There is no denying that non-essential travel has taken a cruel hit in 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. But what about essential travelers; individuals and organizations that depend upon overnight accommodations to conduct their regular business operations? There are still opportunities today for savvy hoteliers who know how and where to find them, but for anyone who’s historically undervalued niche marketing, getting in the game might be a challenge.
Hotel salespeople know that they simply cannot afford to overlook any source for consistent, repeat accommodation needs. While it’s true that the “low hanging fruit” represented by large conferences and conventions has virtually dried up in the short term, salespeople may be either unaware of how easy it is to tap into the market of specialty buyers or are being held back by misconceptions about their ability to attract unique travel groups. Here are some of the most common fallacies surrounding niche marketing.
3 Common Myths About Niche Marketing
Myth #1 –Finding and developing new niche markets is complicated and labor intensive.
Vindow is an online sourcing service that works with corporate travel and meeting planners to streamline the process of bidding and contracting for group accommodations. Vindow’s powerful SaaS platform lets procurement managers create RFPs that are specific to their unique criteria and yet still comprehensive enough to include a variety of property types and locations.
With a free Basic subscription, hotel salespeople can access Vindow’s simple, intuitive interface to quickly and easily respond to an unlimited number of RFPs for group rooms. Vindow’s exclusive “Bid Heat” rating offers real-time feedback, so hotels instantly know whether or not their bid is competitive.
Beyond the Basic subscription, Vindow offers a comprehensive suite of tools and services that allow hotels to tap into Vindow’s massive catalog of data and analytics for an even greater competitive advantage. With Vindow, bidding on group rooms is fast, easy and achieves targeted results.
Myth #2 – Promoting your hotel to niche markets is cost prohibitive.
The “cost of sale” for hotels has skyrocketed in recent years as Internet travel behemoths charge exorbitant commissions for access to their customer base. This has forced hotels to curtail or eliminate their efforts to market to more specialty clientele.
But procurement managers and buyers can’t book your hotel if they don’t know about it. Vindow harnesses the power of AI, derived from proprietary algorithms that analyze millions of datapoints, to suggest the perfect hotel for the end user. Smart hoteliers upgrade to Vindow’s “Plus” or “Ultimate” subscriptions that not only provide hoteliers with unprecedented levels of insight into travel patterns and preferences, but also the tools to highlight their property based on that intelligence.
Myth #3 – Only hotels with lots of meeting space can appeal to groups.
Group accommodations encompass more than just meeting and events. In fact, group contracts can apply to a wide range of clients that don’t need meeting space; like work crews, long-term housing, off-property training, disaster recovery, government, and many more. Hotels that have been gratuitously excluded by other search tools will appreciate how Vindow’s comprehensive data intelligence and analytics helps them reach just the right customers and opportunities in a cost-effective, targeted way.
Every Vindow subscriber hotel gets a Management Dashboard where they can create their personalized Vindow Profile to highlight the facilities, services, and amenities they offer travelers. In addition, hotels that regularly update their listing in the Vindow’s exclusive Hotel Experts Village can promote their property to unique travelers every day, including information on their opening status, COVID-19 precautions, recent renovations, and special offers and amenities that target specific customers.
Group buyers or procurement managers are instantly updated via their Buyer Dashboard whenever hotel updates are posted.
With Vindow, there is simply no excuse for a hotel to miss out on the opportunity to reach vibrant and dedicated markets of niche travel buyers. Vindow makes it easy.