How to increase Revenue in Low hotel Season?
If you own a hotel, then you must certainly know the importance of seasons for your business. Without a doubt, peak seasons are the best for hotel owners as they welcome a huge number of guests in their hotels. Also, achieving full occupancy during these times is not that hard.
However, the season can’t last for long, and soon things are going to change as it does every year. After the peak season, a mid or low hotel season has to be arrived. It’s the time when the hotel owners struggle the most with the occupancy rate and the overall hotel revenue.
So hoteliers need to have a good understanding of all the seasons. In the blog post, we will learn How to increase Hotel Revenue in Low Season.
How to determine the low hotel season?
The low hotel season in the hotel industry refers to the period when the demand for hotel bookings is relatively less. During this time, the hotels experience lower occupancy rates and lower revenue compared to peak seasons.
The timing of the low season can vary from hotel to hotel. One of the factors for the low hotel season can be the hotel location while another factor can be unfavorable weather conditions.
In some cases, the low hotel season can be linked to specific events or holidays dull in travel for a few periods after a major event or festival.
Strategies to follow to increase Revenue in Low hotel Season
Market Research
During low hotel season, The first important thing a hotelier should do is conduct market research. You have to analyze your past data and trends that are responsible for the decline in the bookings.
You can take help from various hospitality KPIs to evaluate your hotel’s performance.
This research will help to identify the area of improvement so that you can build up a strategy to counter the low hotel season.
Boost your direct bookings
In the low hotel season, the hotel management is not occupied with many guests. So, you have plenty of time to improve your online website so that can attract more guests to your hotel.
You can optimize the SEO of your website, and utilize the social media platform, and enhance your listings on online travel agencies. Apart from this, there are many ways to gain more direct bookings for Hotel Websites such as having a mobile-friendly website, a reliable booking engine etc.
Also, make sure to offer exclusive benefits for the guests who book directly from your website. You can offer discounted rates, free room upgrades or any other additional perks. This will help you to build a loyal customer base and will reduce your dependencies on third-party platforms.
Attract the Locals
Throughout these low seasons, start focussing on attracting the local residents as your guests. You can offer special promotions, day-use options or dining discounts to attract them to your hotel.
Also, you can attract locals for other events such as staycations, anniversary celebrations or weekend gateways. Collaborate with local businesses to create partnerships and cross-promotions to leverage each other’s customers for mutual benefits.
Target Niche Audience
During the low hotel season, you have plenty of room space available. You can target niche audiences and take advantage of these extra room spaces. This can include hosting conferences, workshops or any other official events that target specific industries or interest groups.
So, you need to start building up partnerships with event organizers or associations to reserve the group bookings and utilize your extra room space.
Lowering the room rates
Lowering your room prices is one of those steps that every hotelier should avoid. It is understandable that for a hotel owner, providing discounted rates is the last thing to do as your hotel’s business is highly dependable on it.
However, when the low season is heavily affecting your revenue, sometimes lowering your room rates can be the best option.
Also, if still don’t wish to reduce your room rates, there are other things that you can do such as offering a hotel room & dinner deal, free drinks at your restaurant after a certain bill, discount vouchers for additional facilities and complimentary transportation services.
Loyalty Program
Offering loyalty programs are one of the best approaches to increase the number of repeat guests at your hotel. These programs will help you to increase your hotel’s occupancy by creating healthy relationships with your guests.
There are many easy steps to create a loyalty program that will help to retain your guests in your hotel.
Conclusion
In this blog, we have learned about the low season and how can you effectively counter it.
It is important to note that not all hotels experience a low hotel season. Hotels that are located in popular tourist destinations may have a relatively stable demand throughout the year.
However, for many hotels, the low season brings challenges in terms of maintaining profits and controlling operating costs.
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