Internet marketing has become a very important marketing strategy for the hotel industry. In this digital era, Hotel brands can be seen promoting their products, sharing content, and building customer relationships through social media – all examples of effective hotel internet marketing!
In this blog, you can get the most complete and up-to-date information about internet marketing in the hotel business, as well as tips that you can use to attract people to book a stay in your hotel!
Table of Contents
What is Hotel Internet Marketing and how can it benefit your hospitality business?
Hotel internet marketing is a marketing strategy that leverages the internet and digital platform that is used by hotel industry business people to promote various hotel services and facilities in the digital world using various digital platforms.
These digital or internet platforms include social media, websites through organic search engines, email marketing, and online advertising, to OTAs (online travel agents) such as Agoda or TripAdvisor.
In this digital age, the hotel business landscape is becoming increasingly competitive. Various well-known hotels are taking a digital approach and utilizing hotel internet marketing to reach a wider audience to remain competitive in this digital era.
Since 2015, Hilton Worldwide Hotels has maximized its internet or digital marketing approach with a focus on the Google Hotel Ads strategy. As a result, their ROI (Return on Investment) income increased by 12% in the first trial year.
In addition to boosting your hotel business’s competitiveness and driving more bookings, hotel internet marketing offers several other benefits, such as:
Increase Loyalty
The existence of social media or other digital platforms helps us to interact with each other more easily. Wherever and whenever we are, building and strengthening relationships is not a challenge anymore.
The existence of this digital platform also helps hotel businesses strengthen their relationships with visitors or potential guests which of course can increase loyalty.
Increase Hotel Visibility Locally
Imagine – travelers or potential visitors visiting your hotel location and looking for the best hotels around them, and they want quick answers by searching them on Google, Instagram, or Facebook.
Will your hotel show up in their search results?
Appearing in their search results indicates that your hotel has a good level of local visibility. By maximizing your internet and digital marketing efforts, your hotel can achieve a good level of local visibility.
To boost local visibility, start by sharing up-to-date information about your hotel business on your website, Facebook, or Instagram through engaging content.
Wider Target Audience
Digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google have a huge number of users from all over the world.
Internet marketing can expand your hotel business’s reach beyond just the local market and enable you to target a global audience, ultimately allowing for wider market penetration. Fun Fact: Many people are already searching for and booking their hotel rooms online!
Strengthening Hotel Reputation
As previously discussed, potential visitors often search for information about the hotels they want to visit online.
By maximizing your hotel’s reputation in the digital world with various positive reviews, you can certainly strengthen your hotel’s overall reputation.
How Does Hotel Internet Marketing Work for the Hospitality Industry? (2024)
According to Google Consumer Insight, in 2022, searches for “travel accommodations” in APAC (Asia Pacific) increased by 50% from the previous year. Similar increases can be found in other countries such as Australia, Singapore, and Japan.
As a result, the hospitality industry has been racing to invest in internet or digital marketing. From implementing social media marketing to Google Search Advertising and Google Hotel Ads, having a digital presence has become a mandatory aspect.
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How to Start Digital Marketing Strategy for the Hospitality Industry
From the reading above, do you have the desire to start digital marketing for your hotel business? Congratulations! You are one step ahead in increasing your hotel booking numbers.
Here are the initial steps to start digital marketing for your hotel business:
Managing Hotel Social Media
From maximizing platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Linkedin, start by creating a consistent social media page and posting quality content.
Begin building awareness of your hotel brand by posting photos and videos that showcase hotel facilities, nearby tourist attractions, as well as ongoing events and promotions.
Baca juga : Ide Pemasaran Video Hotel untuk Meningkatkan Pemesanan Hotel Anda
Create An Informative Website
Having a website that provides complete and professional information can increase the credibility of your hotel brand, which is very important to have as an initial step.
Travelers and visitors want to have complete information about facilities, prices, and testimonials from previous guests. By having an informative website as a platform that provides such information, it is certainly important to have a website.
Create a Google My Business Account
Creating a Google My Business account for a hotel business is very important as an initial step. Like a website, with a Google My Business account, a hotel business can display important information such as an address, phone number, opening hours, and customer reviews through Google Maps.
Yes, having visibility on this platform is also an important start. In addition to increasing credibility, interacting with potential guests or visitors to your hotel will also become easier.
Baca Juga: Panduan Iklan Hotel Google: Panduan Lengkap Untuk Hoteliers 2024
4 Best Hotel Internet Marketing Strategies for Your Hotel Business
After knowing the initial steps to start digital marketing for your hotel, here are the best hotel internet marketing strategies that can help your hotel business to attract people to book a stay in your hotel:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is a digital marketing strategy that can increase the visibility of your hotel website on search engines such as Google or Bing. Search engines are one of the digital platforms that users often use to search for information about hotels or accommodations.
There is no denying the importance of hotels appearing on the first page of search results to make it easier for potential customers to find your hotel. Therefore, SEO marketing strategies are important to be optimized.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Maximizing search engines, SEM focuses on paid advertising known as PPC (Pay-Per-Click) to promote hotel businesses in search engines.
With SEM, your hotel’s ads can be displayed at the top of search engine results and can be directly targeted to potential customers who fit the target demographic of your business audience quickly.
Do you want to target travelers who are visiting your hotel’s location? Optimizing SEM can be the right strategy for you!
Social Media Marketing (Organic & Paid)
In the hospitality industry, social media marketing involves using social media platforms to expand the reach of your hotel’s audience and build brand awareness among potential guests.
Social media marketing can build engagement and increase brand awareness through paid or organic means.
You can maximize social media organically by interacting with your audience and creating engaging, informative, and useful content.
With paid social media advertising, also known as social media marketing, you can increase conversion rates and expand your hotel’s reach by displaying ads that promote your hotel business to your target audience in a short amount of time.
Email Marketing
Email marketing can be used as a retargeting strategy for your business. In the hospitality industry, Email Marketing can be used to increase customer loyalty by informing them of special promotions or the latest information about the hospitality industry.
This digital marketing strategy involves sending emails to potential guests or existing customers to promote hotel products or services.
5 Digital Marketing Strategy Tips for Hospitality Businesses [2024]
After learning about the 4 types of digital marketing that can be done for hotel businesses, it is important to understand and implement effective marketing strategies in digital marketing.
Here are some tips for digital marketing strategies for hotels that you can implement for your hotel business.
Maximize Social Media Features
Social media, which is a perfect platform for showcasing the visual aspects of your hospitality business, has useful features to maximize your hotel’s digital marketing strategy.
By using organic or ad photos or videos, social media helps your hotel business maximize its digital marketing strategy with advanced features that continue to evolve.
For example, in the hospitality business, the most commonly used feature is live streaming, which hotels often use to provide virtual tours of their hotel. In these virtual tours, hotels can showcase their facilities so that potential guests can more easily imagine their stay at your hotel.
Maximizing Google My Business
Using Google My Business can increase your hotel brand’s organic exposure on the Google search engine. Google My Business is a free platform that allows you to showcase important information about your hotel online.
Based on Google Insight data, in 2022, 98% of travelers, who represent the biggest potential audience for staying at your hotel, researched their travel accommodations online.
By having and maximizing Google My Business, your hotel brand will appear in search results and maps, which are frequently used by travelers and the general public when searching for up-to-date information about the hotels they want to visit.
Creating Engaging and Relevant Content
The biggest attraction of the hospitality industry is its ability to provide safety, relaxation, comfort, and entertainment to guests. Creating content that can showcase these attractions would be the best hotel marketing strategy that you can try!
Creating engaging and relevant content means not burdening your hotel’s target audience with information or video visuals that distract their attention. Therefore, it is important to know your target audience.
Just like AYANA Resorts & SPA targets high-income travelers who are looking for luxury and all-inclusive experiences. Therefore, the video content they create promotes their all-inclusive packages that offer a luxurious vacation with a luxury resort, SPA, dining experience, and various other luxurious experiences.
Use Hotel Ads and Search
As travelers increasingly rely on the internet or Google to find the latest information about hotels or their vacation travel, they pay more attention to and trust paid search ads.
When people already have a specific hotel brand in mind, they tend to respond more to text ads, which appear above or below organic search results, with titles and descriptions relevant to the hotel sought by travelers.
Meanwhile, those who are still exploring hotel options, they will be more influenced by hotel ads that appear as a dedicated page explaining rates, amenities, and hotel user reviews.
However, both ad formats provide a lot of information and contribute to almost 30% of online traffic among travelers who are unsure about their hotel choices.
Collaboration
Collaborating with influencers or public figures who have an image that aligns with your hotel brand can help increase brand awareness and expand your reach on social media. Collaborating with influencers can help promote your hotel through posts on their social media and create positive reviews about your hotel on their blogs or vlogs.
Conclusion
Hotel internet marketing is a crucial marketing strategy for hotels to compete in the digital era of the hotel industry. By doing internet marketing, hotels can increase their visibility at the local level, reach a wider audience, strengthen customer loyalty, and enhance their reputation. Therefore, hotels should invest time and resources in social media marketing, Google search ads, Google Hotel ads, and other digital marketing strategies to improve their digital presence.
Let’s increase the booking rate of your hotel business with the best hotel internet marketing strategies. SATUVISION has years of experience in the Hospitality industry and has succeeded in providing the best digital solutions for the hospitality business. From high-quality hotel video marketing, Social Media Marketing to Website Development, create your digital presence for your hotel brand now with us today!
