17 Best Hotel Promotion Ideas You Can Use

Before we talk about how to promote a hotel, I would like to tell you that WHY is it important?

Well, you must be well familiar with the competition and challenges of our industry. 

And the RIGHT hotel promotion ideas can help you with:

1. Standing apart from the competition
2. Attracting more guests
3. Growing your business and increasing your revenue

And I know, subconsciously; you must be already practicing a few hotel promotion ideas. But, guest expectations and market trends keep changing ALL THE TIME. So, you’ve also got to keep yourself updated with such insights and implement new strategies to advertise your property. I’ve got a list of some best hotel promotion ideas you can use right away. 

Here are the effective hotel promotion ideas

Shall we dig in?

Peak and weak season promotions

Usually, a hotel’s year is divided into two. One is the peak season, and the other is the off-peak or weak season. And a hotel’s success is dependant on how it manages both the seasons.

This is how you can make the most out of them.

Peak Season

You must be already getting adequate bookings and business in peak seasons. Yet, you should consider trying effective pricing strategies, and even yield management technique to get more bookings. 

On top of that, offering attractive packages is a practical way for hotel room promotion. 

For example: In November or before Christmas, you can run some promotions and offer packages that attract your guests to book their stay.

Weak Season

You need to put in some extra efforts for weak seasons. Celebrations, workshops, seminars, and such likes are a good approach to increase low-season occupancy at your property.

You can also give a try to the following things:

Run last-minute deals (AKA flash deals) and packages for short stays.
If a scenic landscape surrounds your hotel, then you can offer packages for pre-wedding photography (that’s the in-thing these days).
If you have a banquet at your place, you can get into catering and host weddings, parties and corporate events.

Events

Events are one of the most promising hotel promotion ideas. Occasions like music concerts (Tomorrowland, Sunburn), festive events (Tomatina), roadshows and exhibitions are taking place every now and then. And you should take the most advantage of the events.

All you have to do is tie-up with the event planners and offer a stay to the attendees. With this hotel promotion method, your property can get advertised on hoardings, TV ads, and other platforms as a part of event promotions.

Besides, you can also sponsor or host events at your hotel. Organize some out of the box events like a food fair, creative art fair, and workshops on crafts & cocktails, dance & sculpt, pilates and many other events.

Run and promote your loyalty programs

Loyalty programs ACTUALLY work. They are one of the excellent hotel promotion ideas. They keep your existing guests stuck to your brand. While creating your hotel’s loyalty program model, include rewards that provide your guests with some real value.

So generally, the loyalty points are calculated as per the visits and after they reach a certain value/limit, you reward your guests with something. Instead of following this, I recommend that you reward them on the very next visit. This is how your guests will actually prefer you over other hotels and refer your hotel to others too. Thus, along with marketing your property, your brand loyalty will also be enhanced.

Get listed on maximum OTAs

I’m sure, this hotel marketing idea is a NO brainer. But novice hoteliers may still have this question of how to promote their property on OTAs?

Even though you might be doing great on the few OTAs you’re listed on; getting listed on maximum OTAs and metasearch engines can drive you more bookings and revenue. PERIOD.

Basically, OTAs give your hotel much-needed exposure. Besides, they increase your hotel’s credibility, promote your hotel, and you can expand your reach to a wider audience. Here are more benefits to having more OTA connections for your hotel.

Beyond that, you can also be a part of the promotions that OTAs run on their end. (Different OTAs have different techniques to get you bookings.)

Tip: By more OTA connections, I don't mean that you go and get listed on every other OTA. Check the relevance and then select the best OTA to get listed on. 

Revamp and promote your hotel website

Your website is the face of your hotel and at the same time a salient player in your business growth.

Guests who have come across your property through Google or any OTA will end up landing on your website. So, you need to have a solid website which is:

• Responsive
• Has high-resolution images and videos of your property
• Mentions your hotel’s amenities, services, offers, contact details and everything else
• Has integrated booking engine to let your guest book directly with you

These are just a few that are on the top of my mind! Now, even if your website is attractive; it may not be able to convert visitors into bookers.

There are a few booking engines that provide ready plug and play widgets which help you attract more bookers. These widgets help you highlight your hotel’s amenities, promotions, ongoing deals, and so on.

And keep updating your website every year. If you don’t have one, then you should consider getting it developed right away.

Check out this hotel website:

They’ve kept attractive widgets which make the visitors reach the booking engine and book directly. Their location, services, deals, experiences they offer and even an exciting photo gallery is well highlighted.

 Must read: Myths and facts about owning a hotel website. 

Perform SEO on your hotel website

Let’s consider, you want to purchase a new mobile phone. What will you do?

You’ll head to Google, search for the latest mobile phones, their costs, specifications, and everything that you want to know. After all the research, you will choose your desired phone.

Well, your guests also follow the same pattern when they want to look for a hotel to stay. So, your website HAS to be there in the search results. And for that, you have to perform SEO.

SEO helps you drive traffic to your website by ranking it higher on search engines. This makes it a practical approach to promote hotel sales.

Tip: Check out our detailed guide on how to do SEO for a hotel website. 

Maintain your Google Business Listing

As I have mentioned in the above point, searching on Google is the very first step. For that reason, having a Google Business Listing will help you appear higher in the search results, subsequently making it an effective hotel promotion idea. 

You need to add all relevant business details in the listing. Hotel’s operating hours, phone number, website URL, pictures, and any additional information you want to make easily accessible to your guests. Guests can easily click on “Website” or “Directions” which increases their chances to book directly with you instead of booking from an OTA.

With the recent update in Google Hotel Search, the search engine also displays your room types along with rate plans and various other details. So it’s the right time to make the most of Google Business Listing. 

Enroll for Google Hotel Ads

You’ve already appeared in the Google search owing to SEO and Google Business Listing. Now, how to make sure that your guests are able to choose your hotel wisely? Well, that’s when Google Hotel Ads come in the picture.

This service is available only through Google’s Authorized Integration Partners. It is one of Google’s successful endeavors to help hotels acquire more bookings without the jumble of registering on OTAs.

It’s a compelling way to promote your hotel, as it will help your guest to book with you right from the search results.

Focus on guest engagement

Hotels these days are into providing personalized guest experience; either through their services or through some other means. And that’s one of the most promising hotel promotion ideas.

You know what they say;

A satisfied guest is the best business strategy. 

To start with, some attention from your staff towards your guests’ preferences would go a long, long way! Besides that, send them pre-arrival emails, which include details on how to reach you, room upgrade options and more.

After they’ve checked in, you can offer some city tours or invite them to any event that your hotel might be hosting. Let them know about the specials on that day. This way, your guests will have a better experience; leading to them choosing you in their next visit.

Similarly, post their check-out, you can put up some offers for their next stay, promote your hotel’s happenings and ask them for reviews and so on. 

Tip: We have some awesome ways to improve guest experience at your property. 

Collect and respond to reviews

Reviews presently are a decisive parameter for any guest. They possess the power to make or mar your hotel’s reputation. And clearly, reviews for you are that goose which lays golden eggs (make sure you don’t kill it). You might never know how a single review affects your guests and future bookings.

That’s why your hotel reviews must be handled with extreme care. They are a significant hotel promotion idea; because of being generated by the user, for the user, and from the user.

Collect as many reviews for your property as you can, and do not miss out on responding to them. We’ve got ready to use hotel review response templates to deal with every type of review viz. positive, negative or neutral. You can download them for FREE.

Besides, you can enroll for the TripAdvisor Review Express Program for free, which helps you collect more reviews on the travel site. Check out this video to know more about it.

Over and above all of this, deploy a hotel review management software to help you handle and make the most of your online reviews.

Tip: Here are some tips and tricks to focus on your hotel reviews and reputation management.

Facebook Marketing

Did you know, if Facebook was a country, it’d be the most populated country on the globe? And that’s why Facebook is a must-have among your hotel promotion ideas.

All you have to do is INTERACT with your audience regularly. Request them to tag you in their pictures (you can also tag them, BTW). Let your audience know about those special deals and discounts you’re running. You can boost your posts too.

And you know the best part, if you integrate your booking engine with your Facebook page, you can get direct bookings from Facebook as well.

Check out how this hotel is doing on Facebook:

Instagram Marketing

So, I’ve seen that most of the hotels (or rather, businesses) have started Instagram marketing on a regular basis.

All you need to have is stunning photos and videos of your hotel. Other than that, you can play around stories, ask a few questions, run a poll, open a chat, and add some Instagram music and keep the engagement consistent.

Do try your hand at the recently launched REELS on Instagram.

These marketing activities will give a good boost to your hotel’s Instagram account. It will also give you an opportunity to showcase the beauty in and around your property; which is usually your guests’ first parameter.

I would emphasize on putting more stories and going live as they have the highest engagement ratio.

We’ve penned down some useful templates to help you start posting on social media.

Check out this resort’s Instagram grid.

YouTube marketing

With an estimated 300 hours of videos being uploaded every minute, you can understand the preference of this platform. Promoting your hotel on YouTube won’t take much of your efforts.

You can create your hotel’s channel on YouTube. Then, publish your hotel’s video tours there. Besides, if you’re offering adventure activities at your place, then YouTube is the best medium to showcase those activities with short video clips of guests during those adventures.

YouTube ads are also one thing that you can dig deeper into – as one of the most effective hotel promotion ideas.

Welcome those travel writers and bloggers

These days, travel writers and bloggers have a great influence on the market. They have a huge fan following and travelers essentially listen to their suggestions and get inspired by the experiences they have.

So, one hotel advertisement idea is to keep up with this trend and invite those travel bloggers and influencers at your property.

Reach out to them and begin your collaboration as a part of your hotel marketing ideas and strategies. You can either pay them or offer them a complimentary stay at your hotel.

Give a try to advertisements

Advertising is a crucial facet of your hotel promotion. So, set a budget aside and find the best medium to run ad campaigns. Advertise your hotel’s amenities, promotions, and packages online across all the platforms. You can make use of the following important information:

Google AdWords – Start with search ads from Google Adwords. These ads will be visible in the search results, exactly where your guests are looking for you. These ads will help you acquire direct bookings by reaching up to the right target audience, all the while maintaining your budget.

Remarketing ads – Now, did you ever search for something on Amazon, and then that search followed you everywhere? You know, with lower prices, attractive deals or something similar? Well, that’s called REMARKETING, which is also a beneficial way to promote your hotel. It helps your website visitors keep you in their mind, and leave a long-lasting impact.

Facebook ads – Facebook provides an amazing opportunity to promote businesses. One of the best answers to “How to promote hotel”, is giving a try to Facebook ads. It lets you promote your Facebook page and attractive offers to your target audience worldwide. This increases your visibility and gives a significant path to hotel promotion.

If it fits your budget, you can give a try to Instagram and Youtube ads as well. 

Tip: Learn everything about setting up Google Ads and Facebook Ads for your property. 

Go for content marketing

Needless to say, “content is king.”

Let me tell you how this can be a surefire hotel promotion strategy too. 

When your guests are selecting a hotel, they are not just looking for a place to stay. They consider the entire city and its location, and are wishing to explore it. So, give them that with proper content on your website. Blogs, articles, and what not. Content marketing is said to be the MOST effective hotel marketing idea.

For example:
1. 10 things to do when you are in the Maldives
2. 7 bars you should visit in the Maldives
3. 15 things to do while you are in the Maldives

Other than that, you can write about the traditions, culture, cuisines of your locality. 

These days, most of the hotels have dedicated website page for these types of content. Publishing such content will help you rank higher in the search results as well. Thus, it is an important SEO as well as hotel promotion idea. 

Develop a Relationship with Local Tourism Boards

For hotels, it’s important to stay in touch with the local tourism boards as well as other government associations that endorse their business. These boards and associations can be profitable for you in many ways.

Such authorities can help you host events at your property which have a regional or national reach. They are valuable resources for staying in touch with other local businesses. Tourism boards, convention and visitors bureaus (CVBs), and destination marketing organizations have the job of bringing visitors to an area and promoting the businesses in that area. 

Therefore, it’s important to have a good relationship with them for advertising your property.

Bonus: Partner with airlines

Alliance with airlines can be one of the assured way to promote a hotel. The reason being, regardless of however people travel – business or leisure; airlines would be a part of all.

All you need to do is partner with a popular airline on a promotional offer. You can also combine your loyalty program points with these offers. This can help you get in front of a lot of targeted potential customers.

If such an alliance is not possible for you, then you can also try reaching out to place your advertisement on their page.

If you think about it, there are numerous promotion ideas for hotels. You just need to observe carefully, keep trying on new things, be open and flexible to experimenting.

So, these are 17 creative hotel promotion ideas that you can implement to grow your business. Identify what works best for you from these ideas, and have a go at them in your next strategy.