6 Traditional Marketing Strategies for Hotels That Can Never Go Out of Fashion

I always wondered how hoteliers reached out to guests before digitalisation came into the picture. What were the traditional marketing strategies for hotels? Were they expensive? Was it tough to deploy them?

With so many questions in my mind, I decided to do a thorough research and found answers to those questions, which I’ll be sharing with you in this blog.

Traditional Marketing Strategies for Hotels

Although there are various traditional approaches to hotel marketing, not each of them will work for you. I am listing 6 popular ones here. You can try them and see which strategies are best for your hotel.

1. Print Media Marketing

Print media marketing is one of the oldest ways of marketing that has been around since 1450. Yes, it’s that old!

It includes various activities such as advertising in newspapers, travel and hospitality magazines, brochures, and flyers.

As a matter of fact, travel and hospitality magazines had their own craze, as it gave guests a glimpse of some amazing hotels around the world.

It was very simple: A writer from a famous magazine would stay at the property, experience the services, interview the hotelier, and s/he would pen down an elaborated article about the hotel.

Featured hotels would collaborate with the magazines and offer discount coupons to the readers.

Interesting, isn’t it?

You can try this strategy for your hotel. Trust me, it works.

2. Outdoor Marketing

As the name suggests, outdoor marketing is a strategy that is useful in reaching out to customers that are away from home. In other words, it basically targets travellers and motorists.

Let me explain in detail. I live in Lonavala, which is a famous tourist destination in India known for its picturesque view during monsoons. 

The town is located around one of the busiest highways. So, the hoteliers have put up billboards and lamp posts along the entire route for promoting their property. 

Result? Maximum visibility among guests. Although it is a traditional hotel marketing strategy, it can benefit you in the long run.

3. Telemarketing

Telemarketing basically involves capturing guests’ attention with cold-calling and SMS. It’s quite a challenging way of marketing as it is difficult to convince guests over a voice or text.

But the success rate of conversion over cold-calling is merely 5-10%. It’s easy to make sales if you can convince guests over a voice or text. 

First of all, guests do call back (if they are looking to spend a vacation in your town), or give a heads up if your pitch is convincing enough to make them book a stay with you.

4. Vocal Marketing

Vocal marketing is what we generally refer to as ‘word of mouth marketing (WOM)’. As the name suggests, it is promoting your property to the guests, via other guests.

It’s simple. A guest having an amazing stay at your property will refer you to his contacts. 

However, WOM can lead to negative marketing if guests don’t get a good experience.

Meaning, it  is entirely dependent on the kind of guest satisfaction you provide.

5. Face to Face Meetings

The hospitality industry is all about professionalism. Let me share a scenario.

A sales personnel from your hotel suits up in a pair of formals, meets with the potential guest, shares his business card, brochure, and pitches about your property confidently.

Sounds good, right? 

On a personal note, I find face to face meetings way better. You can club it with telemarketing to fix up a meeting with the guests. In that way, it would develop reliability among guests towards your hotel.

This strategy is more successful in approaching corporate guests.

6. Travel Fests and Marts

Travel fests are one of the classic platforms for hoteliers to connect with a wider audience and promote their property. They are also known as trade fairs, travel marts, and holiday expo. 

It doesn’t matter whether you enter as a participant or an attendee, you will end up increasing your connections. 

Travel marts are not only for hotels; varied hospitality businesses such as PMS providers, aggregators, and travel agencies also join in.

It is one such traditional hotel marketing strategy that can never go out of fashion.

Some of the famous travel fairs in the world are:

1. TTF (India)
2. The Hotel Show Dubai
3. International Tourism and Travel Show
4. Vancouver International Travel Expo
5. ITB Berlin
6. OTM (India)
7. SATTE (India)

Difference Between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has the potential to reach a wider audience, but when it comes to personal approach, nothing can beat traditional hotel marketing strategies.  

For instance, there are many remote tourist destinations that have network connectivity issues or no internet connection. Finding hotels online in such places is difficult.

This is where traditional marketing practices for hotels come into picture. With billboards, flyers, and signboards, hoteliers can easily guide tourists towards their property.

Additionally, if we talk about digital marketing, it captures the young guest segment- millennials and GenZ. However, travellers that are above this age group (40+), still prefer to go the old school way. And to garner their attention, traditional marketing strategies are the perfect solution.

Traditional marketing and digital marketing both have their set of pros and cons. Instead of comparing them, I would suggest you create a marketing plan combining both types of strategies for better results.

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