What are hotels investing in for 2018?

With budget season around the corner, our friends at SiteMinder surveyed hoteliers to find out what’s most top of mind when it comes to allocating spend for the next 12 months. So, what’s the verdict?

Most effective ways to drive traffic

57% of hoteliers believe search engines like Google will be the best ways to drive traffic.

While only 56% of hoteliers believe OTAs are a cost-effective way to drive traffic, 74% of them actively use this method. As one hotelier said, “As a small business, we’re time poor and leave most of it to Booking.com. We wish this could be different.” A necessary evil. Fortunately, as discussed below, tactics like email marketing can turn the profit scale in your favor.

Priority investment areas

Not surprisingly, 68% of hoteliers say hotel renovations are top of mind. These types of upgrades are critical to sustaining the long-term business of your hotel.

61% agree that digital marketing is a top priority in the coming year. According to one hotelier, “We have pretty much abandoned print advertising as the cost is becoming too high. Digital is the way to go.” Digital is tied closely to hotel technology, which is the third investment priority at 56%.

Social media came in lower at only 42%, as successful social media marketing can be done with a low-cost budget.

The least prioritized area of investment is guest-facing technology, such as keyless room entry, which came in at 17%. Main barriers are consumer adoption and cost.

Top challenges: Revenue, differentiation, and distribution

71% feel challenged with finding new and better ways to manage all-important revenue and profit. Macro industry pressures like OTAs and sharing economy are forcing hotels to adapt to find growth.

Differentiation in the face of increased competition occupies 68% of hoteliers’ minds. As one surveyed hotelier stated, “Our biggest challenge is the explosion of the hotel market in our area. New availability means new competition.” Leverage your online reviews and guest surveys to focus on what makes your hotel stand out.

Channel management came in third as an anticipated challenge (52%), as the cost of distribution continues to rise.  To make matters worse, other hotel costs like labor continue to increase as well. To combat this challenge, focus heavily on your controllable costs, like how much business you outsource to OTAs.

Key success factors

Guest personalization tops the list (78%), followed by brand image (67%) and revenue management strategy (55%).

When it comes to personalization, leverage your data and technology. “Technology allows for much more accurate analysis, with data quickly becoming one of the most valuable assets available for hoteliers,” says a hotelier from SiteMinder’s research.

Execution is key. For example, with Revinate Marketing, we collect and store all your important guest data in one place, which you can use to segment your audiences to send more relevant, personalized emails. This way, you’re in charge of the guest experience from pre-arrival to post-stay and beyond.

The right email marketing solution can also help you stay on-brand in guest communications. Watch our customer story with Hotel Emma to see how they use Revinate Marketing to promote their unique brand and product.

Last but not least, revenue attribution lets you see which campaigns are driving the most revenue and ROI.

Email Marketing ROI with Revinate

To quantify the impact of email marketing on revenue and ROI, we crunched our own customer data from 2017. The results are in…

Overall

Email marketing drives significant return on investment. 47% of Revinate’s global customers are making 10x ROI, and 77% are making at least 3x ROI.

Some regions skew even higher. In North America, 60% of customers are making 10x ROI, and 23% of customers are over 40x ROI!

Hotel Groups

Revinate is built specifically for portfolios of hotels. With our centralized marketing capabilities, 59% of our hotel group customers enjoy an ROI over 7x.

A “hybrid” strategy is particularly effective, with which hotels send both corporate- and property-level campaigns. In fact, 86% of groups employing this strategy see an ROI above 7x.

Independent Hotels

Property-level campaigns are also generating notable results on their own, with 47% of individual properties seeing 10x+ return.

Increase Hotel Revenue With Email Marketing

That’s a wrap! We hope this roundup helps you better prepare for your upcoming investment decisions.

If you’re not already using Revinate to increase direct bookings with smarter email marketing, please reach out to learn more. We’re always here to chat!