Richard Hatter FIH, Chair of IoH Hong Kong Branch and General Manager of Hotel ICON gives us 10 marketing measures to reach local travellers
The past year for every hotelier has been all about tactics and keeping connected to as many customers as possible in as many ways as possible. In Hong Kong, like so many other destinations, we adapted our marketing to reach our own city’s travellers. In some ways the situation we faced has similarities with out of season drops in visitors, when strategy changes and inevitably means we re-examine our target audiences and activity.
Here are ten measures we have followed at ICON:
- Think like a local citizen (and in the short term) to help craft F&B activities and offers and an overall customer experience that reflect the core values of the brand.
- Take time out to look closely at the guests visiting your hotel and tailor packages and promotions around that culture. Be prepared to adjust rapidly and switch markets by close demographic research, in depth analysis of data and creative packaging of new products and offers. Reward loyalty.
- Re-think event venues which cannot be hired. We turned our event space into a cinema for children and served popcorn during the Christmas holidays for example.
- Increase brand affinity by empowering staff and encouraging them to use the hotel with friends and family. They are your brand’s most effective communication channel.
- Utilize any redundant space for holding free activities for the public that require little manning, or plan activities that make us of in-house expertise and are paid for. As one example, we launched a Wagyu beef brunch over multiple weekends when our banqueting business slowed down, which helped us build additional revenue and gave our guests more options for dining.
- Monitor local media – newspapers, websites and social channels which are popular with the local community and list local events. We advertised our long stay package through our local free newspaper at HK$20,000 and received $90,000 revenue in return.
- Add keywords and trackers to social listening tools to monitor activity and then adjust plans according to any key insights. At the same time monitoring competitors gives you a sense of any trend, although keep packages relevant and unique to your brand. Test and negotiate emerging local booking channels and platforms and embrace new approaches to MARCOMS to match market trend insights.
- Proactively communicate all safety/hygiene measures taken and in place to attract and retain customers. This is a must. Make it the top of the list!
- Allocate budgets for marketing that maintain the customer relationship as well as drive demand and revenue.
- Think about value added packages (value is felt as much as it is seen) and encourage loyalty through relevant programs and communication with guests offering tailored experiences.
If ever there has been a period where hands on leadership and experiential creativity was needed this has been it. Sometimes an entrepreneurial spirit is just what’s needed to weather a storm, but without doubt an emphasis on people and working together as a strong team, allowing for freedom of thought, flexibility, open discussion and a flat structure is vital. Treating senior division heads as ‘experts’ in their field allows them to grow.
Pouring over numbers and data for tactical answers should not be deemed more important than imagination and empathy because it these things that build a vision. We often crave reassurance of best practice or spreadsheets but finding the confidence to understand the wonder of progress that comes from the debate of diverse minds is less easy. Yet our world is about people. If we understand them and know how to reach them, business will come.
The crisis we have all faced this past year has truly been something different with many distinct changes still to be faced. The function of marketing has never been more important as we recover, with these three things at that core: Trust. Values. Action.
