Are you looking to increase your international clientele? Are you looking to expand into new markets? Europe? Asia? Here are some tips on how to grow your existing customer base.
- Revisit Your Marketing Strategy
The first way to position your hotel for an international growth is to revisit your website and all marketing material in general. Guests are more comfortable and therefore more likely to book a hotel when they can view the information in their mother language and prices in their local currency. This means that your website should be translated into different languages and your booking engine should allow currency conversion aswell.
The guest experience is also a key to open to international markets as the power of word of mouth is often underestimated. Hiring multi-lingual staff would certainly be a differential asset (some OTAs now list what are the languages service can be offered in)
- Optimize
Optimize your SEO and SEM to gain more hits on your website by sending the right message and keywords for your target markets. - Educate
Learn about the culture of your targeted guests, the point of interests/activities available in your city and enhance these on your website. Offering tours and adventure travels are also ways to target and attract international guests.
- Find The Best OTAs
Finally, extend your reach by working with OTAs that target your specific market. For example, most Europeans use Booking.com to plan their holidays, Agoda.com is the main OTA for the Asian market etc. Do not stop there, many third party websites now offer the possibility to set-up geo-targeting promotions where only a guest located in Germany for example would see your 20% off promotion when a guest located in the US would only see your BAR rate.
Overall, your hotel needs to put a strategy in place in order to ensure success. First learn about your target markets, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and try one strategy at a time.
