How Hotels Can Become a Resource for Travelers

With many social media platforms becoming a source of inspiration for travelers, hotels can join in on this quickly growing trend and leverage it to their advantage by accommodating for this in their hotel social media strategy. Joining the “travel” bandwagon builds a momentum that helps gain more business from travelers interested in visiting your location.

Much of the content that gets people excited about travel is user-generated content from their friends or family’s travels. There are many user-generated content benefits, including highlighting the best times of vacation. Perhaps attractions, famous landmarks, or even accommodations. As hoteliers, you should always strive to motivate visitors to stop by your location! So why not create content, that just like UGC, will inspire a sense of wonder? After all, self-promotion is not the best practice since this can drive potential customers away from your business, but promoting your surrounding area is fair game. 

Whatever content you produce, it should not revolve around sales. Talk about topics that inform, educate, and entertain your audience. For instance, instead of pushing your property, talk about the surrounding area to make your property seem more enticing. Perhaps showcase a new attraction or a big event coming to town for a short amount of time! It will help if you become the ultimate destination guide. You can do this through blogs, e-blasts, website area guides, or paid ads. However, you choose to showcase your content, even through social media, you must remember that your patrons are not going to your destination to stay at your hotel. They are traveling to see a new part of the world, for work, or to visit family, and they happen to need a place to stay. It would be best if you always remembered what your traveler’s motives are when they book a stay with your hotel. 

Other ideas for enticing travelers to become excited about getting on the go is to make it as straightforward as possible for them, keeping in mind: information, education, and entertainment. Try putting out travel tips, itineraries, and lists of attractions. Anything that will let the “travel inspo” run wild! 

Lastly, create a sense of urgency. Many travelers need a little push to solidify their travel plans. Often, people want to travel, but they find any excuse not to pack their bags for a trip. Make their journey seem urgent. Offer a limited time special, mention that event they are looking forward to is only hosted once a year on a particular weekend, and use a call to action to drive this point home.

Overall, you want to showcase your location, the ease of travel, and the fun of it. Once they are sold on these ideas and the area, make your accommodations the ultimate centerpiece to tie everything together. Once you get the travelers excited about the city, then you can go ahead and sell them on your hotel. Location, location, location… then accommodations.