Creating an Online Voice for Your Hotel

As you may have found, it can be challenging to express your hotel’s voice online. Without potential customers physically visiting your hotel and meeting your friendly staff members, how will they get an idea of what your hotel is about? Sure they can visit your website and browse through the gallery of photographs, but there is more to it. The text and content that is shared across all your hotel’s online channels has to reflect your business’s personality.

Determining Your Target Audience

For you to understand which voice your business should adopt, you need to determine your business’s target audience. Who are your ideal customers? What are their demographics? Are you targeting young audiences, experienced business people, retirees? What are their interests? How does your business fit into their needs and wants?

Establishing Your Brand = Establishing Voice

Once you have determined who your target audience is, you begin to build your brand around that information. While developing your hotel’s brand, think of it as building a character. You will want this character’s interests to reflect those of the target audience, and for the character’s primary purpose to be serving the audience (aka, providing a unique experience during their travels). You can build this persona by taking a step back and examining your hotel. If your target consumers are traveling families with young children, you will want to post content that parents would be interested in consistently. These posts may be amenities and services your hotel provides that cater to parents with young children, family-friendly attractions nearby, or travel tips. Also, language can be more relaxed and exciting with the use of exclamation points and emojis.

Although one may believe that portraying a voice online stems from the text shared on the website and social media captions, there is more to it. Each photo uploaded and every post shared in the name of your hotel adds to your hotel’s voice. If your hotel’s target audience is retirees looking to have a peaceful and quiet stay, share posts of serene views and senior-friendly attractions nearby.

Additionally, use calming syntax and professional vocabulary. Conversely, if your hotel aims to reach rowdy millennials who usually stay at your hotel to go out partying, it would be fitting to share posts that relate to their lifestyle, as well as utilize relaxed vocabulary or slang.

In summary: 

Know your audience and build a brand around their needs and wants; the voice of your hotel reflects your hotel’s persona; the tone should reflect the general vibe or atmosphere of your hotel and use particular language to convey both voice and tone. Take the time to work on building and maintaining an online voice that represents your hotel’s brand, for it is essential to reach potential customers and, ultimately, generating business.