80 – How To Market Your New Hotel Renovations

Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

In this episode of the Suite Spot, host Ryan Embree is joined by Travel Media Group's Content Manager, Marissa Kinzel, to discuss how to market a hotel property's new renovations and updates. With some hotels seeing 2020 as an opportunity to make updates and changes to their property, this episode is a great roadmap for how to advertise them to travelers online. Marissa and Ryan brainstorm ideas for how to communicate important messaging about your new renovations on channels like social media and online reputation sites. They demonstrate how you can use review response as a renovation marketing tool and how to leverage guest sentiment in your hotel’s online reviews to make the most of your updates. To learn more about how Travel Media Group’s digital marketing solutions can help promote your hotel’s renovations online or to submit a question or topic for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455. Suite Spot Podcast · 80 - How To Market Your New Hotel Renovations Episode Transcript Our podcast is produced as an audio resource. Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing and may contain errors. Before republishing quotes, we ask that you reference the audio. Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, as always, Ryan Embree. And with me today, a very familiar voice, she has been on the Suite Spot so much we should almost call her a co-host at this point, but I will welcome in Marissa Kinzel, Content Manager at Travel Media Group. Marissa, welcome back to the Suite Spot, once again. Marissa Kinzel: Thank you so much again for having me. Ryan Embree: We got a very exciting episode and topic for you all. We're going to be talking about how to market your hotel's renovations. You know, as bad as last year was for the hotel industry as a whole, some properties took 2020 as an opportunity to do some much needed renovations and updates to the property. Less travelers, meant less disruption for guests onsite, and hopefully that means quicker date of completions, of these updates. But finishing those renovations is only half the battle and it's time to promote and market your new hotel updates and renovation to travelers. And that's where this episode comes in. So today we're going to walk through some different ways and channels that you can use to leverage your hotel's renovations online. Let's go ahead and get started Marissa with social media. One of the first things hotels need to do once renovations are complete is to update their online listings. Typically, hoteliers are quick to update places like their website and OTA booking sites because this is where travelers are making those booking and purchasing decisions, but they neglect to do so on social media: Facebook, Instagram. You know, I've done a handful of consultations when looking at a hote's Facebook photos and heard the common phrase of, "Wait a second, that's not what my room, what my lobby, what my pool looks like." You know, it reminds me of a story that a hotelier told me once, really a metaphor when it comes to renovations, and it really is like purchasing a brand new car, but keeping that car in the garage so that no one can see it. That's what doing renovations and not updating your sites like social media is doing. You've had this huge capital investment, all this time and money and effort spent, all this headaches into renovations. And yet you're not sharing it with travelers that are probably most excited to see what you've done with the property. And another great place on social media to consider updating is your profile picture. It doesn't have to be your permanent profile picture, but maybe a temporary one or the header where you can highlight and showcase these new renovations. You know, again,