After being cooped up at home for the better part of 2020, travelers around the world are itching to break free from their own four walls to go on a long-awaited trip. But does that mean they’re willing to pay an arm and a leg for a hotel stay? As tempting as it is to double (or triple) the price of rooms to make up for lost profits in 2020, price gouging will only backfire and hurt the recovery of one’s hotel business.
This week on our hotel marketing podcast, we spoke about the importance of you, hoteliers, future proofing your digital assets. Here’s an explainer as to what they are, and why it’s important for you to future-proof them.
There are a lot of numbers that are used in hotels to determine Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), which are used to measure success and to make adjustments to strategy. Like many industries, hotels have their own set of acronyms used to relate common measurements.
Let’s start off with the obvious – group and corporate business are down. Especially for dense urban markets, where RevPAR remains down by 80% compared to 2019, when corporate business made up 50% of this segment’s demand.
COVID-19 has accelerated a few foreseeable changes that the service industry expected for the future. For example, more consumers want delivery service since the pandemic hit in March. Restaurants, hotels, airlines, retailers, and shopping malls have extended their current contactless self-service offerings through mobile apps, kiosks, facial recognition, and palm recognition technologies.
As 2020 comes to a close, a year that has thrown curveball after curveball at the hospitality industry, the need to keep staff and guests safe has become a top priority for hoteliers. Prioritizing the need to provide a safe environment, and be able to prove that it is safe to staff and guests, will have a lasting impact on hotel management, operational teams, and employees.
The past year has brought many unforeseen challenges to the hospitality sector. Hotel and restaurant operators have employed creative solutions to remain profitable despite dining area restrictions and changes to how food is prepared.
Housekeeping is one of the most expensive departments in a hotel. But, it is also one of the departments which completes some of the most impactful work in a hotel. Guests immediately notice when rooms aren’t clean, and they aren’t shy about letting hoteliers know.
Consider a time you thought of a hotel stay as extraordinary. What made your experience so memorable? Was it the moment you approached the front desk, where a friendly bellman carried your bags? Or was it the simplicity and comfort of your room? This stay could have also been more memorable because of the technology utilized by staff to communicate reservation updates via SMS or live chat.
The latest edition of the Pulse Report, which tracks data from October 19 to November 1, shows a slowdown in web traffic, pick up and pace across most markets, with Europe suffering consequences of an increase in COVID cases and a second lockdown in several countries.
