Tornnegre Hotel

Archive for June, 2009

When marketing your hotel you may desperately seek inexpensive and unusual tactics to help you stand out and keep to a tight budget, but chances are that significant funds will have to be devoted to spreading the word. Don’t ignore some of these basic, proven tactics which have served the launches of many hotels.

Tourism Office

Find out how the local tourism office can help to advertise the hotel options in your city or county. They may offer listing on their website with the purchase membership at the very least. If you go further and advertise in tourism materials, make sure you are prominently placed in materials tourists look at before arriving to the city. Being in a pamphlet they receive only upon arrival to the local tourism office will be of no help. Look for advance materials, such as website or promotional packets the tourism office sends to those who express interest and to travel agents.

Public Relations

A public relations strategy is key to crafting the story of why your hotel is newsworthy. From a local perspective, this may be an easy sell. More work must go in to the greater travel press and business press (if you will cater to business travelers). You or your carefully chosen public relations agent or firm should craft press releases which explain the story of interest to the paper, taking the guesswork and legwork out of the equation for them. A good PR firm should be keeping abreast of helpareporter.com, a website devoted to reporter calls for experts testimony and stories.

Internet Marketing

To outspend competitors and hotel booking websites like hotels.com and tripadvisor.com on Google ad keywords for hotels in your city will be difficult. Start by making sure those sites include your hotel, even if you must pay fees or commissions for rooms rented through them. Work your way up the “organic” Google listings (the list of links on the left-hand side of the page) by making sure your original web designer has search engine optimization (SEO) in mind and that you retain the services of an SEO firm to continue to improve your rankings. Look at all of the non-competitor sites that come up for the keywords you want to rank on and attempt to receive from them (or let the SEO firm work on this).

Events

Pre-opening and launch events can create buzz about your hotel in the community, building community member understanding of the services you will offer to your customer target market. The local businesses, residents, and government won’t refer visitors to your hotel unless they know about it and they think it would be a good place for their clients, friends, and visitors to stay, so events should focus on building awareness and brand image. If events can be designed with an unusual twist all the better – they make a bigger splash by becoming newsworthy and tying in to your PR campaign.

Are you thinking of becoming a hotel manager? Would you like to know what it takes to become an outstanding hotelier? Would you like to own your own chain of hotels someday? Are you worried about the prospects available in the hospitality industry? Would you like to manage a number of people in hotels and resort centres? Then you should spend more time on studying courses in Hotel management. The hotel and vacation industry is full of prospects with spaces for newcomers and will always be as people will consistently go on vacation, summer breaks, travel and attend conferences outside their places of residence. For many of these people, it is important that they get a place to stay when they get to such places. And except they have people to stay with, they often have to stay in hotels. Hotel management involves taking care of guests, ensuring their comfort, making their stay an unforgettable one, and managing a group of people (if the establishment is big). A hotel manager supervises the activities and processes of all staff working with him. He makes sure that the hotel makes more profits than losses. He manages all publicity geared towards increasing the exposure of the hotel and makes sure that all the necessary machineries are fully functional and running smoothly for efficient operation. Unlike in the past, hotels are increasingly becoming more sophisticated. More hotels are using databases to manage their clientele, and book rooms. Thus creating an avenue for the services increased specialisation in different fields. Unlike the past where computers weren’t considered important and the services of computer experts weren’t required, hotels are beginning to increasingly hire database managers and computer specialists. Bottom line, the demand for professionals in hotel management is high and the remuneration is competitive as most hotel managers earn between $30,000 and $90,000 a year. To become a hotel management professional, you would need a diploma and bachelor degree in hotel management. Graduates of this course get the DHM and BHM on completion of their studies. This takes between 18 months and 36 months. Before students are given admission into schools they have to write an admissions test -oral and written- and interviews. Interested individuals may also take up certificate courses in hotel management to boost their CV. If after the Bachelor degree, you feel like proceeding for further education, you can apply for a postgraduate diploma or masters in hotel management offered by the many institutions available. Hotel management professionals have a lot of opportunity as they can secure jobs in different restaurants, hotels and resort centers in any part of the world. Mostly, those who opt for the postgraduate programs can become lecturers or consultants in the field. Besides working in the hospitality sector, hotel managers can work in hospital canteens overseeing the staff and managing the establishments for profit. Hotel managers, who are entrepreneurial in nature, can set up their own establishments and become self employed. In conclusion, the hotel management career is both dynamic and versatile. There are no limitations whatsoever in the field and practitioners stand to benefit a lot.