Hotel marketing strategy: a plan for Australian hotels

A hotel marketing plan is a written view of who you want to stay with you, how they will find and book you, and what you will spend to get them there. It sits alongside the revenue management plan: revenue management sets the prices and availability, marketing fills the rooms at those prices through the right channels.

• Guest segments and the share of room nights you want from each.
• Positioning: the reason a guest in each segment should choose your property.
• The booking path for each segment, from first search to confirmed stay.
• Channel mix: direct (website, phone, email), online travel agencies, wholesalers, corporate and group sales.
• Content and campaigns through the year, mapped to the seasons and local events that drive demand.
• The guest stay and after: pre-arrival messages, reviews, loyalty and repeat bookings.
• Measurement: the numbers you will review each month and who acts on them.

Keep the plan short enough to use. A few pages that the general manager, sales and front office all read beats a long document nobody opens after the strategy meeting.

Every property is better for some guests than others. A CBD business hotel, a coastal resort and a regional motor inn all compete for different people, even when they share a booking site. Be specific about who you are for.

Choose two or three primary segments for the plan. For each, write one sentence on why your property suits them better than the alternatives they will compare. That sentence becomes the headline on the matching page of your website, the first line of your ads and the brief for your photography.

Online travel agencies (OTAs) bring guests you would not otherwise reach, especially international and first-time visitors, and they charge a commission for it. Direct bookings cost less per booking and give you the guest's details, but you have to do the work of being found and trusted.

The goal is not to leave the OTAs. It is to use them for the guests they are best at reaching, and to win back the guests who would have booked with you anyway: repeat guests, locals, corporate travellers and people who have already decided on your property and are only choosing where to book.

• Make booking direct easy. A fast, mobile-friendly booking engine with clear prices, taxes and cancellation terms. Guests leave when the direct path is slower than the OTA's.
• Give a reason to book direct within your distribution agreements: flexible cancellation, a better room choice, breakfast, late check-out or loyalty points. Check your OTA contracts for rate parity terms before advertising lower direct prices.
• Show up when guests search your name. Many guests find a hotel on an OTA and then search for it by name. Make sure your own website, Google Business Profile and hotel listing appear and show the direct price.
• Capture the guest after the first OTA stay. At check-in and during the stay, invite guests to join your email list or loyalty programme, with their consent, so the next stay can be direct.

Track the true cost of each channel: commission, ad spend, booking engine fees and the payment fees on each. Then compare channels on net revenue per booking rather than on the room rate alone.

The website is the one place you fully control. It needs real photographs of every room type (with the view guests will actually get), a clear map and travel times, the facilities and their hours, parking and accessibility information, and a booking engine that keeps the hotel's look. Write a page for each primary segment: corporate stays, conferences, weddings, family holidays. Each should answer that guest's questions in the first screen.

Google Business Profile is often the first thing a guest sees. Keep the categories, address, phone number, photos and amenities complete and current. Link the hotel's booking to your direct booking engine through the hotel price settings where available, so your own rate appears next to the OTAs'.

Search ads on your own name are worth testing: if competitors and OTAs bid on your hotel's name, a branded ad keeps the direct option at the top. Judge it on the extra direct bookings, not on clicks you would have received anyway; our guide to Google and Meta ads costs in Australia shows what those clicks typically cost.

Reviews shape both the decision and your visibility in maps. Ask every guest for a review after the stay, reply to all of them (especially the critical ones) and use what guests say to fix real problems. Never offer incentives for positive reviews; platform rules and the Australian Consumer Law on misleading conduct both apply.

Content that answers local questions (how to get from the airport, where to eat nearby, what is on this month) helps guests plan and helps search engines and AI assistants understand where you are and who you suit.

Social media works best for hotels as a source of inspiration and proof. Short videos of the room, the view, the pool at sunset or the walk to the venue show guests what the brochure cannot. Feature real guests and staff (with permission), local partners and seasonal moments. Use paid social to reach people in your feeder markets in the weeks before your busy periods, and to retarget people who visited your booking engine without booking.

Email is the cheapest way to win repeat stays. Build the list from direct bookings and from guests who opted in during their stay, and send a few useful messages rather than a weekly newsletter nobody reads.

1. Booking confirmation, with the details guests need and an easy way to add extras.
2. Pre-arrival message a few days before, with parking, check-in and local tips.
3. During the stay, a short note on the services available (by message if the guest has opted in).
4. Post-stay thank-you with a review request.
5. Seasonal offers to past guests, timed to when they stayed before.

Keep consent records for every contact and follow the Spam Act: identify the hotel as the sender and include a working unsubscribe link in every commercial message.

Group and event business fills rooms on dates that leisure guests do not, and it often brings food and beverage revenue as well. It is sold differently: through enquiries, proposals and site visits rather than instant bookings.

• Publish clear pages for meetings, conferences and weddings, with room capacities, floor plans, layouts, catering options and real photos of set-ups.
• Make the enquiry form short and reply quickly; event planners contact several venues at once.
• Keep enquiries in a CRM or sales system so nothing is lost between the sales team and operations.
• Build relationships with local event organisers, associations, universities and businesses that bring visitors to your area.
• List the venue on the directories that planners in your segment use, and keep those listings current.

For a hotel with meeting space, a steady flow of qualified group enquiries can matter as much to the year's revenue as the leisure campaigns.

Corporate guests stay mid-week, book repeatedly and are less sensitive to short-term price changes, which makes them valuable to most city and regional hotels. They are won through a mix of marketing and direct sales.

1. List the businesses within easy reach of the hotel that bring in visitors: head offices, hospitals, universities, government departments, mining and construction projects, and event venues.
2. Find the person who books travel at each: an office manager, an executive assistant or a travel manager using a corporate booking tool.
3. Offer a simple corporate rate agreement with the things business travellers value: flexible cancellation, early check-in where possible, Wi-Fi that works and invoicing that suits their finance team.
4. Make sure the hotel is loaded correctly in the travel booking tools those companies use, with the negotiated rate attached.
5. Keep in touch: a short note each quarter on what is new, and an easy way to book group stays when a project team arrives.

Track corporate room nights by account, so you can see which relationships are growing and which need attention.

Australian demand moves with school holidays, public holidays, the weather in your region and the events calendar in your city. Map your year before planning campaigns.

Start campaigns early enough to influence the booking window for each segment: leisure guests often book weeks ahead, groups months ahead, event-driven visitors sometimes only days ahead. Work with revenue management so offers and prices point the same way.

Guests choose a destination before they choose a hotel. Work with the people who bring them there: the regional tourism organisation, attractions, wineries, tour operators, restaurants and event venues. Shared packages, cross-promotion and content about the area make your property part of the reason to visit, not just a place to sleep.

Local businesses are also customers: their visiting staff, clients and suppliers need rooms, and their staff functions need venues. A simple corporate rate programme for nearby employers, promoted directly, is one of the more reliable sources of mid-week demand.

The cheapest booking is a guest who comes back. What happens between check-in and check-out decides whether they do, and what they say in their review.

• Make the first ten minutes easy: clear arrival instructions, parking that matches the website, a quick check-in.
• Train front-office staff to mention the direct booking benefits and loyalty or email sign-up, in a sentence, not a sales pitch.
• Fix the problems guests mention in reviews, and say so in your replies. Future guests read the replies.
• Note preferences in the guest profile (room type, pillow, dietary needs) so the next stay feels recognised.
• Give guests something worth photographing and sharing, whether that is the view, the breakfast or a local touch in the room.

Marketing can bring a guest once. Only the stay brings them back.

Hotels already track occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room (RevPAR). Marketing should report against the same numbers and add the ones that show where bookings came from and what they cost.

Review the scorecard monthly with the general manager, revenue and sales. When a number moves, agree one action and check it the next month. Our performance marketing guide covers how to tie ad spend to bookings.

If you would like this run for your property, see how we approach hospitality marketing in Australia.

• A slow or confusing booking engine. Every extra step on mobile loses guests to the OTA listing.
• Stock photos. Guests notice. Real photos of the actual room types build trust.
• Ignoring the hotel's own name in search. If an OTA is the first result for your name, you pay commission on guests who were already choosing you.
• Collecting no guest details. Without consented contact details, every repeat stay has to be won again.
• One campaign for every guest. Corporate travellers and families want different things; one message reaches neither well.
• Judging marketing on occupancy alone. A full hotel at a low rate through the most expensive channel can be a worse month than it looks.