Let’s explore how hospitality & travel consumer behaviours have changed since the start of the pandemic and lay out some of the steps your hotel can take now to adapt to the new landscape.
The rapid, revolutionary changes occurring across society as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped consumer behaviour. Social distancing, travel restrictions and lockdowns, and the shift to remote work have changed the way people work and live. Time will tell whether these changes are only temporary or will impact long-term consumer behaviour. However, hoteliers must now by hyper-focused on evolving guest needs—and prepare to meet them—in order to secure bookings in a disrupted market.
Who a hotel’s guests are and why they are traveling may not be the same as before, which is a great opportunity for a hotel to rethink its offerings and create different experiences to attract new business. Let’s explore how hospitality & travel consumer behaviours have changed since the start of the pandemic and lay out some of the steps your hotel can take now to adapt to the new landscape.
1) The digital world is more important than ever
Social isolation measures associated with the pandemic led to an acceleration of usage and comfort with digital technologies across all demographics.
The first half of 2020 saw an increase in e-commerce equivalent to that of the previous ten years. From shopping to interacting socially, the online world has never been busier or more relied upon.
As a result, todays digitally savvy travellers are doing more research, on more online booking platforms, before booking hotel rooms—without the help of a travel agent. When booking a hotel, travellers are likely to be influenced by peer-reviewed online posts and trip advisory reviews, all of which offer the ability to hear from other guests about their firsthand experiences with a property. This feedback can relate to the service, brand, product or even the perceived value of a hotel.
To improve a hotel’s online reputation and harness peer reviews that actively promote the property as a desirable location to stay, hoteliers may consider enacting customer advocacy programmes that motivate guests to share their experiences online by offering them rewards or discounts on future bookings, or the chance to win a free stay.
These incentives help to encourage guests with positive experiences to share their opinions of the hotel online and that in turn can influence online millennial travellers to become future guests. Chatbot and instant messaging capabilities also allow guests and a hotel’s customer service team to interact in real-time so any unpleasant incidents can be directly addressed to prevent negative experiences and potentially harmful online reviews.
2) Travel is less frequent, more of an indulgence
Prior to COVID-19, booking accommodation associated with work or leisure travel was a routine, almost mundane task. Nothing out of the ordinary.
However, with travel restrictions in place and even lockdowns in some destinations, the frequency and reason for people staying out-of-home changed.
People turned to hotels to offer an escape from their own residence (often through a city-break close to where they live), a chance to experience something different and be pampered.
For hotels this presents an opportunity to sell higher category room types or value-added packages. As travellers looked for a luxurious break from their own homes, they often focused on a more feature-based search and selection criteria compared to pre-COVID hotel stays. This translates to less price sensitivity, a desire for rooms with views and special inclusions at a minimum. Part of any hotel’s forward planning should therefore include a review of display orders (with the most popular products displayed upfront) and content across all channels and of course their own booking engine on their website (i.e., lead with superior or suite products rather than entry-level rooms).
3) Micro-travel is rising
Analysing booking trends over the past two years has shown a rise in micro-travel (or short-distance travel), often within a three-to-four-hour drive of a guest’s primary place of residence. Operators of caravan and holiday parks have seen a growth in bookings compared to major city-based hotels.
Additionally, eco-lodges or boutique properties in rural areas, smaller towns, or those coastally based are also benefiting from higher levels of demand due to a guest’s desire to escape crowded spaces.
To promote accommodation offers to micro-travellers, direct promotion with tailored campaigns can be effective. Location-based campaigns focused on people who live within three to four hours of the property is a relatively simple advertising option through major social media platforms, as is targeting people based on the pages they already like nearby. For example, if many people have ‘liked’ a tourist attraction, marketing can target them with a package to come visit again. Plus, knowing they already enjoy the area, many people may feel safer going somewhere they know.
4) Booking windows are shrinking
The booking behaviour of guests has significantly shifted over the last two years. Shorter booking windows of zero to seven days became more common with many travellers reluctant to book far in advance in case their plans get interrupted by future travel restrictions or quarantine requirements. As a result, hotels must have the ability to switch their strategy and pricing swiftly to adapt to the changing market conditions. An advanced revenue management system (RMS) can help hoteliers analyse a rapidly evolving, competitive market through rate shopping and booking patterns.
5) Consumers return to brands they trust
In times of uncertainty, people’s tolerance to risk is often reduced. Travellers return to what they know and trust, which can extend to hotels and brands of accommodation. As a result, hoteliers should focus on attracting business from those people who know and trust the property already: past guests and loyalty club members. These potential guests are likely to already have a degree of understanding of a property’s physical attributes and confidence in the hotel’s management to provide a safe and enjoyable stay, which is all important in a disrupted market.
The advantage of targeting return guests as part of any hotel promotional efforts is also that outreach and engagement of this segment can be undertaken in a cost-effective manner. Email marketing allows hotels to communicate with their past guests at specific times throughout the customer journey, such as prior to arrival, during their stay and after checking out. Additionally, hotels have valuable insights (and data) on their past guests, which means they can send specific messaging to these individuals (promote incentives such as welcome-back packages and special offers) to drive direct bookings.
For more information on how your hotel can attract business from guests in an evolving market, please visit: www.ideas.com
Written by: Tracy Dong, Principal Industry Consultant, IDeaS
The views expressed in this article are an opinion only and readers should rely on their independent advice in relation to such matters.
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