Sales, Marketing and Digital Strategy in the Hotel Industry

2015 sits at an important juncture in business history. Digital spend has finally tipped, and now accounts for over half the consumer spend in many UK sectors.

The time has come for hoteliers to stop thinking of digital as something separate to marketing.

Our hotel experts discuss their own sales and marketing strategies for 2015, and reveal themes that are consistent across the hotel sector.

FOCUS ON SALES IN 2015

Stewart Campbell, MD, Redefine BDL Hotels
In terms of sales, 2014 has been a successful year, and we hope to replicate this in the coming 12 months. In the last 12 months, 95% of all our hotels have achieved more than their budgeted sales targets for their owners.

Employee turnover across the sales support team has been 0%, and for hotel sales teams runs at less than 25%.

Our central team of sales specialists will continue to deliver a ‘best in class’ service via three key principles:

1. Driving sales culture
2. Brand engagement
3. Training & development

We have committed to delivering sales induction programmes to develop all new starts on key sales principles, as well as engaging in ‘train the trainer’ programmes. This will ensure consistency in terms of working in accordance with the company’s values.

Quarterly regional communications meetings and our annual sales conference will support the 75-plus sales individuals across all hotels to achieve their sales targets.

We also have to think creatively in terms of developing market share for our hotel owners, e.g. due to a lack of branded leisure opportunities, we grew our leisure team to engage in the domestic coach market – ultimately increasing our weekend occupancy by more than 10% over a two year period. This approach will continue into 2015.

David Vaughton, Director of Venues, EEF Venues
As specialist meetings and conference venues, we tailor our services to the needs of the business client so our core target market is the business and industry sector.

Our business growth is driven by customer service excellence and supported by a comprehensive marketing & communications strategy including telesales, SEO-driven website lead generation, direct mail, social media channels and a targeted media relations campaign.

Our highly pro-active and targeted telesales approach will continue to focus on relationship building and is aimed at two distinct sectors: Corporate and Agency, each cultivated by a dedicated sales executive.

Social media influence on buyer selections and preferences will grow so we will continue to embrace the social media channels that work for us. The power of multi-channel marketing will increase to connect with people 

Source: http://www.hotel-industry.co.uk/2015/05/sales-marketing-and-digital-strategy-in-the-hotel-industry/