Source: AxisRooms

Do you desire to build strong relationships with your existing and potential clients? If yes, hotel experiential marketing activities are a great way to achieve that.

Every individual understands the value of great experiences and appreciates them as well.

Therefore, engaging potential customers through a pleasant, meaningful, or materially gratifying experience is undoubtedly a great way to make them appreciate and remember your brand for a long time.

In addition to remembering the trip fondly, they will likely share their positive interactions with your hotel business with their travel-obsessed friends and relatives.

But what exactly is hotel experiential marketing, and how can it help you in improving guest experience?

Let’s find out!

What Is Hotel Experiential Marketing?

Hotel experiential marketing is a particularly quick and efficient technique to increase brand awareness, unlike traditional marketing strategies. It can also be described as hotel experiential branding.

It appeals to all five senses, evoking feelings that last a lifetime, and has been proven to increase brand loyalty.

The objective is to forge a connection with your guests by providing memorable experiences that encourage them to do word-of-mouth advertising for your hotel through social media posts.

With experiential marketing, your target audience can connect with and understand your brand in a way that is unachievable with traditional marketing.

With hotel experiential marketing, you have the chance to offer an unforgettable personalized guest experience that inspires future customers to discover more about your brand while also fostering loyalty and trust with your existing customers.

Why Is Hotel Experiential Marketing Important for Your Business?

Hotel businesses should use this marketing strategy for various reasons, but one of the most important is that today's decision-makers place a high value on experience. It's less about materialistic things.

But the social media-dominated world we live in nowadays is possibly the most notable reason to choose experiential marketing.

These initiatives have the power to win over clients' hearts and minds as well as their attention. When they do win over, satisfied customers will happily spread the word about your business.

4 Phases Where You Can Do Hotel Experiential Marketing to Win Clients

1. Researching before making the reservation

Almost all travelers research online before deciding on a destination as they plan their vacation to temporarily skip the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

So what kind of content helps travelers at this point of the journey? The kind that helps them determine the location and motivates them to go there.

Factors such as whether they like beaches or mountains are also taken into account during the research stage for hotels. Therefore, it’s critical in this phase to market the adventures and experiences available in the given destination to target audiences.

Think of how your guests would search for things to do in your location. You need to build content around those subjects.

Conduction destination marketing by writing blog posts and creating video content are great strategies. These efforts enable potential guests to get an overview of what they might experience at their travel destination and your hotel.

Additionally, nowadays, social media campaigns are an increasingly powerful strategy to capture the attention of potential guests.

So leverage this opportunity to stand out by using high-resolution photos, short but engaging videos, or even an influencer marketing campaign to highlight how much fun a visitor can have in your hotel and area.

2. A sneak-peak before arrival

Once the flight tickets are booked, and hotel room reservations are made, your guests are in the anticipation phase.

This is the phase where they think about what's nearby your hotel or what activities they should do during their stay. They also wonder what kind of hotel guest experience they will get at your property.

This is where you can do hotel experiential marketing again through carefully crafted, informative, and engaging content. Offering that at this point has three benefits:

  • You are fueling their anticipation for their upcoming vacation.
  • To boost ancillary revenue on services that can be pre-booked, you can spark their desire with appealing content about on-property services like sauna, spa, or gym.
  • You're guaranteeing they have a fantastic trip without putting much effort, and in the process, you're creating loyal brand ambassadors for your hotel.

You can leverage your visitors' pre-vacation excitement by providing digital travel guides that present a thorough and appealing picture of your place.

Additionally, those guides can be tweaked and reworked for use on your blog site and other platforms.

A brief pre-arrival email that directs visitors to that content can increase their trust and spare them the effort of having to do online research or ask around people.

3. Enhancing guest experience during stay

We are aware that since tourism is back, travelers are busier than ever. This means that your pre-travel emails may have gone unread due to a lack of time.

This is the moment to intervene and save the day via digitalized guest experiences!

There are a couple of chances where you can take advantage of hotel experiential marketing at this stage. It will not only help you build a strong relationship with your guests but also create a comprehensive travel experience.

Use the opportunity to share your insights on the best attractions and hidden gems in the area while your guests are staying at your hotel. You can do it using the Wi-Fi login page, an email, or a personalized printed map with notes on your suggestions.

You can also send your guests a "turn-down" email that includes a weekend itinerary recommendation, such as local events or seasonal activities.

4. Post-departure hospitality

Upon returning home, guests usually post their travel videos and photos on their social media accounts. This is beneficial for your business because such posts inspire their friends, relatives, and other followers to plan a trip as well.

To increase brand loyalty, catch up with guests after their stay with follow-up emails. Additionally, if your hotel has a particular hashtag, this is the perfect chance to encourage visitors to post photos on social media.

Create content that not only promotes your hotel but also reminds visitors of their vacation experience and keeps them informed about new hotel amenities or local events and attractions.

Time to Begin Your Hotel’s Experiential Marketing Campaign!

It's more important than ever for hotel businesses to develop exciting, different, and entertaining strategies for providing their guests a richer, more memorable experiences.

Why?

It is because more big hotel brands are paving their way aggressively to the hospitality industry.

Therefore, begin by prioritizing your customers. Before coming up with any innovative and interesting hotel experiential marketing ideas, establish a clear goal.

Here, creativity and attention to your target audience's demands, requirements, and interests are vital.

You'll draw in more guests if you completely immerse them in your brand. These visitors won't just make repeat bookings; they'll also recommend you to their friends.

AxisRooms Editorial Desk

AxisRooms, a software suite provider for the hospitality industry, is committed to aiding your business growth, not just with our state-of-the-art products and services, but also with the latest updates from the travel and hospitality industry. Got something to say? Write to us at: [email protected]