Holidays and Demand Generators

If you’re looking to drive hotel demand, we suggest you keep a calendar handy. Many hoteliers are starting to successfully use smaller holidays and events to drive bookings, as Kristina Haga shares in Revinate’s email marketing certification course. Kristina is a senior hospitality marketing specialist at Revinate and she works with hoteliers every day to help them drive bookings through email marketing.

In lesson three of the course, she shares some great real-life industry examples of holiday campaigns that you can leverage to drive engagement. We know you likely already have New Years and Mothers Day covered, so in this lesson she focuses on Black Friday, Fathers Day, Leap Day, National Chocolate Cake Day and other less-celebrated events.

Let’s take a look at a sample Black Friday email. Black Friday used to be used exclusively by retail brands but lately hoteliers around the world are getting in on the action. Why should retail have all the fun? This year’s Black Friday is sure to be a big one as many consumers have been hunkered down and not spending as much money as usual due to shelter-in-place regulations and store closures.

We love this Yotel email campaign because it’s short, sweet, exclusive and on brand. The CTA makes it clear that this offer is only good for a short period. Urgency is a great way to drive bookings and that’s what Black Friday is all about.

It only comes around every four years but Leap Year is a fun promotional opportunity for hoteliers. Mark your campaign calendar for 2024 and leverage the creative work of the Thompson Hotel, which offers guests 29% off for 29 hours for anyone that books before May 29th. 

This campaign is a great example of having fun with an event and finding a way to add some urgency to the offer. While most people don’t typically celebrate Leap Year, it’s a great marketing vehicle and reason to reach out. Other examples are Pie Day, the first Day of Summer and May 4th. (May the fourth be with you.)

So grab a calendar and find local and national events that you want to celebrate with guests. Create a campaign calendar so you can see how the promotions are spread out over the year. To make it less intimidating, Kristina suggests determining the topic, subject line and messaging in advance, so it’s not overwhelming when the holiday approaches.

For more tips, best practices and campaign examples, spend 10 minutes by reviewing her lesson in Revinate’s email certification course.