As a company you wouldn't like to be left behind, struggling, picking up the crumbs left by your competitors. The hotel business is a strategic one. WHY. It's lucrative, it's interesting, It's social impact is high, the benefits are high when the business is well grounded. There are a couple of things to keep in mind while creating your business plan, "Don't run from your competitors, keep a very close eye on them, familiarize with them, keep them very close to you."
There are 5 things your competitors can teach you about your hotel business
1. Websites
Check your competitor's websites, what makes them sell more, why do they have so much traffic to their site for online bookings and so on. Check the layout of their site, do they have a blog for customer interaction, how do they run it. How did they lay their gallery, compare them to your site picture quality, you will definitely see one of the reasons why they sell more.
2. Social Media
We are at the peak of technology where social media is used for every business, it strikes me when some hotel business don't understand how the social media works. Check your competitors activities on social media, hoe do people respond to them, how do they make use of it to advertise their business without spending a penny. learn how to drive traffic to your hotel business through social media, communicate with people around the world through it, post everyday on this platform by instructing a trained personnel to run it effectively, train your staff on how to share posts made on your hotel with friends on their social media. Is your hotel business on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, tumblr, Pinterest, Quora, Flipboard? Check what your competitors are doing with them and how they are getting more guests than you are.
3. Learn From Competitors Mistakes
There will always be a loophole somewhere. What are the mistakes your competitors are making, why do they loose a few guests. Once you find out what it is, improve on it and implement it into your facility. You already have other tools in place such as the functional website and social media to get your business out there and the big name you have created for yourself. Be a better contributor to your community with your hotel business, when people here about your good image, they help you advertise your business with word of mouth.
4. Search Engines
What keywords do you type to see your competitors at the top of the google page, type a keyword to search for your own hotel, if it's not at the top or among those at the top, then it's time for you to work on the SEO. Run adverts on the google ad sense, use google business to optimize your business, send your hotel details to online hotel booking platforms which your competitors are obviously doing. Update your local pages to drive your hotel business worldwide.
5. Optimise Response Rate
Their are lots of customers out there searching for hotels to book into or make use of their services, most times they do random visits to the hotel or calls to their phone desk, they would rather call back the hotel that responded to them faster and in a very polite way. Customers like to be identified with, they love to be well attended to. How does your staff respond to customer enquiries and how fast, so that they won't end up in your competitors hotel. How fast do your competitors respond to online hotel reviews compared to your hotel. How fast do you respond to customer emails and submissions, online bookings, phone call reservation follow up. Don't make them change their minds or loose interest in your hotel because your competitor is on the look out for them.
Image Credit: Pixabay
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