In the industry of hotel business, hotel owners use many different strategies to sell their hotel rooms. One that is commonly used is travel guides. Of all hotel marketing strategies, why do travel guides play an important role? Let’s find out below.

Hotels go together with travels. Guests book hotels during their travels, given that they don’t have any other place to stay while they’re away from home. Naturally, not all guests travel for the sake of leisure travel. Others simply travel for work or business purposes. Regardless of their purpose, they will need travel guides, especially if they’re unfamiliar with the place.

This is the reason why integrating travel guides to your hotel website is important. Nowadays, people look for answers on the internet. This goes the same for travelers. If they’re not sure about which way to go, they’d ask the internet. Now, if you prepare travel guides for these puzzled travelers, accessible on the internet, they will find you. And most probably, they would return the favor. They will choose you.

Functions of a Travel Guide for a Hotel Business

Not all travel guides are created with the same purpose. In a hotel website, the main objective of a travel guide is to guide travelers and to sell rooms at the same time. 

Achieving the objectives will not be easy. To achieve them, you will need to have a marketing plan that represents the base of your business strategy.

How to Come Up with an Effective Marketing Plan

You already know the main objectives of travel guides to your hotel business. The next thing that you want to do is to plot a marketing plan on how you’re going to achieve these objectives. It is not recommendable to spend much of your time on matters such as theoretical working. If you really want to achieve your objectives, you will need to integrate a marketing plan into your day to day operations.

Would you want to come up with the objectives of the marketing plan? Would you want to come up with a clear and effective business strategy? If yes, make sure you have answers to the following questions.

• Who are your guests?
• Which advantages do you offer?
• What is your philosophy?
• What are your points of weaknesses, strengths, and opportunities?
• How are you different from your competitors?

If you have correct answers to these questions, write down the objectives of the marketing strategy. It is also important to define a target to be reached after a certain period of time. You may decide to increase the number of direct bookings from the website of your hotel. You can do this by either installing a Booking Engine or by improving your website.

Marketing Mix and The 4P

If you really want to succeed, make sure that you always remember the 4P of the marketing mix, which refers to the base of the marketing, identified in the ’60 by a person known as Philip Kotler. The 4P of marketing mix represents fundamental elements that every good marketing strategy must have. Here they are:

1. Point of sale
2. Price
3. Promotion
4. Product

What is the purpose of knowing these marketing bases? These are important because they can guide you in creating your plan. There are many different factors that you need to consider when creating a marketing place, and these four sum them up, simplifying concepts for you to be able to grasp.

Find Out All the Helpful Gears for Your Marketing

For you to pursue your strategy, you need to know which tools to use when coming up with a marketing plan. A few examples are provided below.

• Contacts proliferation
• Email marketing purchase
• Online advertisement
• Content marketing
• Social Media Marketing

It is always important to let your collaborators know more about the marketing plan. They will not only provide you with helpful information, but they will also help you see and feel part of the project.

The Power of Integrating a Booking Engine

As said, there are many different marketing strategies that you can use to be able to make your business successful. Regardless of the strategy that you choose, it’s ideal to integrate a booking engine in your website. After all, it’s one of the fundamental elements that a hotel website must have. Want to give it a try? Call us now and enjoy a free quote.