The start of each new year brings with it a spate of articles touting the most anticipated and hottest hotel openings for the year ahead, and despite the pandemic, 2021 was no different! Just take a look at this Forbes article and this Conde Nast Traveller article to get a sense for the new offerings flooding the market this year alone.

The hotel landscape looked very different 20 years ago, when there were less offerings, bigger players and clearer differentiation between brands. Today, the market is saturated. And if you factor in the disruption of new entrants, such as Airbnb and the like, it is no surprise that customers struggle when faced with so much choice.

So how do hotels discover, create and maintain their competitive edge? How do they distinguish their offering and add value to guests? How do they remain relevant to today’s consumers? The answer is with a strong and sustainable hotel concept.

A hotel concept is the basis for everything that follows. It’s the foundational idea that defines your hotel’s brand, character, product + services, sales + marketing, and more. It curates a distinctive identity in the market and in the eyes of your clearly-defined target group.

Furthermore, it acts as a strategic and creative outline on how to realise a hotel venture by piecing together various elements (“soft” and “hard” facts) and outlining to all stakeholders HOW your hotel should look and feel and WHY that is.

At MAp, we craft our hotel concepts around the following key elements:

• Purpose: WHY you exist beyond making profit. Read here why defining your purpose beyond making profit will actually make you profit.
• Principles: Your vision, mission and values.
• People: The people you are serving with a solution to their problems, as well as the people you are working/partnering with to make an impact.
• Story: The unique story that you – and only you – are telling in order to emotionally connect with your people.
• Positioning + USPs: What differentiates you in the market.

These constituent pieces, together, form one complete whole, laying the foundation of your hotel project.

Whether you are a hotelier looking to develop a boutique hotel or are part of a hotel group looking to reposition your existing hotels, a clearly-defined and sustainable hotel concept offers many benefits:

• Gives you clarity on the what, how, why
• Aligns your stakeholders around a shared purpose and vision
• Enables you to use resources more efficiently (think time, money, etc.) - but also the resources of our planet
• Makes you stand out from the crowd (as you know what you stand for)
• Creates a better future for your hotel and business, for people and planet

Hotels with strong concepts are able to demand a premium price, provide a coherent guest experience, sell and market themselves smartly, recruit talented staff and a community following, and have a marketable platform when pitching for investors and partners.

Our holistic and end-to-end process for developing hotel concepts consists of the following steps:

1) Concept Discovery: Set the groundwork by looking inwards at your goals, motivations, strengths and weaknesses, and outwards at your competition, the market and innovative trends.

2) Concept Development: Using the insights collected in the Discovery phase, address each of the key elements of your hotel concept in order to define its core idea.

3) Concept Activation: Translate your hotel concept into the operations of your hotel, by applying it to your product + services, brand, and sales + marketing.

4) Concept Implementation: Identify strategic partners and ensure they are aligned and in keeping with the hotel concept, all the way up through (re-)launch.

With a strong hotel concept in place, your hotel stands out from the competition. But more importantly, it stands for something. So before kickstarting any type of hotel project, make sure you first establish what your hotel concept is. As MAp says, “First the concept, then comes the rest.”

In need of some inspiration? Check out our Hotel Concept Trends 2021 blog post.

A few months ago, we came across the following quote by transformational business coach Bill Baren: “Best marketing beats best product EVERY single time!” Please, stop for a moment and savour every single word of this sentence, because grasping the full implication of this statement might have the power to change your business forever.

What do you think is the most important department of any hotel? Is it the food & beverage department, or housekeeping? Who opts for front office and guest services? And no, all departments are equally important isn't an acceptable answer ;-). We no doubt share the same view as you - that in the long run, a hotel can only be successful if every department performs at the highest standard.

That said, we believe that the most important department of a hotel right now is the marketing department. Why? Because without marketing, you have no guests. And without guests, you have no hotel. 

So, to make sure that your great hotel product attracts not just any guest but the right ones, here are our five hotel MArketing MAdvices to increase the performance and success of your marketing approach.

1 – Have a clear concept

“First the concept, then the rest.”
MA people ;-)

A clearly-defined hotel concept, and derived from it, an equally-clear positioning are the basis for everything – the hotel product development, optimisation and innovation; the menu in your restaurant; the amenities you use in your guest rooms; … AND of course, the marketing strategy you follow.

If you and your marketing team are not 100% clear as to what your hotel and hospitality business stands for – how can you decide where to invest your marketing budget? In our opinion, marketing without a clear concept and message is like driving with your eyes closed!

2 – Know your guests

“When the customer comes first, the customer will last.”
Robert Half

At MAp, we always focus on what drives and generates sales and profits – the people (every … single … time). That’s why we place huMAns at the very heart of everything we do. 

If you are in Munich and have set the objective to reach Zurich the same day by car– would you take the highway to Vienna? Pretty obvious answer, we know. However, have you ever noticed how many hotels say they want to reach affluent guests, but then they buy adverts in magazines read by budget travellers? Or what about the family hotel that invites fashion influencers to stay in their hotel and blog about the spa area?

Hotels have the right to invest their budget how, when and where they want. But by being uncompromising in regards to buyer personas, hotels can influence guest satisfaction and profits. We urge you to take the time to define or redefine your buyer personas in detail. You need to know them by heart, where they live, what newspapers and online forums they read, what is important to them, and what social media channels they are using, etc. Also meticulously research what their problem is = the problem that your hotel solves for them. The answer to this last question will be your main marketing and communication message. 

3 – Define a budget

“You cannot be everything to everyone.
If you decide to go north, you cannot go south at the same time.”
Jeroen De Flander

Once you know your basics, it's important to define your budget. How much are you going to spend on marketing activities in the next year? What is the return that you expect? Always remember, setting aside enough budget for your marketing is important: no marketing = no guests, no guests = no business.

Calculate your budget, divide it into different segments (e.g., how much you plan to spend on online marketing activities, print, social media) and act accordingly.

Once you know your budget, it will be easy to set priorities and to say no to random marketing activities that pop up in your email inbox.

4 – Have a strategy

“Hope is not a strategy.”
Vince Lombardi

A strategy is defined as your plan of action to achieve your goals. This implies that before you define your hotel marketing strategy, you have to define your goals. If you are working with a marketing team, include everyone in this process because it is important that everyone involved buys into your goals and works towards them.

Once defined, create your plan accordingly. Is your main priority to fill rooms during low season or to create attractive premium packages for high season to extend the average length of stay? Is the goal to push direct bookings or to strengthen the sales via external partners? As always, the strategy depends on your concept and the defined buyer personas.

5 – Measure, measure, measure!

“If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.”
Peter Drucker

We want to say right here, right now that one of the biggest lies we hear way too often is that you can’t measure marketing. This simply is not true! But many believe this to be the case. You can already gain a competitive advantage by ignoring this, measuring your impact and learning from the results. It helps you to optimise and to pivot; and in the long run, to budget every year more efficiently, generating more returns. 

Measure every single marketing activity that you do: Did we generate more clicks on our website? How many people followed us on Facebook by running the campaign? How many bookings have been made through the advertised special offer booking code?

So what does great marketing look like? Well, here are two examples of recent hospitality marketing campaigns and initiatives that caught our eye. Have you seen any others? 

Know your guests - niche content by SBE & Morgan’s Originals
Morgan’s Originals hotels are specifically targeted to creatives, as it is a "family" of individual hotels that create a surreal fantasy where anything is possible. Originals bring vision and style together with a spirit filled with magic and illusion. Morgan’s Originals use their online blog "Back of House" to build brand authority and awareness with highly-niche content that is specifically targeted to creatives. It’s more a general lifestyle publication than a brand blog, amongst which you’ll find interviews with people in the art, fashion or music industry. 

Measure, measure, measure! - Marriott’s Moxy tent at Coachella
For the opening of Moxy Times Square, Marriott transformed eight safari tents into hotel rooms during Coachella 2017. Influencers such as Amy Pham and Marriott Rewards members were invited to experience the Moxy tents, which also were a preview of the NYC Times Square property rooms. The campaign proved a huge hit, earning over one billion media impressions, exposure on major media outlets, and a 63% week-on-week boost in Instagram reach.

As always we hope that this blog post is of great help to you. Please feel free to do some marketing for it and share it with your friends - and let us know your opinion in the comments section below!

1 – Your hotel concept gives strategic direction

For something to be a success, everyone involved needs to be on the same page and working in the right direction. A hotel concept provides a clear overview of a hotel venture, with clearly-defined goals and objectives required to succeed on a long-term basis. It outlines the core capabilities of the hotel and defines its hard and soft facts by focusing on the right things = the things that are the most likely to deliver the best performance, productivity and profit, both now and in the future.

2 – Your hotel concept serves as day-to-day operational guide for you and your team

It’s easy for people to veer off-course, especially during busy times. A hotel concept should be the go-to document for all stakeholders. It provides clear and extensive guidance and serves as the basis for consistent briefings to external partners. Each and every one of your employees and partners needs to understand and buy into your hotel's true Purpose (the WHY!), understand your objectives and goals (the destination), as well as the course they need to take to get there. This helps everyone involved to make the right decisions on a daily basis and provide the outstanding service that you (and ultimately your guests) want.

And there’s an added benefit! Employees who understand WHY they do what they do and HOW they have to do it, feel more engaged, enjoy their role and will stay with you longer. So enjoy reduced employee turnover rates and recruitment costs, as well as increased repeat business resulting from your employees' outstanding service attitude.

3 – Your hotel concept ensures that you attract the right guests

We never underestimate the power of the people. Hotel concepts that place people at the heart, in fact, focus on what truly drives and generates sales and profits. Your hotel concept will be based on your unique vision as well as thorough research and analysis. It will clearly outline who your perfect guests are and what they want. They turn into happy guests, and guess what, generate healthy profits. Happy guests are your best investment. They become your on- and offline brand ambassadors, and promote you and your business for FREE!

4 – Your hotel concept gives you a competitive edge

What exactly makes a hotel concept creative and innovative? Above all, it’s about being unique and authentic. A great hotel concept outlines what makes your hotel truly special and clearly distinguishable. It defines the tangible USPs and the added value for guests when choosing to stay at your hotel over a competing property. A competitive edge always commands attention and gives you a talking point, not to mention a strong story. That’s why we believe in innovative hotel concepts, as they create a clear stand out in the market, attract PR and maximise marketing efforts, allowing you to maximise room rates and boost your occupancy and sales.

5 – Your hotel concept is the ONLY guarantee for long-term personal and financial success

You may not be able to rely on a lot of things in life, but one thing you can always count on is a clearly-defined hotel concept! A unique concept that is based on your personal vision, motivation and passion ensures that your business is aligned with your values, and does not only make your guests happy, but yourself as well. It guarantees that your hotel is not only a cool idea or a dream - but a long-term viable business concept. 

Now you know WHY we are passionate about crafting hotel concepts. If you’re interested in the HOW check out this. 

As always, feel free to share this blog post, and don’t forget to let us know your thoughts on hotel concepts in the comments below. Thanks!