This blog post was updated on 8 July 2022.
Digital marketing is becoming one of the most important parts of resort hotels’ overall marketing efforts.
We increasingly use a mixture of our smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops in our daily lives when searching for information or buying a product online, and this behaviour extends to the way we search and book our holidays.
Having a solid digital marketing strategy can help you to stand out from the competition, entice users to consider your destination and ultimately convince them to book a stay at your hotel.
Here are three international digital marketing strategies for resort hotels that you should consider if you want to boost your bookings from international travellers.
1. Boost brand awareness using your website
Many hotel managers want to use their website to get more direct bookings, as this allows them to avoid paying commissions to online travel agencies. However, if your brand awareness is low, then it would be a better idea to use your hotel website as your main tool to improve your brand awareness. Once users find your brand, they will possibly prefer to book via an online travel agency who will be able to provide them with flights, transfers and hotel rooms at a single point.
Actionable tips:
- Target keywords from broad to specific, in order to capture users’ attention at all stages of the customer booking journey.
- Optimise your website for mobile; make sure your website is responsive.
- If you have not already, migrate your website from HTTP to HTTPS.
- Optimise your website speed.
- Try to find the right balance between SEO and website design.
- Translate your website into the native languages of your target markets. You might want to consider SEO-localisation – a process which produces SEO-friendly translations.
2. Create a connection using social media
Social media is a great way to get in touch with travellers and stay connected with them. It enables resort hotels to engage with travellers from the inspiration stage to the booking stage. By harnessing the power of social media, you can attract users in a natural and fun way.
Actionable tips:
- Make sure your content is visually attractive and useful.
- Create a content calendar and align your social media calendar with it. This will make sure you do not miss important dates and engagement opportunities.
- Embrace user-generated content and encourage your guests to share on social media.
- Run social media contests to create buzz.
- Consider collaborating with a relevant social media influencer.
3. Showcase your hotel using video
I just wanted to touch on video content specifically, as video content is a great tool that you can use across all platforms. You can use videos on your website, your blog, on social media and even on your ads. Having your own channel on YouTube for your resort hotel can also be a good tactical move to showcase your hotel’s videos.
Actionable tip:
- If you host your videos on YouTube, make sure to optimise them. Do your keyword research in a similar way to how you would when optimising your website content and make sure to optimise each video’s title, description and tags with your keywords.
I hope this has given you a useful introduction to digital marketing strategies for resort hotels. For more in-depth information, read my free, full-length guide here. The guide covers:
- the impact of COVID-19
- the importance of seasonality
- distribution strategies of resort hotels
- the different stages of the customer booking journey and the best ways you can reach users at each stage
- how to optimise and translate your resort hotel’s website
- the importance of having a corporate blog
- how and why to do social media, including the importance of user-generated content and influencer marketing
- the importance of video content
Ismail Turgut Sisman
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- 3 international digital marketing strategies for resort hotels - March 6, 2019
