hotel marketers this halloween

NB: This is an article from Tambourine

For Halloween, we asked hotel marketers from coast to coast, representing properties of all sizes, what they’re most spooked about right now. Here is what they said:

#1: Unrealistic Goals on Tight Budgets

Hotel marketers have always had notoriously full plates. Now, those plates aren’t just full – they’re stacked sky-high with multiple marketing priorities to oversee, manage and implement. This upcoming year, the number of channels, campaigns, audiences, assets and tools will only get bigger and wider. This obviously calls for more marketing dollars, more staff and more assistance, right?

Not exactly.

More and more owners are holding their managers and marketers accountable for driving measurable conversions… and demand they somehow top last year’s results. Yet, those same owners are not opening their wallets any wider to fund the needed resources to reach those higher revenue targets. This leaves hotel marketers under an avalanche of pressure to produce more with less.

#2: Shrinking Margins

Growing supply, Airbnb, fewer overseas visitors and growing OTA bookings all continue to affect margins, leaving hoteliers with less net revenue each month. Hotel marketers have to step up and double down on their efforts to drive bookings from their own direct channel. Otherwise, hotel managers and asset managers will be left wondering why they’re seeing eroded margins, even as your hotel enjoys all-time high ADRs and steady occupancies. It is up to you to explain why your bookings are coming from costly channels vs direct.

#3: Predicted Slowing Pace in ADR and RevPAR

While overall hotel demand in the U.S. is predicted to remain strong in 2017, increasing supply growth is projected to cause occupancy levels to begin to level off. And according to STR, lower growth in the overall economy means a noticeably decelerating pace in RevPAR as well. How will owners react to the beginning of the end of a historically successful cycle? Will hotel marketers be expected to pull rabbits out of their hats?

Read rest of the article at Tambourine