11 Proven Ways to Increase Low Season Hotel Occupancy

Hospitality industry has an immense opportunity to gain the best and most of their business!!

If you’re managing a hotel, as an owner or working as a revenue manager, then you certainly know that seasonality is a major factor in your business.

Without a doubt, the peak season is the best for hoteliers as they enjoy high demand and an influx of guests. Also, it is not even difficult to achieve full hotel occupancy during such times. However, they also know that this is soon going to change as it does every year. Just after the peak or high season will come the mid or shoulder season, and eventually the low or off-season.

Struggling with attracting guests and reaching maximum hotel occupancy is the harsh reality and the most distinctive feature of the global hospitality industry. 

So, hoteliers like you need to have a good understanding of seasonality to increase low season hotel occupancy. As a result, you can avoid irregular cash flow, low returns on capital investment, and underutilization of staff and facilities.

Let’s move ahead and find the best ways to increase the hotel occupancy rate during the off-season.

How to determine the off-season?

The first step any hotelier should take in preventing a slow season is to gauge exactly when the downturn starts each year.

Is it tied to the weather, holidays or other events?
OR
Is there a corresponding slowdown in the social calendar of your locale?

Sketching out the boundaries of your off months will help you determine; what factors are causing it and come up with a plan to fight for it. 

However, seasonality is the major factor of tourist inflows during specific periods of the year. It includes natural reasons, like temperature and climate as well as institutional reasons, like holidays, events, socioeconomic status, and travel habits. 

Whatever the reason be, the fact remains that seasonality creates demand fluctuations that affect all finance and labor operations of a hotel.

How to beat the off-season and increase hotel occupancy?

Low seasons can make or break a property, particularly if budgets are already tight. Also, if your hotel is already operating on threadbare profit margins, any significant dip in bookings and revenue can spell disaster. 

Likewise, every hotelier, regardless of the size of the hotel, has faced challenges during the off-season. If you’ve been in the hotel business long enough, you should be aware of your low and peak seasons to prepare and plan for them well in advance.

During such times, all you need to do is, BOOST YOUR MARKETING PLANS. Make sure you do this with some creativity to increase your hotels’ sales during the low season. Also, clever tricks, careful planning, and a bit of pop psychology can bring more guests into your hotel even during the low season. 

In addition, a property manager who has plans to maintain its occupancy during low season, can gain profits and stand ahead of its competitors.

Also, many holidayers prefer and actively search for bookings around these times to avoid crowds and high prices. This acts as an advantage for you, to make your hotel as attractive as possible and increase your direct bookings.

Below I‘ve shared some ideas to improve your hotel occupancy during low season:

1. Increase repeat guests

Your guests (new or repeat) are one of your best marketing assets. They can make your hotel sink or swim in the market, depending on the guest experience you provide. Repeat guests are like an investment for hotels that give you a good return. The more the investment (your loyal guests), the more will be the return (business ROI). 

Be it a hotel, B&B, restaurant or any hospitality business, they always focus on keeping existing guests the same as gaining new ones. They have a habit to recognize hotel staff who dedicatedly do their job and serve them in the best way possible. 

A professional hotel ensures that guests get the best experience, before, during and post their stay. Hence, there’s nothing better than the loyal guests that can promote and provide you with more new bookings. 

The best time to apply this strategy is, during the peak season as you get maximum guests at your hotel to attract them for their next stay. Which in turn, would be a profitable business for you during the off-season.

Check out some best methods to increase repeat guests at your hotel!

2. Run loyalty programs

Running loyalty programs are considered to be one of the finest approaches to increase repeat guests at your hotel. Such loyalty programs will help you to increase your hotel’s occupancy, by creating an even stronger relationship with your guests. For example, send personal emails by offering them special discounts, offers, reward points and much more to attract them.

So, MAKE SURE you never forget to note the mail address of your guests when they are checking in.

For this, all you need is an accurate guest’s database, transaction history, reports of your guest, and an apt loyalty management software for your hotel. Such a loyalty program software will help you build, run and maintain all the operations of your hotel loyalty programs. 

3. Use unutilized spaces for different purposes

Look into every nook and corner of your hotel to find spaces that are not utilized or not used often. Using underutilized spaces to enhance your hotel revenue during the off-season is a good way to earn a side income. 

Such spaces might not necessarily be a permanent set up at your hotel, but work as a promotion strategy during the low season. For example; 

1. You could use your garden for weddings, parties or events. Deliver a great experience to the guests who attend these events and they could turn into your future guests too. 
2. If you have a hall; use it for yoga or a dance class, family gathering or business meetings, etc. This way, the guests will also spend a little extra money in your hotel then you expected; thus increasing your revenue.
3. An upcoming trend is to use your hotel lobby as a workspace, a social hotspot, a coffee shop, a small library or any flexible space that can be used for almost everything.

Setting up such spaces at your hotel will add a lot of value to your property; along with the side income that you will earn. 

These are just a few ones mentioned, however, there can be many other ways to make use of spaces and promote your hotel during the off-season. 

4. Organize events

Events will always be a good driver of revenue for hotels during the low season. Additionally, each event has a chance to upsell extra services of your hotel, like rooms, restaurant services, entertainment or relaxation options.

Scope out the area for local events and activities like music gigs, concerts, festivals, parties, fairs, comedy events, marathons and more happening in the area. This will invariably attract guests from all over. 

You could also create a partnership with the event sponsors and set special promotions implying a discount for anyone who will be present or takes part in the event. This will help you in gaining great marketing opportunities to attract more guests.

5. Tie up with local businesses

Speaking of partnerships, get in contact with local businesses to promote your hotel as well as their business. This savvy two-way partnership reaps benefits when it comes to the off-season.  

So, increase the flow of your hotel guests by promoting it to a local company for their events, such as business seminars, meetings, etc. Such events are conducted with many guests and consequently, they are very profitable as they would book multiple rooms at a time. 

Also, KEEP IN MIND that some business events are repeated every year, so it can become a source of a safer income!

Additionally, you could offer up some of your hotel’s services to locals in the area without the need for booking a room. Such as allowing guests a 24-hour pass to your gym, pool or games room, or invite them to enjoy the bar and restaurant at low prices. Make locals feel particularly welcome and special for a relationship that will last further in the future.

6. Run discount offers and promotions

Off-seasons are what discounts are made for. People love discounts and the perception of a “good deal” will definitely help your hotel to increase bookings. Budget and last-minute travellers will be scouting for good deals during less popular months, so make your discounts effective and clear. 

Encourage guests to stay longer as they add in their dates, with a reminder of the discount that you offer. Also, attract families, business groups, or other travellers with discounts offered on group bookings.

Or you can also offer discount promotions like: 

Book for 2 nights and get 1 night free!
OR
5%-10% discount for those who share a promotional post on Facebook
OR
Tag the property name in a photo on Instagram.

Offering such discounts is probably one of the best ways to lure your guests during shoulder and low seasons. 

Few booking engines allow you to create such promotions in the software itself. See, how you can do it in our booking engine eZee Reservation.

Further, ALWAYS be active on social media platforms and increase your bookings from there as well! Engage more followers on these platforms with our social media posts templates.

7. Meet the seasonal requirements

Find out what makes your hotel tick during the high season and use it to your advantage. For example, if your hotel enjoys a high season every year because of the monsoon, why not recreate the monsoon feel during the off-season? Offer rain dance in your package and create a monsoon theme to make it appealing. 

Or, if yours is a beach property that does not attract crowds during monsoon, then offer happy hours and pool parties during that season. 

Or, if you consider summer as your low season, then organize activities of a rain dance to beat summer blues at your property.

Market these packages in an exclusive manner which will make travelers feel privileged to be a part of it. DO represent your hotel in such a way showing that it is off-season friendly. This can be showcased by reasons like climate, season, festival, etc. via social posts or ads and suchlike.

Also, tempt them by talking about the various other opportunities they would get like low airfares, special discounts, other offers running in the city, etc. during the off-season months.

8. Run remarketing ads in the off-season

If you have some budget, then running effective REMARKETING ADS is one of the most beneficial techniques to promote your hotel. Your website can be the base of these ads as you’d want searchers to land on your website after clicking on the ads. 

With remarketing, you can lower your abandonment rate and close more bookings. Show attractive display ads to people who recently visited your site. These ads follow your website visitors after they leave your website without performing any action.

This reminds them that you’re there to lead them through the process. Try showing them a better deal with you instead of your competitors, and make the booking process as easy as possible.

This way, you can increase your bookings by displaying attractive discounts or deals you offer in the ads during such low-season.

Here are some effective FREE ad templates to help you guide better in running these ads!

9. Use email marketing

Hotel email marketing is an effective tool to attract more guests to your hotel during the off-season. When the low season is on the horizon, send out emails to your past guests. Let them know about your special offers and remind them of their loyalty discount. 

You can also add an incentive by offering an extra discount for the first 5 guests who book, telling them that this offer is exclusive to them as a valued past guest. Make sure you hint the incentive/discount part in the subject with a snappy, attention-grabbing title.

Also, offer your guests some attractive amenities at your property for free with a night stay at your hotel. DO HIGHLIGHT facilities like spa, yoga, gym, etc as well as focus on the various local events taking place to make them book your hotel fast. 

This attracts new guests and retains existing ones; thus earning great ROI for your business.  

10. Implement an off-season pricing strategy

During the off-season, you’d focus on filling your rooms; so charge less to encourage bookers to book at your hotel.

The first step in implementing off-season pricing is to segment your market into known groupings by location, demographics, climate and so forth. The core room price is just one aspect of the pricing strategy. So, consider combining it with other factors like guest’s stay preferences, no.of guests, and past booking prices, etc to create an effective pricing strategy. 

Make sure your low-season prices are attractive and affordable. Low enough to appeal at lean times of the year but high enough to cover your costs and make a profit. 

You can also invite your past guests to spend a second stay at your hotel at a much lower price offered exclusively to them.

Also, with a rate shopper tool, take a look at your direct competitors (including hotels) and see how they are setting their low-season prices. Avoid under-pricing dates that are in high demand e.g. Christmas, New Year, Holi, etc.

11. Overall, start preparing for this before-hand and be consistent

Prepare for off-season during the peak season time itself so that hoteliers like you can have a bumper season during those low season months. Remember, little things can make a huge difference and can hugely increase your hotels’ revenue.

Prepare a checklist of how and what features you can promote for your hotel during the off-season to enhance bookings. 

PLAN an effective strategy and be consistent in it. TAKE and IMPLEMENT the various tips mentioned in this blog.

ANALYZE the data of your latest low season guests and see who truly booked a room at your hotel. TRY out some new marketing and advertising strategies to discover how you can attract a different audience for your upcoming year.

NOTE: Don’t obsess in acquiring more bookings during the low season if it doesn’t make sense financially or if there simply isn’t enough demand. Use this time efficiently to undertake essential maintenance, create next year’s marketing strategy or simply enjoy the time off.

GET STARTED TO EXPERIENCE FULL OCCUPANCY DURING OFF-SEASON!!