If you are running a hotel, or are part of the senior management team, a thorny issue you will be regularly dealing with is optimal hotel pricing — how much should you be charging your guests? After all, if a guest feels you overcharged for the kind of service you delivered, it is highly unlikely that she will be coming back to your hotel. On the other hand, you do not want to be left with the feeling that you could have easily charged more, and your guests would have happily paid!
While seasonal variations, tourism trends, economic conditions, and competitive pressures do play important roles in your hotel pricing strategy, a variable that often tends to be overlooked is the opinion of your guests. End of the day, pricing of any product or service is a perception game — as long as your hotel guests are of the opinion that your hotel pricing is reasonable, perhaps even amazing, your business will flourish. Not only will existing customers stick around, but they will also act as brand ambassadors and send more customers your way.
“To effectively price, we need to understand the guest response to changes in rates. Will an increase in rate stop guests from booking? Will a decrease in rate entice guests to switch?”
Which means, if you can boost the perceived value of your hotel, the rooms or the service, you will also be able to nudge the hotel pricing upwards. The correlation is straightforward: Great opinion of your hotel = willingness to pay more. This is also referred to as “reputation pricing”, described here as “aligning your hotel’s pricing strategy with guests’ knowledge, expectations, and willingness to pay”.
But how do you enhance the opinion your guests — existing as well as potential — have of your hotel? Apart from the obvious bit about actually delivering exemplary service, you can enhance their experience by personalizing it and making your guests feel right at home in your hotel. And here, personalized video marketing can make a big difference.
Imagine your interaction with each guest also includes videos individualized with their name, profile pictures, references to their unique needs and service requirements, their food preferences, and other personal data points that make them feel the videos have been shot just for them. Moreover, as part of your personalized video marketing outreach, these videos talk about tailormade packages and offers that you have created just for them. Mind you, the guests could be at your hotel, watching the videos on the TV screen in the room, or they could be at home or office reading through an email update from your hotel.
Such personalized video marketing efforts are bound to evoke a sense of warmth whenever your guests think about your hotel. Perhaps, they will even be more forgiving if there are minor lapses in your service! Moreover, with the Pirsonal video platform, these individualized videos can be made interactive, so that guests can effortlessly give their feedback, and help you tweak your processes and policies. This mutually beneficial feedback loop can be ongoing and iteratively improve both the guests’ opinion of your hotel and the quality of the service your hotel offers.
After all, opinions matter. And in the hospitality sector, they can make all the difference. Check out our case studies on how major brands are leveraging Pirsonal in their marketing campaigns. Or ask for a demo.
