It’s the most wonderful time of the year! One industry that especially enjoys the holidays is the hotel industry.
NB: This is an article by Ken Rhie, CEO of Trumpia
In fact, over 50.9 million Americans traveled this past Thanksgiving weekend, which created a rapid increase in demand for holiday hotel accommodations. But that begs the question for many hotels this holiday vacation season, “How do we transform a weekend traveler into a returning guest?”
The answer is simple: Effective SMS marketing and communication through text messages. Not only do 42% of travelers use mobile devices to make hotel reservations, but texting is the fastest and most widely used communications channel. Here’s a comprehensive guide for maximizing holiday hotel marketing and communications with texting.
Texting for Your Hotel’s Holiday Marketing
To attract new guests during the holiday season, hotels need to stay engaged with their target audience and differentiate themselves from the competition with effective text marketing. Here are three ways texting can maximize your hotel’s holiday marketing to bring in the most guests and provide them with an experience that will make them want to return next year:
#1: Provide Incentives to Increase Keyword Opt-ins
Mobile keywords paired with a digital offer will entice more guests to opt-in to your holiday SMS marketing campaign. Advertise a text keyword, like “HOLIDAYS”, along with a text blast that includes a hotel deals, such as a 50% off coupon to your spa facilities or free appetizers in your restaurant. Text message marketing is one of the most effective methods of getting guests to read your messages, as texting has an overall read rate of 98%. By sending these offers and holiday text messages, you will ultimately build your customer database and increase utilization of your hotel facilities.
#2: Personalize Holiday Messages and Offers
One of the most influential ways of bringing in guests during the Holiday season is by sending them holiday texts and offers that are relevant them. Whenever a guest enters your SMS messaging campaign, you can schedule a season’s greetings to welcome them to your holiday promotions. SMS marketing services even employ customer data collection to extract essential information to customers in order to supply personalized holiday hotel offers.
When you provide these personalized text offers you will ultimately boost customer loyalty and increase sales, as 77% of consumers are more likely to chose, recommend, or pay for a brand that provides personalized offers. For example, send a message including their first name saying, “Merry Christmas [Guest Name Here]! Come spend your Christmas vacation with us!” or “[Guest Name Here] don’t forget to plan your Christmas trip!”. Sending these personalized reminders will help boost awareness of your hotel during the holiday rush and throughout the coming travel year.
#3: Send SMS Surveys Across Multiple Channels to Get Better Feedback
Catering to your guests’ wants and needs is something that shouldn’t be left to guess work. While traditional surveys have the right intention of collecting crucial guest feedback, these often go unfinished, with only 10% of online surveys being completed. Text surveys, however, produce up to a 50% response rate. And with an advanced text message marketing software, like Trumpia, hotels have the ability to share their surveys across email, Twitter, Facebook, and voice broadcasts, meaning they get the best possible feedback.
Using SMS for Your Hotels’ Holiday Internal Communication
While marketing is important for attracting guests, powerful communication and exceptional services will ultimately decide whether they enjoy their holiday stay and want to make a return visit. Here are 4 ways texting can optimize your hotel’s holiday internal communication and provide the best holiday experience for your guests:
#1: Optimize Check-in and Check-out Through Text
A relatively simple task that has been dragged out is the check-in and check-out process, where guests are required to do so at the front desk physically or over a phone call. What better way to let your guests maximize their holiday enjoyment then by streamlining this step through a simple text message. Guests simply text the front desk to check-in, pick-up room keys, or check out. This is extremely fast to confirm through text, as most texts are checked within 5 seconds.
#2: Enhance Holiday Concierge Services with Text Communication
Guests during the holiday season want to feel like they are valued. Customer service centers that don’t utilize texting to communicate with their guests find that their helpline often gets bombarded with phone calls. Not only are they unable to effectively service their guests in a timely manner, but their guests would prefer to avoid this step all together, as studies show 52% of guests would prefer to text the front desk over other methods. Some examples of concierge services that can be streamlined through texting are:
#3: Quick and Easy Text Valet Services During Busy Holiday Hours
Have a guest that wants to make a stylish exit to a holiday party or simply doesn’t want to wait for valet services to deliver their car? Then allow your guest to text the valet that they’re on their way, so you can prepare their car in advance. That way your guest can make a graceful stroll directly from their room to their car to maximize the time they have to enjoy the city they are visiting.
Implementing text messaging into your hotel’s holiday marketing and communications is a surefire way to getting all rooms filled and providing the ultimate holiday experience for guests. Are you a hotel wanting to join your customer’s “Nice” list?
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Ken Rhie is the CEO of Trumpia, which earned a reputation as the most complete SMS solution including user-friendly user interface and API for mobile engagement, Smart Targeting, advanced automation, enterprise, and cross-channel features for both mass texting and landline texting use cases. Mr. Rhie holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. He has over 30 years of experience in the software, internet, and mobile communications industries.
For more information on how integrating a text messaging software can improve the experience of your hotel guests, click here!
