Hoteliers, do you know your new audience?
With all that has happened during the past twenty four months after COVID-19, hotels and restaurants have had to carry out a total revamp of how they operate. Ensuring the health and safety of both customers’ and employees was the top priority and this forced hospitality businesses to make substantial changes in the way they operated. Then there was the challenge of overcoming the customers’ unwillingness to patronize their business and with it the overwhelming threat of business closure - temporarily or forever.
At the beginning hotel occupancy rates dropped to zero, whilst restaurants saw only empty tables. Everyone scrambled to tackle the unthinkable; going under faster than the titanic. Survival from a financial standpoint was the need of the hour – where at any moment, business longevity was in peril.
No sooner COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, hospitality incomes declined, noticeable so, as there were no tourists and the industry had to turn towards relying on locals. Facing financial disaster that either led to bankruptcy or adapt cut-off expenditure, the outcome which ever direction it took, created chaos among employees.
Thankfully, and as seen historically, businesses are slowly coming back and will pick up eventually. As each day passes the worst appears to be behind us, although the industry is yet to climb out of the deep hole. Recovery from a financial perspective aside, the operational challenges had also to be dealt with. That’s where the hospitality industry switched from traditional to innovative business models to increase the revisit intention of the customer.
COVID-19 not only forced a revision of service, it also changed the ways in which people ordered food – more people began ordering food together at home, rather than diners ordering from within the restaurant. Time will tell whether this trend will continue.
The hospitality industry requires maintaining a certain level of demand to meet a relatively high breakeven point arising from high operating costs. For many businesses, sustaining, if not increasing that demand for their services and products means survival. In the wake of an economic disaster, several opportunities were realised despite the forced disconnection with physical human connection. Two of the biggest opportunities were the incorporation of technology and social media.
However, from a marketing standpoint, and despite the successes, there is more to be done by hospitality operators - if they are to get pass this unprecedented COVID-19 era. To begin with, do hoteliers and restaurateurs know who their new audience is? Originally the hotels’ built their website with a specific audience in mind. But that was many years ago and long before COVID-19 came along. Are the demographics still the same as they were when the site was developed? No, not any longer!. How about social media? Are the same people who engaged with your social media content the same people who are visiting your website and booking stays?
Time to take a deep dive on your website demographics and check it out to see whether its relevant with the new times?
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hotelier Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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