With the rise of the Internet, the saturation of the sector and the change in user behavior, the day has come when differentiation is imperative. And that’s why we give so much importance to hotel branding. It has been found that travel users are looking for experiences that are unique and add value. That’s why hotels need to re-create a connection with their potential customers so that they feel attracted and can find an identification.
Because we must take into account that travelers are exposed to a multitude of tourist brands. And with each encounter, we develop thoughts and feelings that help us build their image. And it is the image we perceive and whether we identify with their values that helps us to choose between one or the other. So, in the competitive hotel industry, the image and values we associate with your hotel brand are everything.
Vacation industry products and services are now evolving at a rapid pace. It is not easy to keep travel and experience consumers engaged if they are not attracted to a given brand’s branding and value proposition. Keeping up to date of the latest consumer trends, it implies making changes, it implies considering rebranding as a marketing strategy to differentiate your hotel.
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Almost all hotels evolve over the course of their own history. Bringing your hotel brand back to life, changing some of its defining features to adapt to new consumers and be more competitive, are some of the best ways to attract attention and differentiate yourself. To do this, you have to redefine who you want to become as a hotel and who is the ideal type of customer you are going to satisfy.
Corporate Identity
First of all, keep in mind that rebranding your hotel is not just a visual change. For this reason, it is important to lay the foundation of who you want to become. You need to redefine your identity. And for this, we believe that the development of a CDD strategy is essential. This strategy is the one that details the features that differentiate, define and facilitate the communication of your hotel:
1. Differentiation
It is what will determine the mission, vision and values of your hotel. The philosophy and key attributes that will make your hotel stand out, attract and be unique and unrepeatable. In this case it is important to know the competition well and to identify (and not underestimate) their value proposition.
A good way to differentiate yourself at this time is through the specialization of your hotel, offering products and services with an added value to very well defined potential customers. Why? Because due to the high competitiveness you make sure you are meeting the needs of a sector that you have decided to know in depth.
There are more and more types of hotels. The classic categories are no longer enough; now we find hotels for a specific religious sector; for specific sexual preferences; for cultural (musical, artistic, gastronomic…) or sporting tastes (fitness, various active sports…); for a specific generation or family nucleus, etc. By choosing one type or another you can make yours unique.
2. The definition
It is what will mark the strategic positioning of your hotel, the attributes of your products, even the feeling of belonging of your employees. When you know what differentiates you, you can redefine yourself as a brand and determine what new image to project.
Rebranding is an effort to create new policies, marketing strategies and visual identity. The latter involves a restructuring of all applications: in the hotel facilities, the web, merchandising, etc. This is one of the most important elements because most likely the user’s first encounter with your hotel’s brand will be visual.
3. Communication
It is the specification of its own coherent style in the application of all the other facets of the hotel’s identity. Communication focuses on explaining and analyzing your hotel’s positioning to determine how your brand is psychologically perceived by consumers.
The image cannot be 100% controlled because it depends on highly variable consumer trends. But you can control the communication management of your hotel. Be social. Consider all communication strategies from a personal and close perspective.
Your social media strategy, your email marketing strategy, your website’s blog, video marketing, etc. Everything must be consistent with the new values you have defined and must be targeted to those who are going to be your potential customers.
Ideal customers
Secondly, one of the big problems in the hotel industry is that many chains target their hotels to the same audiences. As you have seen, it is no longer enough to segment your audience, as it is becoming more and more demanding. Now you need to be more specific about who you are targeting.
Therefore, the second step is to define the profiles of your potential customers. Most likely, with your CDD strategy, you have determined the specific group you are targeting, so that you know how to manage your products and services to fully satisfy their needs.
Analyze the reasons why they will come to you and prefer you, what they will think of your hotel’s values and culture, what their consumer preferences are, how they behave, how they share their experiences, etc. That way, it will be easier to create profiles of your potential guests to implement all the new marketing actions in order to get more customers.
