Resort hotels typically focus their marketing strategy on attracting new guests. On the other hand, hoteliers often do not have a real strategy for increasing the return rate. Hotels that make it their marketing objective to actively invest in long-term guest relationships will reap significant benefits.

The Problem: New Guests Are Expensive

The customer journey describes the entire process a guest goes through when interacting with a hotel. It begins long before the guest arrives at the hotel. Through advertising and marketing, the guest becomes aware of the hotel, considers it for his or her vacation, and makes a reservation. If their expectations are met or exceeded during their trip, they will remain loyal to the hotel, eventually becoming a regular guest and recommending it to others.

Throughout the process, numerous communication and contact points are necessary. Constantly acquiring new customers is therefore costly and marketing intensive. Motivating existing guests to return is a far more efficient sales strategy. They know the product and enter the customer journey at a later stage. This saves marketing effort and budget.

The 4 Advantages of Existing Guest Contacts

• It costs 5 times less to retain an existing guest than to acquire a new one (see a study by Invesp).

• Existing guests provide a high degree of planning security due to long pre-booking periods.

• They are less price-sensitive than new guests and consume more because they are familiar with the entire hotel offering.

• Returning guests are valuable advocates for the hotel. The more often people book, the more likely they are to recommend the hotel to others.

Most resort hotels generally do not have a strategy for converting contacts or existing guest data into returning guests. Few have automated filtering or data mining to target these guests. Manual processing is not feasible due to the amount of work involved.

The Solution: Marketing Automation - But Why?

The goal for resort hotels must be to extend the guest lifecycle. After all, the guest brings more than just the value of his or her initial reservation to the hotel. There is much more potential for future revenue and long-term guest loyalty.

The use of marketing automation software in the hotel (such as ADDITIVE+ MARKETING AUTOMATION) enables this continuous communication with the guest in order to inspire him again and again to stay at the hotel and thus extend his life cycle. In concrete terms: a targeted increase in the return rate, more revenue per guest and less effort and costs per booking. Each guest receives the message relevant to them at the right time, on the channel they use. As a result, hotels can make better use of their online hotel marketing budget and increase their revenue. This is achieved without any additional effort in day-to-day operations.

For more information on the use of marketing automation for hotels, download the free ADDITIVE white paper: The Hotel Marketing Revolution. The guide to increasing repeat business through marketing automation.