Starting up a business in the travel and hospitality sector is an exciting venture, full of opportunity.
Whether you’re in the five-star deluxe market, or a humble and homely Bed and Breakfast, here are five steps to ensuring you’re on the right road to success.
1. Know Your Market
Get in touch with your customer base and find out what they need from you.
If you’re a beachfront Bed and Breakfast, you might want to consider allowing dogs so that you can cater for backpackers.
If you’re a high-end city-based hotel, equally it’s probably a good idea to mould your hotel around the business market, supplying perks like free Wi-Fi and complimentary breakfast.
2. Build an Excellent Internet Presence
A large and successful internet presence is essential for creating awareness for your accomodation. Create a clear and easy to navigate website with correct and up to date information, and build informative social media channels.
This will help you to interact with potential guests and showcase the best of your business. Make sure to use the bio space on each channel to post a link to a booking form or accessible ‘about us’ page on your website.
You can also use a Linktree to list several addresses to other social media channels or your website to keep all your useful information in one place.
3. Action your reviews
It’s important go interact with guest reviews. Stay connected to, and engage with, your TripAdvisor and Google reviews pages, and take genuine criticism on board.
Offer discounts and incentives to provide feedback, and should a complaint be made in person, address it calmly and with empathy. This will avoid an escalation and will make customers more likely to return in the future.
4. Invest in Good Quality Furniture
For hotels, the quality of the room is one of the key driving factors of most reviews, so a good room can make all the difference.
Guests like to feel that they are getting good value for their money, so investing in the furniture that they use and see is a big part of that.
Beds are often a deciding factor in a guest’s feels about a hotel, so make sure you invest in high quality mattress for your guests. Companies like Archers Sleep Centre can help you pick out the right beds that are not only comfortable, but fit the theme of your rooms.
5. Get Your Price Right
Pricing competition is often strong in tourist and business hotspots, so consider factors such as your star rating, your investment in the business, the quality of any food you serve, customer feedback and location.
Be flexible in allowing discount for last minute or walk-in bookings, as this can help to fill up any empty rooms. Including a deal like breakfast or free cancellation insurance in the price can also entice first time guests to take the plunge.
You can use websites like Trivago, Enjoy, Booking.com, Scyscanner to compare prices for hotels in your area, and help you plan your own.
Do you have any tips for starting up a hotel business? Leave your answer in the comments below!