Introduction
At Umi we have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks talking about crisis management, however, in the current situation that the hospitality industry finds itself in, we are seeing a crisis that is managing us. The steps that need to be taken here are different and this blog will outline what we are seeing the market do, and what we are working on with our partner hotels.
We are doing this in 3 ways; Awareness, Pre-paid experiences and Domestic marketing
How can I raise awareness of my hotel brand?
Social media and YouTube advertising will be both less competitive and more likely to engage at present. As people switch their budgets off to preserve cash the cost of ads will fall and users are likely to be more engaged due to a lower saturation of advertising.
Whilst a crisis like this causes a drop in demand we have seen that interest in hotels websites has remained at a good level, we are therefore focussing all of our marketing efforts on brand building. Undertaking tasks like low budget YouTube campaigns and social media lifestyle advertising are prudent at the moment.
How can our community support our staff?
Vouchers – Prepaid Experiences
Another way in which we are working with hotels has been to create our own WordPress plugin to push voucher sales. This will allow people who would like to travel when this is over to support staff whilst the issues are ongoing.
We are doing this through Stripe to offer users a great deal in return for helping hotels out in a time of need. A lot of people have had an interest in supporting workers whose jobs are hardest hit by this crisis and this is one of the ways that the hospitality industry can make sure that its workers are well covered.
How to attract domestic travellers?
The first market to bounce back after the clouds of this clear will be domestic travel, people will be in need of a break but may be wary of heading too far afield. We have created a number of specific landing pages for clients appealing to people travelling from a domestic market which will be ready to push once the tide starts to turn and the lockdown is lifted.
We are seeing a larger engagement than usual from the domestic market and this, along with increased awareness campaigns could put you ahead of the game once the lockdown is over.
Above all our advice to all of you is to stay safe and if you have any questions about this or anything else regarding your website or marketing drop me an email: tom@umidigital.co.uk and we can set up a call