised backlinks and reviews are all now stronger ranking factors so not only is this a revenue opportunity, you will also be building authority in Google search.

To learn more about converting last minute vacanies, and all the services that Aró Digital Strategy provide to independent hoteliers, please contact us.

Author: Richard Blowes