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Yesterday we talked about how being an expert can help you define what you offer, and your ideal guests. Developing an expertise enables you to build rapport with a niche market of potential guests, and gives you an opportunity to run exclusive events and promotions for these customers’ market, which they perceive as value for money.

As a starting point, you can host meetings or club/group dinners and general social events. To take the step further you could invite topic experts, celebrities or people of specific interest or host quizzes or workshops. This might provide another opportunity for a joint venture.

For example, if your topic is gardening, you might be able to form a partnership with a local nursery, garden designer, gardening author, historical/ famous garden, manufacturer of garden products, or market gardener (or all of these).

To capitalise on your expert topic run educational weekends and breaks. These might include a combination of the above. Continuing gardening as an example, it might include talks from experts, transport and free entry to a number of local gardens of interest (maybe as exclusive guests of the owner), plant sales through a local nursery, special promotional prices on other garden products from manufacturers or wholesalers, menus planned around locally grown produce.

It’s even better if you can tie in with any specific gardening events happening locally, such as RHS flower shows, Gardeners’ Question Time, etc. Or host your own Gardeners’ Question Time calling upon local gardening celebrities.

You could follow a similar theme for any specialist area be it spas, cars, food, fashion, sailing, singing, cheese making, wine tasting, archaeology, geology, and anything else you can think of.

Promoting this type of event is so much easier than general promotions as you have a specific audience who you know has a particular interest. And (importantly) if you share this interest, you are in a much stronger position to present things in a way that will appeal to your target audience. If you do not share this interest, then involve someone who does, who can totally relate to and empathise with your prospects and guests.

For more ideas on using promotions to add value and increase sals see 21 Lessons in Running a Profitable Hotel Promotion.

One way of really capitalising on your interests and capturing the interest of your guests or prospects is to become an ‘expert’ in something that they (and you) are interested in.

Becoming an expert gives your hotel something that will make you stand out from everyone else. It also means you are more likely to attract the type of guests with whom you can build up a good rapport and a better prospect of repeat business. It’s very easy to be enthusiastic and passionate about something that interests you, and this enthusiasm will translate into bookings if managed smartly.

An expert topic gives you the opportunity to get noticed by writing articles, blog posts, guidebooks or maybe even organising clubs or seminars in your hotel relevant to the topic. Any of these expert-related actions can form great PR and an opportunity to attract the attention of your prospects, and are also a fantastic way to help you build your prospect list. They enquire or request information and in return you get their contact details.

Here are a few examples of how you can use your expertise to get guests:

• If you have a spa, you could write articles about different treatments and therapies, and put together your own small guide.
• If your hotel is popular with golfers, you could include tips from a golf pro, blog about golf tournaments, or review local courses.
• If you have an interest in classic cars, you might want to promote classic car events in the area, write about the events, and maybe even chart your progress with your own car if you have one.
• If you have a particularly extensive or unusual wine list and want to make this a feature, you could review the wines, or ask your wine supplier to write articles for you.
• If you have an unusual or particularly renowned menu, using local ingredients, put together your own recipe book. You may even want to include the source of some of your ingredients and maybe get your key suppliers to share the costs. Then offer cookery lessons or courses centred on your signature dishes.

All these examples are ways of being unique and different using your expertise. You can make your expertise the differentiating factor of your hotel, and a way of connecting with a potential audience. If you have a very niche interest, then this will translate to a very niche target market, so try and have a focused but broad enough area of expertise.

Having a specific area of expertise also makes it easier for you to find a forum or networking group where you can get your name known, as well as finding potential opportunities and prospective joint ventures. And once established as an expert, you can build on this by offering themed events and weekends.

One word of warning on your expert topic – don’t let this detract from the basics of a well-run hotel. Get the basics right first – your accommodation, service and food – then focus on your areas of special interest. No use having the best-run spa in the county if your rooms don’t live up to it, and you certainly won’t attract wine lovers if your food isn’t up to the same quality as the wine, for example.

For more ideas on making you stand out from your competitors see the Hotel Success Handbook.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about how you can use your expert topic to add a perception of value.

Yesterday I attended a lively debate held by BAHA (the British Association of Hospitality Accountants) on the pros and cons of ‘Dynamic Pricing’.  Dynamic Pricing is what you see airlines using with their fares. It is based on the principle that the right rate to charge for a room night is what the customer is able and willing to pay, and means that a hotel might change its room rates daily or even within a day if up-to-the-minute market information reveals a change in supply or demand. 

By under pricing, the hotel potentially leaves money on table; by overpricing, it may price itself out of the market. The constant challenge, of course, is trying to determine the optimal price on a given day or afternoon. Prices may rise as occupancy increases (giving incentives for early booking), but might also drop again at the last minute if target occupancy levels look as if they wont be reached. 

The debate was whether or not dynamic pricing is the only key to unlocking revenue potential and taking advantage of every revenue opportunity out there. 

Whilst there were compelling arguments for dynamic pricing – primarily of the reminder that we are in business to make a profit – those against the motion reminded us of the following:

• The need to consider the lifetime value of the guest, not just the price they pay today
• The additional incremental revenue that may be generated by that guest. (Anyone who has staying in Las Vegas will know that this is a key driver on determining the room rate and the standard of room.)
• Does a lower price devalue your brand?
• Recognition of guest loyalty; will changing your pricing alienate your most valued guests and encourage them to go elsewhere?
• How can travel companies budget if prices are so variable?
• Can your distribution systems cope with the changes?
• How consistent are any price changes against advertised promotional rates?
• If focusing just on rooms on the book, does this take into account forecasted bookings?
• How do guest feel when they talk to someone who has paid half the price they paid?
• Is your offer suddenly worth any more (or less) today or this afternoon just because the market demand has shot up (or down)? 

Should you be consistent or should you go with the flow and let the perceived market forces dictate your pricing levels? In other words should your hotel compete on price?

What’s your view on this? Do you flex your prices according to demand?

Caroline Cooper

If you are analysing your sales you’ll know what your average customer spend.  But do you know what percentage of your customers buy what products and services?  Unless you do you wont know where you are losing out on sales opportunities.

For example of only 45% of your guests take breakfast, this leaves another 55% who go without or go elsewhere. Even if they don’t want a full blown breakfast are you missing out on sales of croissants, coffee or fruit?

If you know that only 25% of your guests eat in the restaurant, this means 75% find an alterative. If only 75% of diners order a side portion of vegetables, 25% just have the main dish; if 40% of conference organisers want coffee and pastries on arrival, 60% go without. And if only 10% of your restaurant diners have a dessert, that leaves 90% who don’t.

But before you can address this you need to understand why.

Sticking with the dessert example ask yourself, is it because:

• The order is being taken too soon and diners are too full
• The dessert menu is too boring or does nothing to sell itself
• It’s too expensive, not seen as value for money
• It’s too cheap, giving the perception of poor quality
• Main courses are so big diners don’t have room for a dessert
• Service is slow so people are in a rush to get home or back to work
• The ambiance is wrong and diners feel they don’t want to stay around
• Diners feel rushed don’t feel welcome to stay
• Dessert menus are slow to materialise so people have gone off the idea
• There is too little information so people don’t know what they are buying
• Not everyone wants a dessert so those that do go with the majority
• They simply aren’t offered dessert

Some potential solutions:

• Review your dessert menu and include one or two extra special items
• Add seasonal choices using in season produce to give variety and perception of freshness
• Ask customers what they’d like to see on the dessert menu
• Let customers see the dessert menu at the start of their meal to get the idea in their mind at the outset
• Offer non-sweet alternatives at the same time: port, cheese, more wine, specialist coffees for the non dessert lovers
• Make a point of dessert portions for sharing
• Offer take home desserts
• Give staff an incentive to upsell on desserts
• Ensure staff are confident to describe all the dishes on the menu

Whether you are a hotel, restaurant or conference facility, adopt the same approach with all your offers and services where you are potentially leaving sales on the table.

Caroline Cooper