Boost Your Accommodation Establishment’s Post-COVID Recovery Plan

Across the world, tourism is struggling with its most difficult challenges ever. Apart from travel restrictions and devastating staff losses, there are new procedures and protocols to abide by as well as extra sanitization chores.

It’s all taking place against the background of rapidly diminishing reserves but there are always silver linings and opportunities to be found in challenging times. Here’s what you can do to help your accommodation establishment bounce back faster post-COVID.

Embrace Online Marketing

Now’s the time to embrace online marketing like never before. During enforced stay-at-home orders and lockdowns, people had nowhere to go but online. Experts estimate that the pandemic has advanced the move toward online by about ten years. This means your customers are engaging with the internet more than ever.

They’re using it to research their next holiday, book accommodation, and for online shopping. If you don’t have a website yet, you need one right now. If you do have one, you should spend as much time as you can updating and upgrading it.

Work on your SEO – If you don’t know about SEO by now you should research it online or get an expert to help you optimize your website fast. SEO helps the search engines to find your pages during customer search queries and that makes it one of the most important aspects of marketing today.
Update your images – Take new ones or enhance the ones you have. People love vivid imagery; it helps them imagine the experiences available at your establishment.
Videos – Another great way to showcase your resorts is with videos that show onsite activities and nearby attractions in an appealing way. You can use video on your website and social media to attract views and potential guests.
Update your website information – Make sure that your rates and special offers are up to date.
Invest in a good online booking engine –  Customers can deal directly with you instead of OTA’s. This might stretch your budget a little but it’s one of the easiest ways to maximize your profits during this difficult time.
Start blogging – Blogs are an excellent way to keep your website active, use SEO to attract more online visitors and showcase the appeal of your accommodation establishment. Right now, people are sitting at home dreaming of their next holiday, let them find you first during their online searches.
Consider paid online advertising – Search and display ads have always been an important part of online marketing and they’re bound to stay that way.

Put Technology to Work For You

During this time of operating with limited team members, chatbots are one of the handiest tech innovations ever. These helpful add-ons to your website can handle most basic queries, after some initial training, without any human intervention.

Studies show that the quicker you respond to a query, the better your chances of securing a booking. Chatbots are available around the clock to give your potential customers the service they expect. It’s vital to ensure your chatbot is integrated with all your online booking systems so it can adjust your rates according to your seasonal preferences and occupancy levels.

Use online tools such as yield management software which, if integrated well with your other systems, will allow your rates to fluctuate based on your occupancy and without operator intervention.

Create benchmarks for yourself and measure your progress. You won’t know what you’re doing wrong (or right) without analytics to guide you.

Even better, latest technology allows you to make use of free software such as Bench Direct, from The Hotels Network. This ground breaking tool, helps you track your performance against that of your competitors, so you can instantly pick up which areas need improvement and stay ahead of the pack.

Upgrade your Wi-Fi so that’s it in line with modern-day expectations too.

Use This Time Wisely

While things are quiet in your resort, make use of this time to improve your guest amenities and service.

Take time to pamper your guests and offer exceptionally personalized service that they’ll want to tell their friends about. Then encourage them to write reviews about their great experiences.

These online recommendations go a long way toward encouraging more guests to visit your accommodation establishment and can help to fill your rooms faster once people are free to travel safely again.

Get Creative With Specials

The last thing you want to do right now is drop your rates, but there are other ways to outpace the competition with desirable offers.

• Short notice changes to Covid-related travel restrictions have led to a sharp increase in last minute bookings. Incentivize last minute bookings at your establishment by running a last minute booking special.
• Encourage guests to stay for longer by offering discounts for longer stays. For example: “buy 2 get 1 free” or “book 2 and get 40% off” offers. These types of long stay discounts can go a long way in helping to boost occupancy.
• Consider running special offers on value-added services like a cleverly costed free breakfast or spa treatment.
• Work with other providers in your area, like game reserves or museums to get discounted rates for your guests.
• Offer a small discount or extra benefits, like free Wi-Fi, to guests who book directly on your website.
• Advertise your special offers like crazy across your social media channels, on your website and with pay-per-click advertising.
• Make sure you have clearly visible ‘book now’ buttons wherever you can fit them in.

If you don’t have a loyalty program for returning guests, implement one now! It’s the best way to turn new customers into repeat business. For instance, a free night’s accommodation on their next visit is a good way to get them to choose you first the next time they’re in the area.

Are You Ready to Move On?

It’s been a long hard struggle for accommodation providers to make it this far, so there’s no point in giving up now. Use these tips to inspire you to new heights in your marketing and as a roadmap for your ultimate recovery.

If you need any help masterminding your online marketing efforts, our expert team of marketers will gladly assist. Get in touch today and get on track with your post-COVID recovery plan.