Promoting hotel business on the Internet. Hotel promotion on the Internet. Events at the hotel

How to promote a hotel so that guests choose it? What should hotels do in times of crisis and low occupancy? What advertising works in the hotel business and what doesn't?

Good afternoon My name is Ksenia mikheevaksenia and I'm from St. Petersburg! Today I'm on Oleg's blog and we're talking about the hotel business.

A few years ago, I couldn’t even think that I would work in the hotel industry, because... The choice of university and the strong recommendations of my parents promised me an excellent career at JSC Russian Railways. It so happened that things didn’t work out with the hardware, and in my fifth year at university I ended up working in one of the chain’s hotels Nevsky Hotels Group.

How did I end up in this field? In my fifth year, when I was writing a serious thesis, I needed a part-time job and really wanted to improve my English, so the choice fell on the hotel industry, where the work schedule was “in three days”, and constant contact with guests perfectly improved the spoken language and erased the language barrier . This is how I worked until, after receiving my diploma, I began to think about the need to change administrative activities to something more significant.

At that time, I was actively blogging, was interested in SMM, worked part-time as a copywriter and realized that I wanted to be involved in advertising! Unfortunately, I was not very pleased with my honors degree in transportation engineering, so I began to attend courses and “wait for the weather by the sea.” I continued to work and improve my skills, and in March 2014 I was offered the position of advertising and promotion manager in my now native company. It was great that my colleagues saw potential in me and entrusted me with a very difficult job.

At that time, I had a lot of ideas, which we began to slowly implement, and I will tell you about how the advertising campaign in Nevsky Hotels Group proceeds today.

A little about our company:
The Nevskie Hotels group has existed on the St. Petersburg market for more than ten years, and during this time we have managed to build an excellent company with a wide range of services and a high level of service! Four hotels in our chain are located in the very heart of St. Petersburg, so tourists can easily reach all the main attractions of the city.

SMM:
Today I want to start with perhaps my favorite topic: SMM. The fact is that over the year a lot of ideas and tools have been tried, which, alas, do not work particularly well in the hotel industry. Most likely, this is due to the fact that a potential client of any hotel will choose some other sales channel to book a room. That is why the pages of any hotel presented on social networks are, perhaps, more of an image story.

Initially, the idea was to write informational posts about the city, publish news, announce promotions, but such information, according to statistics, takes root better on the site (the number of clicks on keywords increased + the number of views increased). We have now decided that it would be better on social networks to publish photos of our guests who post them on Instagram according to our geotags (and we currently have several of them, since the hotel chain consists of:

Due to the fact that we refer to photographs of guests, our clients come to groups. By the way, oddly enough, but in Facebook this tool works better than In contact with. We are currently actively developing our Instagram account, where we also publish the best photos of our guests. The story of the competitions took root only within the city, and since... Since the main consumer is tourists, this tool is not used often. Today, in every room of any of the chain’s hotels there is a wobbler encouraging guests to post photos online using the hashtag #nevskyhotels.

Blog:
As a true blogger (at heart, of course), I wanted to implement a project to implement a corporate blog. Unfortunately, this idea was not appreciated by the management, so now we simply fill out the “news” block on our website, where we report on events and exhibitions in which we take part, write about new promotions, periodically supplementing all this with information about the city that will be useful tourist.

In the future, the blog will appear on our website, where we will talk about the life of the company. We must not forget that information about St. Petersburg and various interesting events perfectly brings customers to the site, therefore, on the eve of the high season, we plan to publish news twice a week + constantly announce interesting events in the city.

2gis:
In light of recent political events, the Russian market has begun to be more interested in domestic tourism, so today we are using an advertising company on the 2gis website, which is working well! If we consider that the coverage of the service is growing by leaps and bounds, then our choice falls in favor of this service.

Branded products:
Today we pay great attention to branded products, ranging from business cards for the entire hotel chain, letterheads, pens and other POS materials, to corporate gifts. Branded products with contact information work great. Guests return and recommend our hotel and pass on our business cards / pens / notepads. In the last year we have added a QR code to our business cards, which has made life easier for many.

Working with reviews:
Any hotel always pays special attention to working with reviews. Nowadays people choose hotels by looking at reviews, mainly on booking.com and tripadvisor.com + several other booking services. Our company has an excellent training manager who constantly conducts trainings with administrators and strongly recommends constantly reminding satisfied guests that they can leave their reviews on our website or in the “reviews” block of booking or tripadvisor.

In addition, each of our hotels has a book of reviews and suggestions, which is reviewed by managers every week, after which the main points are highlighted and additional work is carried out. In order to improve the service in our hotels, a special impression questionnaire has been developed, which is located in each room + a constant survey is conducted of guests who booked a room directly through our website. All kinds of surveys have a great effect on identifying some small problems, and because... We always know in which room the situation occurred, we can always quickly find a solution to the problem.

Working with bloggers:
A year ago we had our first experience working with bloggers at the Spring Keglepad in St. Petersburg. Since the tournament, the number of mentions about the company has increased, so this is a great tool that we will continue to use in the future.

In light of recent political events, it cannot be said that the number of tourists has changed much. It would be more correct to say that the main target audience has changed. If previously representatives from certain European countries came to our hotels, then, due to the fall in the ruble exchange rate, tourism in Russia has become available to more “budget” European tourists. Approximately the same situation occurred with the Russian Central Asia, because Now many tourists from the central region began to choose a weekend in St. Petersburg rather than in some other European city.

Today we have many projects and plans that will definitely be implemented in the very near future!

I hope you found it interesting! If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them!

The issue of advertising a hostel must be resolved at the stage of opening a business. Outdated methods of promotion, such as leaflets and advertisements, have long lost their relevance. In the article we will analyze how to properly promote a hostel and what advertising tools really work.

Hostel promotion: website promotion and optimization

Making a name for yourself and standing out from your competitors in Moscow is not easy. Promoting a hostel on the Internet is an effective and quick way to attract guests.

Customers search for hostels through search engines and apps. Usually the first few positions in the search results are viewed. To be in the top, the hostel website needs promotion. To please the user, the site must meet a number of requirements.

How to attract people to a hostel through a website

A clear interface and simple menu navigation are signs of a well-made website. Don't waste money on page design; it will pay off if you do it right. Add high-quality photographs, detailed descriptions, and price list. Create a review section.

It is best to provide the ability to book rooms directly on the website. This way you won't lose customers.

Online advertising: SEO promotion of the hostel website

The first thing to do is to collect suitable search queries, focusing on the features of the hostel and its location.
Secondly, it is necessary to optimize the site for these requests.
Third, fill the pages with high-quality and unique content.

Pay special attention relevance of posted texts to queries. Don't try to weave in key phrases artificially. If the content does not match what the user is looking for, the site will quickly fall out of the top.

It is best to delegate these functions to an online agency. Specialists can upgrade an existing website or create it from scratch. Don't skimp on your web resource! The Internet is the main source of attracting guests to the hostel.

Hostel promotion using contextual advertising

Contextual advertising of a hostel in Yandex and Google is another effective way of promotion. Plus contextual advertising - your ads will be visible only to those users who are looking for the necessary information. You yourself determine the pool of requests, the desired region, and the time when it is best to turn on ads. With proper setup, contextual advertising will regularly provide the hostel with new guests.

How to promote a hostel on social networks: nuances

Social networks are a good option for additional advertising of the hostel. The main thing is to advertise not the site itself, but special offers: discounts for early bookings, new promotions and other relevant information. Create a group and regularly post information about great room rates, share useful links, and conduct surveys.

How to advertise a hostel: booking sites

Placement on such time-tested sites as Booking.com or Ostrovok.ru, positively affects your reputation. These projects are trusted by millions of tourists. You can add information about a hostel on such sites for free, since the portals are interested in expanding the base of hostels and hotels. You will only need to pay a commission fee for bookings made.

Buying a hostel with customized advertising: what are the advantages?

A ready-made business solves the problem of promoting a hostel. The object has been operating on the market for a certain period, a customer base has been formed and advertising has been set up. Buying a hostel will save time and money.

You now know very well that purchasing SEO links for a hotel website becomes. The Yandex algorithm “Minusinsk” and the Google filter “Penguin” continue to hunt them and, apparently, this is just the beginning. But if the end of the era of stock exchange links is not far off, then how to promote a hotel website now?

It's time to think not only about the interests of the hotel, but also about the needs of the guests. After all, what brings them to your website is the desire to learn more about you. The extent to which you cope with this task will influence the client’s decision: he will choose you or, alas, your competitor.

Find out what is useful for your site:

Announce special offers

Your hotel probably has promotions that you run for guests. Don’t be silent about them, add a special section to the site. Let its main page contain a short description of all current special offers. And you can “revive” the announcement with the help of photographs that are close to the meaning of the action.

For example, the Riviera Hotel in Khabarovsk briefly and clearly tells website visitors about its special offers. Where appropriate, a “Book with promotion” button is attached:

The Moscow Zvezdnaya Hotel has taken an even more effective path. In addition to announcing all active special offers, she created a separate page for each of them. Conditions and validity periods of the special offer - here is everything that can interest the guest. All he has to do is click on the “Book a room” button:

Please note that in both cases we added a booking form to the promotion descriptions page. It should be here in case the visitor suddenly does not notice the button - and this happens.

"The holiday comes to us"

We've sorted out the separate page for special offers, but you remember that you need to add new content regularly? Therefore, create and describe new promotions, for example, on the occasion of upcoming official holidays. Usually these are non-school days, non-working days and therefore are a time for short trips to other cities. The services of your hotel during such a period will be very useful for many if you have prepared an attractive offer.

Thus, the Nikolaevsky Posad art hotel in Suzdal invites guests to Russia Day, not forgetting to tell about the history of the holiday:

But what if your competitors also use holiday specials and “take away” a lot of your customers? Attract attention to yourself with interesting competitions and be sure to post information about them on social networks. Here, content containing a reference to something free always sells with a bang. Through a chain reaction, many people will learn about you.

This is how the Moscow hotel chain Maxima Hotels operates. In honor of Russia Day, a page describing the photo competition appeared on her website. Participants had to subscribe to communities of the same name on Facebook, Instagram or VKontakte and post an author’s photograph of their favorite place or attraction on their page with the hashtag #maxima_konkurs. And people joined Maxima Hotels groups, and sent their photos, and competed for “likes” under them. In general, we did everything to win four days of free accommodation in a suite for two.

If you are ready for such expenses, then you can come up with the terms of the competition now. Just then don’t forget to write on the website about the results of the competition. Moreover, this will also refresh your content:

Event in the city - guest at the hotel

Do you want to be trendy? Then tune in to event tourism. Try to highlight events that will take place in your city on the hotel website. This could be some major festival, the arrival of a celebrity, any celebration.

For example, the Budapest Hotel in Moscow advertised on its website the celebration of Maslenitsa on the Kuznetsky Bridge, not forgetting to mention its advantageous location: “The Budapest Hotel is within walking distance from Red Square, so you can continue the celebration of Broad Maslenitsa with folk festivities on the main square of the country."

Nearby attractions

If your hotel is also conveniently located, then not writing about it is a real crime. Create a “Sights” section.

There is a separate page for this on the official website of the Izmailovo tourist hotel complexes (Gamma, Delta). What is interesting about their approach? From here you can learn in detail about each nearby attraction. History, opening hours, contact details, map, photo gallery - information for every taste:

Events at the hotel

You can also announce all events that take place at your hotel on the website. Post such content in the “News” or “Events” section.

A good example is on the website of hotels and hostels “Friends” (we warn you that these are not our clients). Apartment parties, film screenings, master classes, and quizzes are held here. Guests can leave comments under each event announcement. By the way, this is a very convenient technique for maintaining feedback with guests.

Write about all the services (even the most original) that your hotel can offer. For example, the 17-story Grand Hotel Kazan has an observation deck. And on her website she invites residents and guests of Kazan to look at the city from above. While guests come to the site for a tour, photo and video shooting, and even marriage registration, the hotel receives additional income.

You don’t think that a hotel website can’t be filled with interesting content, do you? In addition to the topics listed above, you also have guest reviews and notes about celebrities who have visited the hotel. We didn’t say anything at all about the fact that the content should be literate and understandable. Because you understand this without us.

We will tell you how to add the necessary sections to the site or write useful content for it. Leave a request for site maintenance, and you will have a much more reliable (than spam links) tool for website promotion.

Confluence-WIKI
Drupal
Skype
Google Docs

A small hotel on a business trip or on vacation is chosen not only based on location or based on economic considerations; Often guests are attracted by privacy, “homely” comfort, and an individual approach to the guest, which, as is commonly believed, are characteristic of mini-hotels. These strengths can form the basis of promotion and increase sales. How to use them? A few recommendations from Sergei Skorbenko, director of the DigitalWill agency, specializing in hotel internet marketing.

Sergey Skorbenko, CEO of the company DigitalWill, one of the leading Russian experts in the hotel business. The agency specializes in promoting hotels on the Internet and e-commerce for the hospitality industry. The company was founded in 2008, the number of clients at the moment is 104.

Make your website easier and more convenient

Acquaintance of a new client with a hotel usually begins with the website. It is important that a potential guest can quickly and easily find all important information. Make his task easier - simplify the main page, remove unnecessary internal pages, make contact information as visible as possible. On the main page we also leave current special offers, services, and rooms.

The block layout of information is still considered the easiest, clearest and most convenient. It will also give the site mobility and dynamics: at any time you add or remove data, change images, bring the most relevant and “tasty” to the fore.

When structuring information, follow the trend principle - fewer words, more pictures. And for filming it’s worth hiring a professional photographer: visualization is not the best way to save money.

Expand the opportunity to contact you quickly and “live” - as practice shows, the Russian client still prefers personal communication with a manager to all modern booking methods. Therefore, make contact information cross-cutting for all pages, placing them, for example, in the header. And if you haven’t yet connected online chat and a quick booking form, I highly recommend it: it’s inexpensive, but it leads to real sales and really works.

Develop and update the site

The key mistake that we constantly encounter: Russian hoteliers do not consider it necessary to work on a hotel website or do it irregularly and reluctantly. As a result, the image of a hotel online may differ sharply from its image in real life, and this is absolutely wrong. They must match. The site should be treated as an effective sales channel, so it should not be “abandoned.” Update information, highlight interesting promotions, refresh the main page, optimize it for better indexing by search engines.

A good website is informative not only for visitors. If you regularly and competently record and analyze counter indicators, you can better understand the behavior and motivation of the audience on the site. What information interested the client, how long did he spend on the promotion page, how quickly did he move to the booking form or contact page... Let the clients themselves tell you what information they can refuse and what needs to be adjusted. Competent analytics will also allow you to set up an advertising campaign taking into account time, location and other fundamental indicators and save your budget.

Build loyalty

The turnover of small hotels does not allow them to invest their advertising budget in full SEO traffic. In this case, such a capital-intensive topic as classic SEO promotion can be abandoned. However, in the context of improving the site’s position in search engine results, SEO should not be deleted.

To attract a new audience, I recommend regularly conducting a well-thought-out contextual campaign, bringing potential clients to the hotel website, where you must try to retain them by all available means. By the way, retention is important not only on the website - for a mini-hotel, repeat sales are of key importance. Therefore, we build our work on loyalty: we carefully maintain our customer base; tactfully, but persistently and regularly remind us of ourselves through mailings and congratulations; Based on the client’s interests, we create unique special offers and talk about it.

Develop a smart context

The main tool that will work effectively to attract customers is context, and it must first be set up. In order to be noticed among competitors, the hotel must have a truly attractive offer for popular requests.

When building a campaign, work with geo-targeting and the most targeted requests from a narrow segment of the audience. For example, if the mini-hotel is located near a popular attraction (museum, theater, etc.), you can offer special conditions for those who intend to attend a certain cultural event. Another example: you can set selective targeting for newlyweds, which will be most effective in conjunction with special offers for lovers or for a honeymoon. In other words, you need to know your audience. Then there will be no problems with ideas for original and truly attractive proposals.

Create special offers

Presence on recommendation and mapping services is a must for a mini-hotel. Yes, these medals are worth fighting for, and yes, it is necessary to be present on all major ranking portals. This way, the hotel not only comes to the attention of new customers - it increases the interest of those who are already one step away from making a reservation. In practice, of the total number of people interested in your hotel on booking.com, eighty percent will go to the hotel website. This is excellent traffic, which can account for up to 90% of the total flow of site visitors. Next, you are faced with the task of retaining a potential client. One tool that works very well in this case is a special offer for guests with booking.com.

It is necessary for a small hotel to develop pages on social networks, but one can hardly expect excellent results in this direction. Social networks are not always about sales, but they are always about reputation. Indeed, in Russian practice, cases about successful sales through social accounts are still rare (but are already appearing). But there are many thousands of examples when active users of social networks shared their negative and positive reviews about the hotel.

Create a page for your hotel so that clients, if they wish, can find this platform where they can not only get information, but also speak out. Tell us on the page about everything that happens at the hotel - show your openness, modernity and readiness for personal dialogue with everyone. The main thing is to maintain the page regularly, as lively as possible, and not to forget about the principle “inform, but do not advertise.”

Showcase yourself on Instagram

The hotel’s mission on social networks is to show its boundless friendliness. Instagram is simply perfect for this. Each hotel has something to demonstrate and captivate. Dishes from the chef, original interiors, friendly staff, etc. Only your unique and attractive details and little things can be in focus. Promoting a mini-hotel in this chain will not require huge labor costs and budgets - in most cases, the owner or manager will cope with this task perfectly.

Adapt your website for tablets and smartphones

Try to think about the convenience of your customers. Recent statistics have shown that the traffic that goes to hotel websites from smartphones has hardly grown in 2015. While traffic from tablets increased by 30%. Tablets are gradually replacing laptops and desktop computers: many people outside the office prefer to view pictures and choose hotels from a tablet. Is your website adapted for tablet screens?

Find your "trick"

And tell us about it! Not being like everyone else means being interesting to many. You can build communication, including an advertising campaign, around little things, details, “tricks”. This could be an interesting location, a nearby landmark, a street name, or some historical significance. This could be your unique idea embodied in the interior. So, in one hotel in St. Petersburg I noticed silent floors made of cork - an excellent solution! And in the rooms there were books from Russian classics - another non-standard move. It's interesting, it's memorable.

Experiment

Don't be afraid to try! Use new products that hi-tech constantly throws up. At one time, panoramic photo tours of hotels and rooms looked original. Today there is a new opportunity: 360-degree video, which allows the viewer to choose the shooting angle to imagine everything even better. Try new products among the first to show your willingness to be useful and interesting to the client.

In all regions of our country, mini-hotels and mini-hotels (popularly called “Bed&Breakfast”) are becoming increasingly popular. These types of hotels owe their popularity to their intimate, homely atmosphere, tranquility, and, of course, moderate cost.

If you become the owner of such a business, then the first thing you need to do is think through a thorough campaign to promote your mini-hotel, and it is better to resort to the help and advice of leading experts.

Quote:
You need to promote your hotel business just like any other! You have to sleep it, breathe it, and constantly ask yourself, “What else can I do for my business?” In any business, you need to understand from the client, what the client needs, whether the guest is satisfied with everything... In second place in importance are the partners, i.e. third parties who send you clients for a % commission. And in third place is everything else. In other words, you are constantly working to attract new sales channels and ask guests if they liked everything.
Alexey Arsenyev

Basic rules on how to promote a small hotel

“Promotion” of a hotel is not an easy task and requires certain knowledge, desire, energy and diplomatic qualities:

shift the main focus to partners: corporate clients, regular clients, travel agencies, booking systems, etc.;
if your hotel has a good occupancy rate (more than 85%) and more than 20 rooms, focus on taxis, cafes, bars and other related services (in this case, they will be able to bring significant income);

Be careful: a large occupancy rate implies an increase in costs for personnel, laundry, etc., which, accordingly, increases the cost of living. It is necessary to calculate the optimal price at which quality will not suffer.

travel agencies should become your favorite partners - they will be happy to help you (for a commission) if it is also beneficial for them;

It is better to entrust the calculation of conditions beneficial to both parties (joint discounts, promotions) to qualified specialists, so that the services provided by the travel agency do not turn out to be more expensive than the profit received from the clients provided.

use video technology: make a high-quality video and a lot of photographs, which will capture happy, satisfied guests and all the best aspects of your hotel, place it on your website and wherever possible;
do not skimp (especially in the first stages) on advertising: as many people and companies as possible should know about your hotel, and advertising costs will pay off when visitors arrive;
take advantage of free Internet resources: post information about your site on free forums, hotel catalog sites, online communities, etc.;
find regional partners who can provide you with an influx of tourists from distant corners;
be sure to master and implement into your work a system for managing and recording online bookings;
focus on corporate clients (just keep in mind: if you have a hostel, managers of large enterprises, banks, etc. are unlikely to come to you, but corporate clients are everywhere).

And the most important thing in the question of how to promote a mini-hotel is to remember: The financial wealth of any hotel is directly proportional to its occupancy multiplied by the cost of the day. First of all, it is necessary to increase the number of clients, and not the cost of their accommodation!