Top 5 Hotel Marketing Strategies and Ideas for 2024

Marketing is a huge deciding factor in any business’s success or failure. Right marketing strategies can take a business to new heights while bad ones make it fade away. This is especially true for a consumer-facing business such as hotels. '

Hotel marketing Strategies play a crucial role in attracting the target audience and bringing them to the property.  

Marketing is what helps a hotel build its online and offline reputation and build a loyal guest army, among other things. Thus, since hotel marketing strategy is an indispensable part of its existence and success, this blog will list the top hotel marketing ideas and strategies.  

Top 5 hotel marketing strategies

With cities again filled with travelers and tourists, hotels and other hospitality businesses should be well-prepared to attract maximum guests due to the high competition that exists in the hospitality industry.  

In fact, flight travel is predicted to reach over 85% of 2019 levels throughout 2024. This is the time when the hospitality industry could make up for the lost time and capitalize on the increased demand.  

Thus, implementing the right marketing strategies is important now more than ever. It would allow hotels to attract some new audiences and incentivize the old ones. Let’s look at some of the most effective hotel marketing strategies for 2024.  

The top hotel marketing strategies are: 

• Short-form video marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Website optimization
• Online reputation management
• Curated offers and packages

1. Short-form video marketing 

Video content is easier to absorb, and the virtual elements have a higher impact on the human brain. Short video platforms such as TikTok, Instagram reels, etc., have gained a lot of popularity in recent times. These videos are short, crisp, engaging, and impactful.  

A reel maker online can be your key tool to craft stunning Instagram reels, allowing you to beautifully showcase your hotel's distinctive features and luxurious amenities.

In fact, 90% of marketers already using short-form videos said in a survey that they will maintain or increase their investment in 2024. Since contemporary travelers leverage the internet and multiple social media platforms, OTAs, and websites for travel planning and booking, hotels should not miss out on the benefits of short-form video marketing. 

Statistics confirm our point as about 72% of customers said during a survey that they would rather learn about products and services through video than any other format. Thus, one of the topmost hotel marketing strategies is video marketing with 21% of marketers planning to use it in 2024.  

Furthermore, virtual tours are also proving to be a revolutionary technology allowing guests to check out the property first and then make an informed decision. It is another powerful virtual tool that helps a hotel earn informed and loyal guests.  

A study states that Virtual Reality invokes positive feelings for a travel destination, while another says that it has a strong potential to gain a guest’s trust.  

Thus, virtual tours take website visitors on a mental journey through your hotel and finish it up right at the booking engine tab and that is why it has made it to the top 5 hotel marketing ideas list.  

2. Influencer marketing 

Influencer marketing has been an old, yet effective hotel marketing strategy that’s making strides in the last few years. Influencers have an already established audience with a built trust, that could be leveraged by the hotel for its marketing hence allowing it to reach out to a fresh batch of people.  

In fact, 89% of marketers who have worked with influencers plan to maintain or increase their investment in influencer marketing in 2024.

Hotels should specifically focus on micro and nano influencers. They have a more reliable, and authentic image and reachable local audience. Additionally, they are more cost-effective and affordable.  

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

A website could be primarily optimized through SEO. Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a highly rewarding marketing practice that allows a hotel to boost its website visibility and search engine rankings and offer visitors readable, relevant, and easily digestible content.  

Google, for example, handles more than 90% of all global search engine queries. SEO would help a hotel to rank or be visible in the top searches on Google, following the latter’s rules and regulations for optimization.  

Thus, SEO brings more traffic to a hotel’s website, by placing it higher in the search engine rankings, allowing visitors to spot it first and get all the relevant information in a precise manner. This leads to enhanced conversion rates, direct bookings, brand awareness, and building.  

Some SEO tips include: 

• Keeping the website content relevant, short, and updated. In fact,
• 62% of the travelers cite accuracy of the content as one of the topmost reasons to visit a website.
• Content should be further categorized carefully into headings and subheadings, with important headings appearing on the main page, making the content easier to absorb and the website, more navigable.  
• Add keywords most relevant to your website’s services for higher search engine rankings.  
• There should be visual effects to catch the attention of the visitor.  
• The images added should be converted from PNG to reduce the loading time.  
• Unique page titles and metadata should be created for every single website page. A site map should be added to the website for better user navigation.  

Besides SEO, a website should also be optimized for mobile. In fact, 44% of travelers used mobile devices to make online bookings in 2022, with 70% of travelers researching using them for research as well.

Therefore, a website should be mobile-friendly. It should be a responsive website that adjusts to every screen and pixel requirement for a super user experience.  

BOTSHOT CreateWith, primarily a smart website builder, helps hotels create a website that is SEO- and mobile-friendly. 

4. Online reputation management 

Hotel reputation management is extremely important for a hotel to build a positive hotel image that attracts potential guests and retains old ones. Almost all the major surveys highlight the importance of positive reviews and high ratings on OTAs and review platforms. In fact, one of these surveys highlights that 1% of travelers read through online reviews before making a booking and 71% of them said that reviews influence their decision-making.  

Search engines such as Google also have a section for reviews, and these reviews are added to their ranking criteria as well. In fact, online reviews account for around 15% of SEO ranking credit. These reviews are being rapidly added to the metasearch platforms from sources such as Google and TripAdvisor. As a result, they have a tremendous impact on click numbers as well as conversion rates. 

Online reputation management also includes proper handling of social media accounts, with active engagement through comment replies, and posting of relevant and interactive content.  

Hotels, thus, need to prioritize online reputation management, especially through online reviews and ratings. Ask for reviews without fail and reply to every review, whether positive or negative with politeness and professionalism.

5. Curated offers and packages 

Customized offers, packages, and deals are simple pleasures that every guest tends to enjoy and appreciate. It adds a hint of personalization to their travel experience and hence, is sought again and again.  

Hotels should work on curating personalized offers and vacation packages for their guests through guest data collection and analytics. These packages could include offers such as room upgrades, spa and wellness treatments, free meals, etc.  

Additionally, by bringing in hotel subscription models for a particular type of traveler, or by creating different hotel packages, guests are offered exactly what they need and even more with the latter. This helps the hotel earn loyal guests who feel valued by the hotel through these small personalization practices.  

These packages could be marketed through email/WhatsApp marketing, social media accounts, etc.  

And BOTSHOT could help a hotel do that. Our eMark-IT, a 360-degrees hotel marketing tool or software for hotel marketing, allows a hotel to create and manage its marketing campaigns, effectively and efficiently. 

With eMark-IT, hotels could send curate and send the relevant marketing campaigns to its targeted audience, through email and WhatsApp marketing, boosting sales and hotel revenue.

Conclusion

The above-mentioned hotel marketing strategies could really help a hotel most with its visibility, sales, and hence, revenue in 2024. As more and more travelers are using the internet to research and plan their travel, hotels need to have adequate online presence and influence.  

Websites should be optimized for search engines as well as mobile devices to boost visibility as well as direct bookings. The hotel needs to further strengthen its digital marketing strategies and efforts through influence marketing, which amounts to influencing an already built audience base, rather than creating one from scratch and online reputation management.  

Although digital marketing is gaining a lot of popularity in this technology-driven era, traditional hotel marketing techniques such as email marketing and creating offers and packages, still hold importance and their old-world charm.  

Hotels, thus need to balance their digital marketing as well as offline marketing efforts in 2024!