How to Attract International Travelers to Your Property?

Furthermore, an increased number of guests seek personalized experiences nowadays. Businesses are using technology to deliver that. Emerging technologies such as AI/ML, robotics, IoT, etc., are being increasingly used to offer elevated guest experiences.

These are the few major changes that global tourism has witnessed in the last few years. As a result, the hospitality businesses had to transform their operations by embracing digitalization and enhancing their services to cater to the diverse traveler segments and evolved guest expectations.

Tips and ideas to attract international travelers

With so much diversity in terms of culture, languages, tastes, and preferences, it becomes hard for hotels to target all international destinations or attract every international traveler. Hence, they must work smartly and narrow down their international audience, putting in efforts to attract the same.

An increase in international bookings in hotels is a tough task but not an impossible one. So, let’s look at some of the ideas that could help hotels attract international tourists to their properties.

1. Identification of target audience

This world is huge. It has multiple different cultures, languages, beliefs, rituals, etc. And to target such a diverse audience is futile. In pursuit of having it all, you would end up getting nothing. Therefore, identifying the target audience is extremely important to attract international guests.

First, identify the kind of foreign travelers visiting your city and location. Study to understand their demographics, tastes and preferences, behaviour, and spending patterns. Some people travel for work, some for recreational purposes or leisure.

Similarly, some people rely more on technology, some are less familiar with it, some might seek incentives, while others might just be driven by sheer motivation or desire. Thus, hotels need to study what kind of audience visits their location and who they are most relevant to.

A narrowed list is more effective to strategize for and target than a whole bunch of scattered elements.

2. Tweak your website to catch international attention

The hotel website is the first impression for a traveler visiting through search engines. And travelers reaching your website through other channels such as social media accounts, form the majority of opinions and judgments about the brand by looking and navigating through the brand website.

It is one of the early guest touch points. And thus, it should be relevant to and welcoming to the international target audience.

The following should be added to the website to attract international tourists:

• Add multiple international language and currency options

If a hotel is seeking an increase in international bookings, it must make its website user-friendly for foreign tourists. The website must be in the languages of the countries being targeted, at least, and be multi-currency optimized.

Multi-lingual brochures and audio/video tours would make the website experience better for international travelers, and would also reduce the number of abandoned bookings.

Right from the pre-arrival to post-stay communication should be in the preferred language of guests for enhanced guest experience.

• Promote local attractions

Your website and some marketing campaigns should include the local attractions and what makes them so special for tourists to visit. Moreover, the known, heard places would be able to catch attention and develop interests quickly. Give tourists a reason to visit your location.

• Offer guest reviews

The website must include guest reviews. In a world so big, it is difficult to trust businesses you have never interacted, or engaged with.

However, people tend to gravitate to user stories and experiences. The reviews and ratings or simply guest feedback are testimonials to the business or its services as well as strong cases while making any bookings. A hotel website with guest reviews will ensure international guests that there is nothing to doubt about the property, staff, or services.

3. Enhance the property infrastructure and services

Only revamping the website is not enough. People should get what has been promised on the website. Actions always speak louder than words. Thus, a hotel, if wants to attract international guests to its property, needs to enhance its infrastructure and services to match the global standards.

This could be done in two ways:

• Offer facilities to cater to different/diverse travel segments

Hotels need to cater to diverse travel segments such as work travelers, leisure seekers, cultural enthusiasts, reward hunters, etc. Facilities should be offered accordingly. There should be work meeting and conference spaces for corporate or work travelers. Cultural events, tours, and packages for the ones in pursuit of cultural exploration. Similarly, there should be wellness and spa sessions for those seeking simplicity and relaxation.

More importantly, the staff should be multi-lingual to help international tourists communicate without any language barriers and feel comfortable and not undervalued. Furthermore, partner with local guides and offer one to international tourists for ease of exploration, whenever required.

Thus, the property and services offered should mirror the desire to host/serve international guests.

• Provide easy-to-read maps

A digital or physical map of local attractions or events would make the guest's journey smooth and prevent them from getting lost due to language barriers.

4. Market brand and relevant events to the audience

Marketing is essential for any business seeking growth and expansion. To access and penetrate different national as well as international markets, a hotel needs to have its marketing game on point.

Apart from brand awareness, marketing helps to communicate the latest deals, offers, packages, and events happening at the property and entices people to redeem and experience them. Hotel marketing is a powerful tool in driving sales and revenue.

A hotel can hold multiple events that would interest travelers looking to explore local culture and indulgences. A hotel can organize food festivals, highlight the local delicacies, or tour local attractions for historical and cultural exploration. It can further interest sustainability-driven guests in some nature treks or tours to gardens.

Furthermore, for art connoisseurs and admirers, hotels could hold art exhibitions. The European countries, for example, consume a lot of wine and cheese. Thus, hotels could organize tours to wineries or wine tastings for tourists from France, Italy, or other European country natives.

Identifying the target audience would help a hotel decide on the relevant events and marketing would further help them to spread awareness around such events and attract the right audience.

Thus, to ensure that the latest gets communicated to the target audience, a hotel must have an active social media and online presence, especially to attract international tourists and consider the following:

• PPC and social media ads

PPC and social media marketing ads should be run using the right keywords. If the audience belongs to South Africa or Portugal, then the keywords used by travelers of this country while searching should be targeted. This enhances brand visibility for the right people.

Further, this would bring the viewer to your website landing page optimized for the specific regions (in their language). For social media ads as well, do not keep any language restrictions for content. Create the same ads in the targeted languages. All this helps to boost the conversion rates.

• Presence on prominent OTAs

The presence and visibility of a hotel on popular OTAs play a major role in business sales and revenue. These websites are visited by millions of tourists across the globe to book their flights and accommodation.

Identifying the ones that your target audience uses the most is the first step in leveraging these platforms. This is one of the best strategies to attract international travelers to your hotel property. Listing out the property, with attractive packages and deals, in the targeted geographies will help a hotel catch the attention of the right people.

While this is an effective way to attract foreign tourists to your property, a hotel must have a smart cloud-based Hotel PMS connected to the channel manager to avoid cases of overbooking or multiple bookings.

A hotel could leverage products like BOTSHOT’s ‘Hotel in a Box’ that offer a smart PMS with a channel manager to update the rate and inventory across multiple channels in real time, among other things.

Complete Hotel Management Solution - ‘Hotel in a box’

In addition, hotels must stay connected with global distribution systems or GDSs to receive bookings from travel agents physically operating in the targeted states.

• Partner with different international websites/companies

Partnering with global websites and showcasing and promoting your destination is a great way to attract foreign tourists. Hotels could reach out to travel bloggers, or websites of the targeted countries and leverage their trusted image and audience base to attract international travelers.

Travel bloggers or influencers could be invited to the property for a stay and reviews could be collected for more global recognition and a better brand image. Similarly, local publications could be contacted for articles/mentions and attract international traffic.

Post following these points, it is extremely important for the hotels to add a booking engine on the website so that the marketing-driven traffic can book their spots or stay, seamlessly. With super hectic schedules and short attention spans, a hotel would not want to make potential guests struggle to book.

A website booking engine also allows hotels to boost direct bookings, save the OTA commission, and increase revenue.

5. Focus on repeat business activities

Putting efforts for repeat business is always a good idea for any business. Therefore, hotels must focus on repeat business from international tourists as well.

Entice travelers with promotional offers and discounts, reminding them of the lovely time spent back at your property and how this time they could enjoy the same at lesser prices or with some added services/amenities.

People love to feel special and remembered. Thus, send them targeted marketing campaigns and offer upgrades or free amenities/services to the most loyal ones.

Conclusion

These were some of the tips and tricks for hotels to attract international tourists or travelers to their property/hotel. It isn’t easy to entice guests to spend big bucks and stay at the property, and even harder with international guests when there are fundamental differences in culture and languages.

However, hotels just need to enhance their services, revamp their websites, and diversify and strengthen their marketing game, and voila, the hotel lobby will be brimming with guests who have chosen to cross borders to explore your city and stay at your property.