When you’re building your target guest personas to inform your hotel’s brand, design, and service DON’T SLEEP ON THE LOCALS. Omitting the community from your consideration is a HUGE missed opportunity to diversify and increase your revenue streams, not to mention feel like a reflection of the destination to travelers.
Here’s three examples of boutique hotels listening to the community to build a strong, symbiotic relationship that ultimately strengthened their brand and increased their ADR.
🛎️ Soul Community Planet (SCP) Hotels in Hilo listened when the community expressed frustration over a local swimming beach that was overrun with trash. For every guest that stays at SCP Hilo, the hotel cleans 2.2lbs of trash off the beach.
🛎️ When the only bakery in Sturgis, South Dakota closed, Hotel Sturgis opened one in their lobby, so that the local community could still enjoy fresh baked breads, pastries, and more.
🛎️ The Madrona, in Healdsburg, CA, decided to put non-Sonoma wines on their menu. A rarity for restaurants in the area who were catering to travelers, and not the locals who quite possibly tire of only having one option.
How can you listen to your community when building your menus, service, and programming?
#hospitality #brandstrategy #community