A hotel commercial strategy is a coordinated business approach that integrates sales, marketing, revenue management and distribution efforts to maximise total hotel revenue.
NB: This is an article from SiteMinder, one of our Expert Partners
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It aims to drive profitability and improve competitiveness in the market for a hotel business.
Rather than operating in silos, a hotel commercial strategy ensures everyone is rowing in the same direction, working collaboratively and productively to drive revenue, enhance profitability and boost the hotel’s competitive edge.
A commercial strategy powers a data-driven mindset, allowing a hotel to respond faster to market trends, more effectively personalise guest experiences, and make smarter pricing and distribution decisions.
This blog will explain in more detail why your business needs a hotel commercial strategy, and offer practical steps on how to successfully create and implement one.
Why should you implement a hotel commercial strategy?
A carefully considered commercial strategy can help a hotel respond to global turbulence, technological advancement, and changes in traveller behaviour.
Hotel businesses can succeed in this ever-changing landscape by reshaping how they operate. This includes identifying market shifts and crafting hotel strategies to adapt to them.
Examples of such shifts include:
- Early engagement: Attention spans are getting shorter, so smart hotels are working to capture the interest of potential guests as early as possible using sophisticated, data-driven marketing strategies.
- Personalisation: The modern traveller expects to be catered to with custom communications, deals and offerings that reflect their needs and preferences. Forward-thinking hotels are implementing systems capable of delivering these personalised experiences.
- Booking flexibility: Between COVID and a rise in global conflicts, there’s now a level of uncertainty to travel that simply didn’t exist in the first two decades of this century. Guests are increasingly looking for flexible booking options, and savvy hotels are offering them.
- Seamless digital experiences: Guests now expect to be able to manage every part of their stay, from the moment they book to the moment they check out. Smart hotels are investing in intuitive digital platforms that give customers that power.
There’s no one trend that a hotel must focus on. Market shifts and changes in consumer behaviour are many and varied, and often overlap. That’s what makes a hotel commercial strategy so powerful – it binds all these individual strands into a single, holistic strategy.
How a hotel commercial strategy can maximise profit & increase efficiency
The ultimate goal of any commercial hotel sales strategy is simple: to generate more revenue and profit. A good strategy does this by lighting a clear path to that growth – one that unifies the entire team around a goal, and describes the steps that need to be taken in order to achieve it.
One common element of a hotel commercial strategy is a focus on direct revenue, which cuts out intermediaries like OTAs that can charge significant commission fees. A more direct relationship with the guest also enhances the experience you can offer them, by giving you the data points you need to personalise and customise every touchpoint.
