Tips on How to Boost Your Hotel’s Occupancy Rate

Knowing the numbers of rooms to which we have access, and knowing how to overlap so-called limits, will be the usual scenario to be used. We can manage any of these rooms thanks to the factors of location and/or kind of product/service we are delivering, making the room available and being used through the week and at the weekends or vice versa. It may be that the occupancy rates of your facility are at their highest peak on Saturdays but may crash by 30% on Tuesdays. Having many unfilled rooms means that you´re rather having a low occupancy rate but that´s not always bad. We only have to fix the costs and not obsess over filling up rooms. Each accommodation has some unique perks and knowing this will allow us to know the pros and cons of what we have to deal with.

What’s a good average hotel occupancy average?

Hotel occupancy averages can vary by a wide number of factors, some of these factors are:

• Type of lodging.

• Price

• Location

• Events around the area.

• Rival hotels.

• Traveler´s perceptions.

In a general perspective, it can be assumed that when we have a higher booking rate, the better the competitive advantage we have related to the traveler. Feeling a need to fill all your rooms every night can be a negative, even hurtful, obsession to the business as a whole because we can incur an “abuse” of our product while generating occupation of rooms to travelers who do not cover the costs. It can even happen that certain segments arrive at our hotel and do not connect with our desired profiles of clients, generating a dissatisfaction that will devalue the experience of the traveler that really benefit our hotel

Tips on how to raise the occupancy rate of the hotel

Given the need to improve hotel occupancy rates what we cannot do is be carried away by the business flow, change prices too many times, raise or low costs for the client, change the range of products, go all-out with the so called last minute sales and other common mistakes in business. In other words, we ought to take a path without devaluating the product and leaving aside a move toward falling prices and dissatisfaction of customers who will see how their experience deteriorates. Here we present to you, from our own experiences, a list of tips to boost your occupancy rate and to boost hotel business:

• Offer sales packages and special offers.

Promoting unique sales with a unique product or services by our own means will let us compete, or even reposition the business as a whole in the market list for some of our customers.  Since we’re not just adding an offer of a room but making the service even more complete as a whole, associating it with a one-and-only experience and not just a room to stay in.

• Choose the right market segments.

It is extremely important to know which type of customers we’re aiming at or could be interested on your offer. Knowing who´s our potential client will help you adaptto better outcomes of the service and/or product being offered.

• Use your own eventsand those around you.

Identifying the power of attraction, the area, the touristic sites the location has and even other factors will draw the clients where your business is and by choosing the right channels to reach the client will benefit to the point that we can attract the targeted customers in a way that attracts and doesn´t bother them.  Also, we have to be aware of and understand the reasons our clients may be coming to the area, as this is one of the most important points that a marketing and even a Revenue management department should be investigating.

• Make alliances with the local businesses within the area to maximize customer experience

Ensuring and creating good contacts with local businesses around the area can open other chances in ways as B2B, facilitating other kind of rooms such as meeting rooms or being able to provide unique services that the business itself can´t provide which can be fixed with a subscribed service because of the accommodations provided.  These are some of the many solutions that are valuable and will help us fill these empty rooms at a reasonable rate.

• Collaborate with local real estate companies.

If your hotel allows it, support real estate companies with a flow of clients with the possibility of overnight stay. It would be an idea worth exploring to contact real estate companies and form a partnership. This way, travelers will have access to more competitive rates and real estate companies could generate additional revenue and/or benefits.

The best tip on this subject is always look the middle point with the alternatives that improves the occupancy rate without devaluat
ing the product. By having a pinch of creativity and common sense and backed with an adequate offer, these unique points will be the main assets of any of our accommodations in today’s competitive market.