I majored in the Marketing of Services in the ’80’s as this was a new field which meant no competition!
Fast forward to the end of 2024 and I am sorry to to say that I am still disappointed by so many posts on supposed ‘Hotel Marketing’.
A Marketing Plan is not a departmental plan written in a silo. It is the business plan and it needs buy in and preferably input from all team members. (Mission, Vision and Values). Then your team in your luxury hotel will lead the way in suggesting improvements in standards and service in all areas with a sense of ownership thrown in. 200 heads are better than one.
From the Executive Summary (Corporate Objectives) come all the major objectives and strategies including those covering Service/Product and Communication Strategies to name but two.
Imagine my disappointment when I recently revisited a ‘luxury’ hotel in Australia to recover an item left inadvertently in a suite (Lost Property). After paying well over $2000 for the stay the item was presented to me in a small plastic waste paper basket bin liner with my surname hand written on it. My last interaction with the brand for that stay.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a note against the Housekeeping Department rather a glaring example of how many hotels are still stuck with the mindset that was present before Hotels had even heard about ‘Marketing’. Just think about how many senior managers must have been oblivious, complicit or resigned with a sense of fatalism as to the brand damage to existing customer relationships by this ‘procedure’ knowing that any suggestion as to changes would be shut down. General Managers should be brand managers with positive two way relationships with all team members and every communication vehicle and guest touch point with everyone and every organisation for that hotel should be aligned to the hotel’s corporate and communication strategies.
Fortunately there are an increasing number of great hotel brands that now understand this and are thriving as a result yet I am hesitant to say that they are in the majority.
Imagine if you had a $5,000 watch and had it serviced within it’s guarantee period and when you collected it from the luxury store it was handed to you in a bin bag! Unthinkable.
(In luxury hotels think of language ie Check in rather than arrival experience; think of Purchasing – is lowest price paramount; think of restaurant menus where you have to Google search words to find out what you are being offered to eat – making a patron feel stupid is not a great restaurant arrival experience; Think of technology – the possible is now only limited by one’s imagination etc.)
Hotels have it so much easier than product manufacturers as we have direct customer engagement.
Lesson for 2025 (tomorrow): If you are unsure…. Learn what Marketing actually means. You can spend years studying it yet it is pretty simple.
Clue: It is not a communications department…..Marketing means everything about your business.
Hotel owners need to let this sink in. It is their money. A brand is only as great as it’s weakest link.
#marketing #hotelmarketing
