Hotelier's Guide to Host the Perfect Hotel New Year's Eve

Exclusive VIP packages could also be offered with perks such as special accommodation, hotel amenities, or access to exclusive areas of the venue, to attract high-value guests and make them feel special.

Make separate lists for the different types of travelers/guests. Ensure to curate exclusive packages and special offers for each segment and communicate the same through their preferred platforms/channels.

2) Offer something for every age

A hotel must cater to all the different guest segments based on their age, economic background, tastes and preferences, etc. Therefore, engaging activities should be planned for all age groups. Let guests dance the night away by arranging a DJ or live band.   

If children are attending the party, arrange for temporary tattoo artists, some fun games, playing space, etc. Similarly, if some old age groups are attending the event, arrange for some ghazal time, etc.

Also read: Hotel Market Segmentation - Importance, Types & Examples

3) Create anticipation for the party

Getting guests excited for your event is an important part of creating an unforgettable hotel New Year’s Eve experience for the attendees. It is the biggest event of the year, and hoteliers should ensure that it feels like one to the guests as well.   

Promote the events planned for the big night on social media, local billboards, fliers, event management, and ticketing websites such as BookMyShow. Make the advertisement clear, catchy, and irresistible.   

Highlight the exciting events with attractive visuals and catchy phrases and build some excitement in the minds of your guests. Present an offer that is hard to say no to and guests would feel that they will be missing out on something by not attending it.

4) Leverage email marketing

Email is a traditional marketing channel that has its own share of loyal users. Thus, through email marketing, hotels could engage targeted guest segments and get the right people engaging with the right marketing campaign. 

The subscriber list must be categorized based on geography, demography, tastes and preferences, interests, etc. Further, the events should be classified to match the suitable guest segment and targeted mails should be sent to them. This would increase the chances of your marketing campaign being a success as the right crowd will get the right content.   

For example, if a hotel is arranging or organizing a party ideal for the age group above 50, then it should send emails carrying the vent information to guests who belong to this age bracket. The same mail, with just a few changes, could also be sent to potential guests who have recently been searching for events at your location around New Year's time.  

Hotels could also curate special event newsletters and send them to the target group of subscribers to keep them updated about the events happening.   

This entire process of email marketing should be automated using smart hotel technology solutions such as eMark-IT. This solution helps the hotel to send out targeted emails and hit the bull’s eye with every marketing campaign.

5) Use the right marketing channels

Thinking of or curating the perfect event is not enough. Communicating or marketing the event through the right channels is also equally important.  

Social media’s popularity and reach are unparalleled in this digital era.   

A hotel can create attractive promotional posts for its social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The posts should contain compelling images and videos about the event that lure guests into attending it. The usage of hashtags would also help to widen the reach of the posts and spread more awareness of the event.   

Digital marketing campaigns are a must to promote any large-scale or big parties and events. Through fun contests, a hotel can encourage viewers to share videos or creative content using the event hashtag. This will help a hotel engage a larger audience and attract more guests to the event. These contests can run even during and post-party, spreading more event awareness, engaging the present guests, and attracting more guests in the future.

6) Partner with local businesses to cross-promote

Partnering with local businesses sometimes helps a hotel to overcome space and budget constraints and the other times, to make the event/party more lavish and grander.   

Partnering with event management, food and beverages groups/companies, local cafés and restaurants, etc., would help a hotel make the event more detailed, and special.   

Collaboration with local businesses will help you make the event/party more attractive, fun, and memorable for the guests.   

The hotel can further plan/offer special experiences such as theme parties, photo booths, community resolution jars, fireworks/light show, lantern lighting and flying, ballroom dancing, serving themed cocktails, wine-tasting, karaoke night, stargazing, etc., or any other locally prevalent unique experience for the guests.   

All these experiences will leave guests wanting more and increase the footfall for next year’s New Year’s Eve hotel party. 

7) Create a countdown to the event

To create more excitement around the event, a hotel must have a countdown. The New Year’s Eve countdown is a must anyway.   

A countdown posted with promotional social media creatives and email communication will help a hotel generate buzz and catch attention. It creates a sense of urgency with the guests, especially if the event is not sold out.   

Including a countdown in the email marketing content will help the hotel to remind the guests about the event, engage them, and drive more bookings.

8) Offer early bird discounts or promotions

There’s always the uncertainty of enough footfall when a hotel plans any event/party. To overcome this fear, a hotel must offer early bird discounts or offers to attract and lock in more guests. Incentivize booking for the vent with some limited offer period discounts.   

These early bird discounts/ limited period offers should be promoted through social media posts for a wider reach and gentle reminders should be sent through email or WhatsApp. Time-bound deals or flash sales are also good ways to attract and engage more crowds.   

These promotional offers or discounts should preferably last till a week before Christmas.

9) Utilise influencer or celebrity endorsements

New Year’s Eve hotel events could be promoted by an influencer or celebrity to create more buzz and make the event more popular. If the event budget allows, the hotel can involve a suitable influencer or a celebrity to promote the event and access its fan base.   

Whoever you choose should have a significant following for more engagement and awareness and should post regular updates, images, videos, etc., to build excitement and buzz.   

What do some of the best Hotel New Year's Eve events across the globe have?

A lot of global hotel chains host the most lavish and memorable New Year’s Eve parties and make the entire experience unforgettable for their guests.   

Some of the most popular New Year parties/events hosted by top hotels are:   

The Knickerbocker, New York

The Times Square NYE celebrations are a sight to behold. With the big ball dropping down to midnight is one of the most sought-after images, however, to reach the point from where these visuals can be experienced is an uphill battle. One must fight his/her way through massive crowds to be able to view the ball drop.

But there is a hotel that offers a clear and without-a-fight view of the Times Square ball drop. The Knickerbocker is a luxurious hotel atop Times Square, New York. One can experience the NYE at Times Square by booking The Knickerbocker’s Private Sky Boxes. These spaces give a direct view of the ball drop, whilst offering amenities matching to 5-star hotel’s amenities.

These amenities include a selection of hors d’oeuvres specially created by Michelin-starred chef Charlie Palmer along with butler and bottle service with premium libations. All this could be enjoyed with space heaters and velour throws in order to keep the guests warm in the chilling New York winters.

The Knickerbocker’s New Year’s Eve is an unmissable experience.

Shangri-La London

Some of the best global fireworks displays are put by the city of London. Without having to freeze on the banks of the river Thames, guests can enjoy the view of the lit-up sky by visiting Shangri-La, The Shard, London.   

The Shard is Europe’s tallest building and home to Shangri-La London. This, one of the finest hotels in London, offers an unforgettable New Year’s Eve experience with an airplane-inspired event at the hotel’s restaurant named Ting, situated on Level 35. It also allows guests to enjoy stunning views across London.  

The theme makes a guest feel like a first-class passenger in the 1950s, the golden age of commercial air travel. Guests are offered a luxurious six-course menu, all paired with fine wines.  

To spend the NYE at Shangri-La, London is a rich and unforgettable experience.

The Lanesborough, London

Another of London’s luxury hotels, The Lanesborough, throws one of the most amazing NYE parties. Teaming up with Moët & Chandon, one year it closed the doors of its lobby and turned each of its public rooms and restaurants into a different-themed celebration space/destination.

Another year, this swanky hotel used the entire ground and lower ground floors of the hotel and offered guests live music, DJs, dining, dancing, and ultimate luxury. The Michelin-starred restaurant Céleste was transformed into a nightclub with a full bar and bottle service. The Belgravia Ballroom served a selection of speed rails, rum, and Champagne-based cocktails, and the Garden Room cigar lounge had the hotel’s cigar sommeliers, with Cuban and Latin music and canapés.

It did not end here, there was more decadence offered by the hotel with extensive seafood, a Lebanese lounge with Eastern-accented cocktails, 1920s-era cocktails, and a live band, etc., at different indoor venues.   

Palais Coburg, Vienna

This palace hotel allows you to ring in the new year royally. Located in Old World Vienna, Palais Coburg hosted a Golden Twenties theme NYE party in 2020. It gave two dining options to its guests, one was at Clementine Im Glashaus and the other was in Staterooms with star chef Silvio Nickel.

At midnight, guests headed to the Grand Portico Terrace to enjoy champagne and fireworks with the sounds of the Blue Danube Waltz and the bells of Stephen’s Cathedral. After enjoying this view, the guests came back to the lobby to experience a specially choreographed performance by members of the Vienna State Opera Ballet.

The hotel also offers sausages and goulash during the early hours to bring the energy levels up, in keeping with the Austrian traditions.

Leveraging Hotel Management Software for Seamless Event Coordination

All these tips would be successful or fruitful with proper and effective management. With so much to organize and oversee, the involvement of a lot of manual processes or multiple systems with multiple screens to monitor can ruin the efforts.

Therefore, a hotel needs to smartly handle the property, especially at the time of organizing such big events as Hotel New Year's Eve. This is possible through automation in hospitality. 

Automating processes and tasks enhances productivity, coordination, and collaboration and brings in the much-required efficiency in property management. Traditional ways of doing tasks create room for errors and delays and put the hotel's reputation at stake in some cases.  

Additionally, operating through multiple systems or software creates baffling situations as the staff must switch between multiple screens to get even the tiniest task completed that requires information from different systems.  

Thus, a hotel must use a centralized property management system software such as PredictoPMS that allows for the integration of multiple key hotel systems and highly coordinated hotel management.

Through a single dashboard, a hotelier is able to view and manage all the key hotel operations and tasks and conveniently oversee the entire property. This significantly reduces the room for errors and delays, streamlines hotel operations management, and helps a hotel elevate the guest experience.

Therefore, through modern hotel technology solutions such as eMark-IT, PredictoPMS, etc., a hotel can organize and successfully manage the biggest event of the year i.e., hotel New Year's Eve.

Conclusion

A hotel New Year’s Eve is a big and important event to organize and therefore, a hotel must be smart, creative, and meticulous about curating and organizing the entire event.   

While creating the perfect event is important, marketing or communicating it through the right channels such as email and social media platforms is equally important. Hotels must ensure that the vent includes fun and engaging activities for all age groups and that event anticipation is built from early on.   

Further, the hotel must ensure to offer limited period offers or early bird discounts to attract more guests and reduce the uncertainty around the footfall.  

Lastly, collaborations with the local businesses help hotels to make the event more diverse and luxurious and so such partnerships should materialize timely to gain clarity and reap its benefits.   

A hotel will definitely be able to throw a heck of a party with these tips. However, it needs to make sure that all the claims added to the marketing campaigns are delivered. Failing to do so, a hotel will stand to lose its present attendees as well as its future guests.   

Thus, a hotel must be conscious while deciding on the event details as well as could take inspiration from the above-mentioned hotels such as Shang-La, London, The Knickerbocker, New York, etc., for hotel New Year's Eve. These hotels manage to impress guests with their luxurious and effusive arrangements every year.