Field of Dreams Hotel Marketing

It is adapted from a quote from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams.

The lead character hears a voice when walking through his corn field which says "If you build it, he will come". Later he sees a vision of a baseball field. He builds the field and Shoeless Joe Jackson, a long dead professional baseball player, turns up and asks to play catch.

The quote as been adapted into a business setting and often means, if you build something people will come to use (and pay for) it.

We all remember when owners of hotels that want to build a hotel or a hotel brand and state if we build this hotel we will open with 99 percent occupancy. Unfortunately, the “if I build it they will come” marketing plan no longer is valid. In fact, even today I speak with hotel companies that want to build a brand and roll out to multiple cities and I still hear we will build a hotel around business centers and we will be busy. Maybe if you flag with a major brand you will gain occupancy but if you are a independent looking to build a brand in 2020 you need to know who your customer if first and then build the hotel around that customer.

Online retail is another prime example. Amazon is a market leader with its ‘if you like this, you might also like this’ approach to sales. According to Predictive Analytics World, the retailer has patented an algorithm-based system that could, feasibly, know what you want to buy before you do. Within the travel industry, large hotel chains, such as IHG and Hyatt, have started leveraging their big data to better serve the customer and predict occupancy levels and room rates. However, predictive analytics is not confined to large scale organization, with hotel groups such as Trump Hotel Collection, Red Lion Hotels and Warwick Hotels are all utilizing predictive analytics to better understand their client needs and business demands.

So, in 2020 we need to build a hotel or a hotel company around the customer we want now and in 10 years. Business intelligence models have been around for decades. What is new is the amount of data. This means perspective hotel companies can know customers traits and demand even quicker and use that date to target the right customer

The hospitality and travel industries generate a wealth of information about their clients, which helps build a picture of who your buyer persona is. If you are planning on building or rebranding a hotel here are some basic data you can capture and analyze.

 ■ Country of origin.

 ■ Booking channel.

■ Time of booking (seasonal changes).

■ Lead time.

■ Room rate for the booking.

 ■ Type of room booked.

 ■ Length of stay.

■ Responses to marketing campaigns and discounts, e.g. direct email marketing.

 ■ Competitor performance (ADR, occupancy, etc.).

■ Destination data (tourist arrivals, tourist expenditure, room nights). For hotels,

the Property Management System (PMS) should be your number one data source

New data sources are coming to the fore continuously,

and include:

■ Social media – listen to what the market is saying

about you and your competitors. Watch for spikes in

traffic and analyze this: is it the result of a marketing

campaign by you, a competitor or your destination?

■ Review data from sources such as TripAdvisor,

Priceline or Orbitz.

■ Customer data from other sources for purchases in

other sectors.

■ Search engine traffic – use Google Analytics to see

where your web traffic is coming from

 Scott Ward

Director Of Sales and Marketing

*Field of Dreams Photo Credit