96 – Spring Workshop Takeaways

Episode Transcript

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Ryan Embree:
Welcome to Suite Location where by hoteliers check out-in and we check out what’s trending in lodge advertising. I’m your host, Ryan Embree.

Ryan Embree:
Howdy every person and welcome to a further episode of the Suite Location. This is your host, as usually, Ryan Embree, Director of Advertising and marketing at Journey Media Group. And we’ve got a great episode for you these days. We do these episodes 4 periods a year mainly because we in fact carry out 4 occupancy workshops for hoteliers. And this season’s workshop is titled “Business is Blooming: How to Improve Occupancy this Spring.” So this is our spring occupancy workshop. It’s one of my favorites since we are coming out of the winter season, which is typically a slower time for the field. And we’re ultimately starting to see that growth and occupancy. Now the springs the previous couple several years have certainly been a tiny little bit various with the pandemic and coming out of that. But with these workshops, we are conversing about positioning your resort digitally for achievements when vacationers are looking and they are executing very a bit of looking, which we’ll talk about in this article in next.

Ryan Embree:
So again, these are occupancy workshops exactly where we meet a person-on-a person with hoteliers in about a 15 to 20 minute session chatting about the hotel’s digital existence. How are they positioning on their own coming into the time of spring crack, holiday seasons, May possibly, Memorial working day, a great deal of terrific things in the spring and genuinely setting ourselves up also for the summertime where by occupancy genuinely heats up. So with these episodes, what we like to do is, ordinarily when I perform these workshops, we get some genuinely fantastic takeaways and insights from the hoteliers that we talk about some common themes and threads. So in the previous, of course we have talked about the staffing scarcity suitable now, which has been hurting a ton of people today. This is our 3rd time performing a spring occupancy workshop. Once again in 2020 and 2021, there had been extremely various conversations, which leads me to our very first craze that we recognized this workshop compared to many others, which was the positivity of the hoteliers that we have been chatting to. The optimism that was out there, that travel is returning.

Ryan Embree:
And as I discuss about these tourists accomplishing lookups, you know, I’ve bought a actually remarkable stat that we came throughout, in which it states U.S. organic Google lookup visit advancement by business in Q4 of 2021 vs . Q4 in 2020. And the percentage alter for vacation was at 41%. So that is a large amount of eyes on the lookout and planning and currently being encouraged to journey as soon as all over again. But as I caution the hoteliers that I spoke to on this workshop, they’re gonna be hunting at your hotel’s electronic presence a whole lot in another way than they did pre-COVID-19 and pre-pandemic. But development range just one, occupancy is growing. It is right here. No matter if we like it or not, transient leisure has often been there the earlier few decades and has been top the pack in restoration, but we’re also seeing company, weddings occur again. So we’ll speak a very little little bit about that later, but the 2nd pattern that I seen on these discussions that I was possessing is, you know, we have been as an market running around, it feels like, striving to determine out what to do to change to this pandemic, this new normal that COVID has kind of ushered into our sector.

Ryan Embree:
And then on leading of that, you have this staffing shortage, correct? Inflation now starting to hit dwelling as nicely, but we’re starting to see items kind of sluggish down and hoteliers seriously finally checking things like their social media, their reviews, assessment responses. And a great deal of the hoteliers I talked to when we took 15 minutes to really sit down and just take a search ended up truly shocked with what they saw. They perhaps experienced a entrance desk manager or a DOS that experienced still left for the duration of these earlier two years that was in charge of this things. And now it is kinda laid dormant there. So I would motivate you if you’re listening to this, test your Fb, verify your hotel’s Instagram, LinkedIn, ideally you are on these web pages, but examine and see when the past time you posted, because time has been traveling by right now and in advance of, you know, it, a great deal of these posts that we were looking at have been back in 2021 and travelers are looking now additional than at any time for suitable information and facts.

Ryan Embree:
So if they see one thing back again in, in 2021 or even 2020, it’s not gonna be related to them. And it could mean a negative connotation, damaging impact for the travelers that are carrying out study. They’re at last sitting down and checking factors like their evaluate web pages and seeing on web sites like TripAdvisor, OTAs, Google, destinations exactly where travelers are generating booking selections that the final assessment that they obtained was six months ago. We know correct now that all the things is moving so swiftly. Omicron arrived in November and swept as a result of the nation. And that improved the way that men and women understand traveling and the level of basic safety of what that was. So again, verify like your hotel, social media, your name and critique responses. That was an additional matter we had been conversing about, is discovering the time to reply to testimonials. And I know for a whole lot of hoteliers listening to this, it could be one of all those items at the base of our precedence record, but it is so important appropriate now when we discuss about our subsequent development, which is location expectations vs . conference anticipations. And I’ll explain the change.

Ryan Embree:
So meeting anticipations is, assume about a traveler walking into an financial state hotel and anticipating Ritz-Carlton services at an overall economy degree rate. People expectations are a little little bit way too high, and it could be complicated to fulfill all those anticipations. Setting anticipations is a fully various dialogue. Consider of placing anticipations as anyone going for walks into your hotel in the summer and anticipating to appreciate that stunning pool that you have, and your pool’s shut for renovations. And they had no thought that that was the scenario. That is a failure to set anticipations from a hotelier standpoint. So there’s a really distinctive big difference there. And when we speak about assessment reaction is one of the most strong destinations that we can established anticipations for our upcoming traveler.

Ryan Embree:
Certainly, it is very important to reply to the responses that is in front of you and to that traveler that took time outta their working day to go away you a evaluation for your organization. But it is also setting the anticipations for that long term traveler. So a great deal has transformed more than the previous two a long time from breakfast, facilities, even resort procedures, the way we’re cleaning rooms, the way we’re interacting with company. There could be travelers that when they appear on to your property have a totally various expectation. So if you are not placing all those prior to their remain, then you are failing to established their expectations. And that is in fact the range 1 explanation that we are observing destructive reviews on-line. As a whole lot of you know, that hear to this, Travel Media Group has a Respond and Solve option where by we react to visitor assessments. We’ve now hit the unbelievable benchmark of responding to in excess of 750,000 testimonials for our hotel associates and are currently responding to a thousand guest hotel opinions a working day suitable now in our headquarters.

Ryan Embree:
And the variety one particular cause, the selection one particular purpose that we are looking at these destructive assessments come in is for the reason that suitable expectations are not established. So if we can use review response as a way to communicate and information to potential travelers, which is gonna give us the possibility to established people good anticipations. And I’ll give you a rapid case in point if you are following me. So one of the issues that has fully altered and I suspect will just take a very little little bit longer changeover to get back again to regular or pre-COVID is breakfast for our house, appropriate? With the staffing scarcity, with individuals interacting, breakfast buffets, we had been instructed to remain absent from these throughout the thick of the pandemic. Now we are at a area wherever accommodations could be at fully unique spectrums of breakfast. Some could be appropriate back to the place they were being in 2019 with a giant scorching breakfast buffet.

Ryan Embree:
Other individuals are continue to staying conservative, breakfast on the go. If your visitor walks into your lodge and does not know what they are heading to get in the morning, that is a failure to set expectations. And we’re observing that at times in these critiques. So critique reaction is a fantastic way to established that. Social media, also. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, you wanna make absolutely sure that you’re setting these suitable visitor expectations, simply because we’re observing that again, truly impacting hotels’ reputations that we’re doing work with. And then eventually, the past trend that we talked about with hoteliers throughout these workshops is just modifying to the new standard. Looking at these teams come back again and what it is going to just take in buy to generate their company. Weddings, previous episode, if you are following me the possibility ideal now for weddings and wedding ceremony blocks for our houses is unbelievable earnings prospective out there.

Ryan Embree:
So what are you undertaking to check out to seize that and industry your lodge, using gain of the bleisure vacation trend, ideal? The small business traveler that now functions from dwelling all 7 days and wants to commence their family vacation early. They want to occur out to the home on Wednesday, Thursday, or on Wednesday with their relatives so that the family can delight in some of the amenities or points of interest in your area. And they operate from the resort, extending their holiday, extending the home evenings for every stay. So how are we attracting? How are we adapting our marketing and advertising technique to capture this new standard traveler that we’re gonna see? And as I wrap up this episode here, I will say, it is been a very hard pair several years to do this kind of spring workshop. And I’ve experienced to dig quite, pretty deep in exploration to consider to come across some beneficial information in the field as it relates to occupancy and ADR, but knock on wooden, if all the things goes right, this spring, we are in for a monster spring and an even bigger summer months.

Ryan Embree:
So the occupancy is going to be there from vacationers. But the problem I want you to ask yourself is how do you want to be selected? Do you wanna be picked because that traveler had originally wanted to keep at the resort subsequent door and they were all booked or their amount was way way too high and they chose your hotel mainly because you were option B or do you want to be choice A, do you want your traveler to be energized about the stay that they are gonna appear on property? Do you want them to grow to be an advocate of your lodge immediately after they continue to be on residence? Have you established correct anticipations for this traveler when they action in by your lobby and strategy the front desk, these are the variety of queries that you want to be inquiring, for the reason that once again, the occupancy will be there.

Ryan Embree:
But the difference in between traveler A that I just defined and traveler B is day and night. And as soon as you get that form of snowball impact of occupancy and advocates for your home, it just furthers your arrive at and electronic internet marketing and places you at a aggressive advantage for increasing your occupancy. So if you have not participated in these workshops, as I described right before, we do them each individual single season. It is one of my preferred parts of my occupation listed here at Travel Media Group. I would really like to talk with you about your property, about your place. We know just about every solitary lodge is diverse. So which is what I adore about these workshops. If you are intrigued in acquiring a discussion about that, clearly you can achieve out to us whenever at travelmediagroup.com and we’d adore to converse with you or next time we’ve obtained it in the summertime coming up. If you see that e-mail operate across your inbox, plan a conference with me, love to talk to you, but I am absolutely sure the upcoming time we do these insights, we hopefully, fingers crossed, will have some excellent, terrific news to share. So thank you for all the hoteliers that participated in the workshop. Thank you for all for listening. And we’ll speak to you upcoming time on the Suite Spot.

Ryan Embree:
To join our loyalty application, be positive to subscribe and give us a 5 star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is developed by Journey Media Group with go over artwork by Bary Gordon. I’m your host, Ryan Embree and we hope you liked your continue to be.