Marketing

🏨 Independent hotels can enhance guest loyalty by personalizing rewards, offering unique experiences beyond discounts, simplifying point earning, leveraging technology for engagement, rewarding direct bookings, and utilizing referrals and social proof. Regularly tracking and adapting the program based on feedback ensures its effectiveness. This strategy aims to reduce customer acquisition costs and increase repeat bookings, fostering long-term profitability.

🌟 Villa Sassa entices with a direct booking Layer offering 25% off room rates, breakfast, and a free shuttle. Hôtel de Seine appeals to American guests with a Thanksgiving greeting, while Ohla Eixample captures the Halloween spirit with themed discounts. Camelback Resort promotes family-friendly activities for fall getaways. La Maison Champs Elysées supports breast cancer research in October, donating 1€ per cocktail/mocktail sold. These strategies enhance direct bookings and revenue during the fall season.

💸 Hotel gift vouchers can drive revenue year-round beyond peak holiday seasons through strategies like festive and off-peak promotions, bundling with experiences, encouraging corporate partnerships, creating urgency with limited-time offers, and maximizing online visibility. The Ritz-Carlton and The Langham London effectively use these tactics, the latter offering December promotions on spa and afternoon tea vouchers. Online presence is crucial as 75% of consumers judge a business's credibility by its website design, impacting conversion rates.

🏨 In the current commercial real estate landscape, high interest rates and construction costs contribute to a slower transaction rate, with sellers hesitant due to lower-rate loans and cash-rich buyers waiting for the right deal. New construction costs may exceed $200,000 per key, with geopolitical factors and local labor wages impacting pricing. Extended-stay hotels gain popularity for their balance of lower operational costs and higher RevPAR. Conversions involve analyzing costs, brand alignment, and market opportunities, with aging properties potentially moving from brands like Marriott to Choice or Hilton to Wyndham to save costs.

🍝 Bret Thorn, Senior Food & Beverage Editor for Nation's Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality since 1999, also writes for the New York Sun (2005-2008) and previously worked in Thailand as a journalist (1992-1997). He is a Tufts University magna cum laude history graduate (1990), studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris (1986), and reported for ABC News during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Thorn won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal Award, was IFEC president in 2005, and was inducted into the Disciples d'Escoffier in 2014. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

🏨 Hotel Operations Management article focuses on best practices, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and trends essential for enhancing efficiency and guest satisfaction. Authored by Suniti Bahl and published on Hotelogix Blog on October 18, 2024, it delves into costs, technology, and challenges involved in hotel management. The post emphasizes the need for streamlined operations to ensure a high-quality guest experience.

🎃 The Grand Brighton's seafront hotel introduces a Halloween-themed afternoon tea from October 28th to November 3rd, featuring delicacies like lemon meringue tart and dark chocolate delice adorned with pumpkin and bat motifs. Savory selections include pork & leek sausage rolls, egg mayonnaise sandwiches, and Shipton Mill scones. Prices start at £40 per person, with options to add Moët champagne or Brighton G&T from £11. To book, visit grandbrighton.co.uk.

🏨 Joe Bojanowski, PM Hotel Group President, leads the company's growth and instills a passion for innovation. Early in his career, Bojanowski interned at DoubleTree in Phoenix while studying at the University of Arizona, then managed a 600-plus-room hotel's F&B outlets in D.C. He advanced by modeling successful mentors and understanding the hospitality business's profitability, moving through roles in Rhode Island, Ohio, and South Florida. In 1997, he joined PM Hotel Group, shifting from operations to development, managing a project in Beijing City in 2007, and becoming president in 2011. PM Hotel Group's strategic growth includes merging with Paramount Hotel Group, adding 12 hotels, and acquiring Modus Hotels to enter the lifestyle segment. Bojanowski's leadership focuses on empowering others, aligning the team with a common vision and goals, and recognizing performance to create opportunities.

🌐 Propellic sponsors the Travel Tech Essentialist newsletter, offering a Propellic Performance Bookings Assessment for marketing plans. The most clicked links in issue #156 were about travel brand strategies and scarcity tactics. A leaked document from MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) reveals his success principles, suggesting a unique airline business model. Peter Fabor uses Booking.com to find hotel acquisitions in Portugal via "David’s Triangle": low ratings, great location, poor value. Muji’s branded hotel in Tokyo exemplifies product integration. Andrew Chen from a16z discusses the resurgence of in-person events post-lockdown for B2B growth and relationship building. Jake Lazaroff created Waypoint, an offline travel planning app, during a travel sabbatical. An Accenture report shows a $28 billion opportunity for the travel industry with generative AI. ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode could disrupt OTAs, but their future adaptability is noted. McKinsey’s report suggests airlines could unlock up to $45 billion by 2030 with modern retailing. The Travel Tech Essentialist newsletter introduces deep dives on innovative companies, starting with DHARMA. 2025 sponsorship opportunities for the newsletter are announced, and the job board highlights positions at WeRoad.