So you’re on lockdown, or you’ve been asked to shelter in place, what now? These are trying times to be a hotelier. But, even when the chips are down, there are still some revenue-generating strategies that you can employ to make the best of a bad situation. More than anything, you want to keep an eye on the long-term so you can be positioned to succeed when things turn around (and they will). In this blog, we have 5 tips for hotels facing a lockdown:

WFH = Work From Hotel?

Working from home may be the new norm—at least for a while. And as anyone with kids knows, it can be very difficult to get work done when the whole family is home. So why not help these telecommuters while also filling some of your vacancies. Let locals rent a room for the day or week to get work done “from home”. The Alexander Hotels did a great job of this with their ‘work from hotel’ offer. While this strategy won’t work in all regions, for many markets, this may be a great way to drum up business while helping local workers.

No Expiration (dates)

Just because people are locked inside doesn’t mean they aren’t still dreaming of a holiday. They certainly haven’t stopped online shopping. One way to help drive cash into the hotel is to create gift card offers that guests can redeem later, once things have settled down and travel restrictions are looser. To do this, you would create gift cards with no expiration dates. When guests feel comfortable traveling, they’ll redeem them, but you’ve ensured that they will stay in your hotel.

Turn F&B into Delivery

When you have no guests, the question becomes what to do with your Food and Beverage business? One creative way of leveraging this existing business is to turn it into a delivery/take-out service. Food delivery services are experiencing a boom as restaurants and bars are no longer open to the public. You can offer fixed meals as opposed to a la carte to save on costs and market it to your local database.  Family meals. Cleanliness. Take advantage of a segment of the market that’s doing well to boost your bottom line. 

Market your spa + amenities to locals for staycations.

While the situation is certainly tough for hoteliers, it’s far from hopeless. With some creativity and outside the box thinking, you can help mitigate the effects of this pandemic on your hotel. We hope these ideas will help you succeed.  

You can sell your spa products for at home spa experiences to drive some revenue. Offer gift cards for future treatments, good PR- give messages away to health care providers when it is safe again.  

Clean Your Data, Prepare for the Rebound

One of the most important tasks you can be doing right now, as business is slow,  is to prepare your database so that when the upswing comes, you’re prepared to capture all the pent up demand of a world that’s been stuck inside for months. Hoteliers should be using this time to cleanse their database–a task that’s important, but often gets lost in the day-to-day.  Look for duplicates, clear out non-engaged emails, and make sure it’s as clean as it can be. You should also be creating segments now that you will use later.

For example, you can create a segment for those who’ve canceled due to the pandemic, and later market to them (the wait is over, we’d love to have you back!). 

Soon, Revinate will be rolling out a tool to help keep your database cleaner than ever. More details to come, so stay tuned. 

If you need help or guidance navigating this uncertainty, you can always reach out to our team. Subscribe to our email list for more tips and best practices for hotels facing a lockdown.