Hotel competition is fierce, how to improve occupancy rate?
01
Analysis of internal and external factors for increasing occupancy rate
The competition in China’s hotel industry is no longer limited to first-tier cities. The nationwide layout of the hotel industry has created fierce competition in the entire industry. The intensification of competition will inevitably lead to a decrease in the occupancy rate of the hotel and a decrease in revenue. In addition to the reasons for market competition, the rapid expansion of domestic hotels has ignored some details, such as the marketing strategy of seasonal markets, the construction of characteristic hotels and the importance of brands. Enhancing the competitiveness of the hotel and increasing the occupancy rate have become the goals pursued by various hotels. Here I would like to talk about my experience:
- First, improve your own service level
High-quality service, comfortable, convenient and fast experience are the main factors that attract repeat customers. Maybe the hotel can improve the short-term occupancy rate through some marketing methods, but if the hotel service is not up to standard, it cannot maintain an optimistic state for a long time. For example, the average room occupancy rate of Beijing XX Hotel has reached nearly 60% in less than 3 months, and the highest one week exceeded 80%. Generally, the average occupancy rate of large hotels within one year of opening is about 20%. One of the reasons for the hotel’s high occupancy rate is the high level of service, which emphasizes improving the hotel’s economic benefits by allowing every employee to provide guests with high-quality, efficient, and satisfactory service.
For hotel services, it is generally considered a timely service in the industry, that is, a face-to-face service with guests. When the guests leave the hotel, the service ends. Not only do face-to-face instant service, but also after-sales service should be in place, so that satisfied customers can be turned into loyal customers. Loyal customers brought by such high-quality services are a valuable asset for the hotel.
- Second, focus on hotel brand building
Judging from the current hotel market, foreign brands in five-star hotels occupy the highest market, with the best occupancy rate, average room rate, customer source structure, and income level. This is the charm of the brand! Another example is Homeinn’s TOP1 economical brand, with a brand index of 222.96, and the average occupancy rate in the first quarter was 84.4%; the second was Hanting’s brand index of 162.27, with an average occupancy rate of 91% in the first quarter. A year-on-year increase of 9%; the average occupancy rate in the last 7 days of the TOP5 in the first quarter is also as high as 79.5%, much higher than some other hotels with lower brand influence. Therefore, if you want to increase the occupancy rate of the hotel, brand building is an essential step.
The first step in building a good hotel brand is to have the best brand positioning. The hotel must first establish a brand positioning point, which is an element that can be used for brand positioning. The second is the dissemination of the hotel brand image, so that hotel guests can understand, recognize, understand and accept this positioning. Hotels can communicate through traditional media, online media and other new media, and then conduct brand marketing through event marketing, leverage marketing, topic marketing, crisis marketing and other marketing methods. I once saw such a hotel on the Internet. The hotel not only printed the name and logo of the hotel on the napkins in Anting, but also printed the history of the hotel on it. 2017 happened to be the tenth anniversary of the hotel’s opening, so the hotel printed “2007-2017” on the napkin, which not only conveyed the history of the hotel to customers, but also promoted the brand culture of the hotel, and also displayed the tenth anniversary of the hotel. Anniversary brilliance. This behavior of the hotel has left a deep impression on many customers.
- Finally, pay attention to the characteristics of the hotel
In the case of increasingly serious homogenization, hotels make their own characteristics is an effective way to improve the occupancy rate. Insiders have suggested that hotel features are more important than star ratings. If a hotel wants to attract customers, it must make special features. Only if there is something special, customers can remember you, and they will think of you the first time next time. In addition, the hotel should pay attention to innovation while making its own characteristics. Innovation is one of the real survival strategies of an enterprise. Innovation includes technological innovation and appearance innovation of hotel products, as well as service innovation and management innovation.
There is such a hotel, its “smart e room” room multimedia reminder is a feature of the hotel, which makes the guests who have stayed there unforgettable. When you enter the hotel’s guest room, you can see that the TV is automatically turned on and there is a welcome message with the content of the weather forecast. In rainy days, there will be an extra umbrella next to it, and in cold weather, there will be a reminder of “keep warm and beware of colds”. The hotel’s special services have been widely praised by guests, and the business is also very good. Although it is a four-star hotel, its operating income in 2011 reached more than 60 million yuan, ranking among the top star-rated hotels in the region.
There are also many hotels that do not have stars, but their prices are almost the same as star hotels, and some are even more expensive. They abandoned large conference rooms, multi-functional halls, swimming pools, recreational facilities and other facilities, but attracted a group of consumers with strong spending power and high requirements for special services through unique designs and details. Most of the hotel’s consumers are frequent guests, and the occupancy rate has remained above 80%.
In view of the current situation, if the hotel wants to be invincible in the competition, managers can only improve the overall economic benefits of the hotel by finding ways to continuously improve the room occupancy rate.
02
Market positioning (potential customer base)
According to the information provided by the director, as a mid-range business hotel in the city, it will give full play to the advantages of the hotel’s geographical location, and target the middle-level consumer groups according to the company’s business philosophy and goals:
(1) Mid-range and mid-to-high-end business travelers;
(2) Leisure and vacation FIT;
(3) Room reservations in the room;
(4) Business meeting team;
(5) Domestic and foreign tourism standard teams;
(6) Self-driving tourists;
(7) FIT;
(8) Student customers;
(9) Government meeting teams and entertaining individual guests;
(10) Cooperation with exhibition companies, exhibition business visitors.
03
Marketing method
There are not many shortcuts to open up the market, and suffering is the most fundamental way out. Why do you say this, because accurate positioning, reasonable housing prices, and good cooperation reputation are all available, and information output (promotion and promotion) is the most critical. It is impossible for hotel sales to do daily necessities in terms of advertising and publicity. A large number of media advertisements are put in, so personnel promotion is the most important means, so regular promotion is very important.
- Promotions for business customers and individual customers:
(1) Promotion objects:
(a) Local business company
(b) Various functional departments of the government
© Business companies outside the province
(d) FITS.
(2) Establish a full agency system to organize business customers both inside and outside the province. Such as planning some corporate economics, academic seminars, training courses reception and reception of institutions.
(3) The individual passenger market is the main source market for our hotel rooms. To increase the average room price with a limited number of rooms, changing the proportion of individual groups is the fundamental way. Focus on developing the local market, followed by other counties and cities in the province.
(4) Strengthen the contact with various enterprises and units, vigorously develop new customers, and customers in the local market should visit one by one.
(5) For individual customers, customers who are bundled with guest rooms can enjoy business agreement discounts in catering and conferences at the same time.
(6) Design a variety of packages (package price) according to the needs of different guests.
(7) Vigorously develop long-term customers; formulate a room commission reward system.
- Tourist source of travel agency
(1) Leverage the price, pursue profit maximization in the peak season, and pursue a high occupancy rate in the off-season to attract teams from various clubs.
(2) Actively look for the cooperation of local travel agencies and the source of tourists from land-based associations in other regions.
- Develop the customer source of the online reservation center
Focus on the development of online reservations, such as Ctrip, Qunar, Meituan, Fliggy, 114, eLong, China Mobile 12580, Mango.com and other websites. The rest are maintained to varying degrees according to the specific situation of the company and the number of reservations.
A. According to the off-season and occupancy rate, special rooms or some promotional packages are regularly launched.
B. Formulate a step-by-step rebate incentive agreement to increase the number of reservations.
C. Understand customer needs and follow up customers’ opinions and suggestions on the Internet or other media.
D. The website promotion of the online reservation center will help to improve the market of the hotel reservation center. The development of the major reservation centers is different, and the ranking of the website and the degree of promotion will affect the number of rooms delivered to the hotel.
E. Smooth reception, good communication, effective follow-up of feedback from guests and the reservation center, and smooth settlement of commissions will gradually increase the number of orders in the reservation center.
F. Vigorously develop some valuable reservation centers, which will help the hotel to accumulate more and more customers, thus forming a consumption chain, driving the market, and improving the hotel’s profit and popularity. 4. Internal publicity channels ①. To promote each consumption when customers enter the store, they must introduce each service to them. In this way, it is necessary to establish an internal publicity network. From the moment they enter the hotel lobby, they can understand the hotel. The basic facilities of the hotel (production of light boxes and pictures of the overall facilities), when you walk into the elevator, you can further see the advertisements with pictures and texts. When you arrive at the guest room, in addition to some key items, there is also a service guide with pictures and texts. In addition to various facilities In addition to the introduction pictures, billing methods, TV programs, and room promotions (including pictures), there are also background information of the hotel, pictures of celebrities visiting and corporate culture. At the same time, there are also hotel location map, introduction of various transportation facilities and tourist attractions, corresponding local customs and so on. ②. Promotion of the internal consumption chain. Through the internal cross-promotion network, the internal business departments will be introduced to the guests to attract customers, and the housing discount card will be produced to complete the composition of the internal consumption chain. Such as doing corresponding advertisements in the hall, placing brochures and so on.
Increase the rate of return Through promotion, attracting and retaining customers is the key to improving the rate of return. Only by retaining the guests and satisfying the guests can the rate of return (of course, refers to the premise of accurate price positioning) can be increased. To increase the stock, only by accumulation, will there be an increase in the stock, in order to maintain relative stability and a higher open rate. In addition to hardware packages, the means of retaining customers include software (including services, quality of catering products, and high-standard services from other business departments), and some gifts and concessions can also be used—the implementation of “cash credit” “Coupons”: When the consumption reaches a certain amount or housing, you can enjoy a free room, and you can enjoy preferential discounts with this card, or give away fruits, milk, coffee, etc.
Promotion and sales of membership cards
In business hotels, customer loyalty is particularly important. A customer’s loyalty mainly depends on his satisfaction. When a guest tries a hotel’s products and services, he may feel dissatisfied, average, satisfied, very satisfied, overjoyed or even pleasantly surprised. Customers who get very satisfied and higher enjoyment are 90% likely to repeat purchases. Then, under the effect of the “standardized and personalized” service that some regular hotels have implemented, how many customers can be very satisfied or even surprised? I’m afraid it’s not too optimistic. Therefore, in terms of cultivating the loyalty of guests, the membership system should be an ideal choice. If a business hotel implements the membership system successfully, it can produce the following five effects:
(a) The member will be very willing to recommend this hotel to his relatives and friends, resulting in chain sales.
(b) The consumption frequency of members is significantly higher than that of ordinary individual tourists, and they are willing to accept the new products launched by the hotel. © Members have a high tolerance for the hotel’s mistakes, and can calmly put forward their own suggestions and suggestions on the hotel’s related services and products. (d) There is space for members to communicate with each other and achieve certain value through communication. (e) A member will not change his spending habits in this hotel because of the completion of a new hotel nearby or the introduction of attractive promotions by other hotels. The promotion and sales of membership cards mainly depend on the efforts of the front desk and market personnel, so the sales commissions of some membership cards will help the hotel staff to improve a positive atmosphere and generate income for the hotel!
- Change the proportion of group breakups according to market changes
Through market analysis, changing the proportion of group and dispersal is another important means to improve efficiency. Changing the ratio of group-dispatch refers to reducing the number of team receptions under the condition that the individual passenger market has steadily increased the number of customers. According to market changes, we will strive to achieve a 6:4 ratio of disbanded groups within one year. This is another important indicator besides the business indicator, and it is also a way for the hotel to develop. The method of alternate replacement is adopted to achieve the purpose of increasing the team’s house price.
Increase revenue and reduce expenditure, strengthen management
Regularly strengthen staff training to improve staff quality and business level.
Allocate the departmental level design system, set the post and set the staff, and reduce the cost.
Formulate internal and external incentive mechanisms to mobilize the enthusiasm of all employees.
Note: The above work is very important, not only to establish its own brand for the hotel, but also to allow employees and managers to learn while working, to improve their work ability during learning, and to be competent for more important jobs or multiple positions in one position, Save the labor cost of the hotel.