90 – Winter Workshop Takeaways

Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast

In this episode of Suite Spot, host Ryan Embree covers key insights and takeaways from Travel Media Group's winter workshop. After talking with many hoteliers over the course of the workshop, Ryan has found some common themes and gives advice to other hoteliers out there on how they can prepare for 2022. Suite Spot Podcast · 90 - Winter Workshop Takeaways 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. Ryan Embree: Hello, everyone. And welcome to another episode of the Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. Thank you all for joining me today for episode 90 of the Sweet Spot. This is a special edition of the Suite Spot. This is actually the second edition of what we call one-on-one digital marketing workshop takeaways. So for those that are not familiar, at Travel Media Group, we put on seasonal marketing workshops for hoteliers. We theme them every single season: spring, summer, fall, and of course, winter, which we just completed. So this workshop was called "Create an Occupancy Flurry", and we've got some sort of takeaways and insights from the hotels and groups that I was speaking to during these workshops. So that's what this episode is all about. I'll give you some key insights and really just patterns and trends that we've uncovered during these digital one-on-one workshops. Ryan Embree: So the first trend that we're gonna take a look at is, and I just love to see it, the optimism coming into 2022, especially around key groups like business and extended stays. Hoteliers are anticipating the return of these two segments, which have almost completely disappeared over the last couple years. We have been leaning so heavily on those leisure travelers as a crutch to kind of fill our rooms. In 2022, a lot of hoteliers that I talked to had the feeling that this business travel was going to return. These, these stays that might have just been maybe one or two nights might be into extended stays. And part of that is because of what we've talked about with bleisure happening. So business and leisure kind of blending together. Some people taking an extended vacation, maybe on a Thursday night, because they're really able to work from anywhere. Ryan Embree: We've talked about that in this podcast, how that hybrid workspace is, is really gonna benefit hoteliers because it could extend someone's vacation a couple extra nights. So with that optimism for business, a lot of the things that we talked about to hoteliers in these workshops were optimizing on places like LinkedIn. Think about how many weddings got canceled, rescheduled. Annual events that have been going on for decades had been canceled. This is your opportunity to promote your hotel, to try to capture some of that pent-up demand. LinkedIn is the channel for that. That's where all of your event planners are going to be. That's where your wedding planners are gonna be joining your local business associations. It, it could lead to a lot of revenue and a lot of bookings, one particular wedding block is not just one room, that's going to relay into a whole mess of bookings. Ryan Embree: So LinkedIn and being active on that site is gonna absolutely be crucial in 2022. That's where the decision-makers are, especially for these groups. So if you're looking to see what type of trade shows and events are coming your way, LinkedIn is a great spot for that. And it's gonna be the hoteliers are jumping on that trend that are really gonna take advantage as business travel starts to return. The second trend that we uncovered in this workshop really still had to do with staffing. Now, the last digital workshop that we had in the f...