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Hotels rely a lot on word of mouth. Opinions on review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor are more influential than ever. They have to do more than have a clean room in a nice location — they have to be buzzworthy.
Here’s how three different hotels do it:
1. Find opportunities to be more useful
2. Tap into a niche group
3. Do more to make up for your mistakes
1. Find opportunities to be more useful
You know that couch in every hotel room most people never use? Hutton Hotel in Nashville replaced it with an elliptical machine. For about the same amount of money and space, they can offer their guests something much more remarkable than a couch to put their suitcase on — and lots of people are talking about it. When a guest walks into one of these hotel rooms, it’s an instant reminder that this place is different.
2. Tap into a niche group
Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan is a great place for cycling tourists. But the problem is most hotels don’t accommodate cyclists that well. Traveling with a bicycle is a hassle and expensive, and most of the time, there’s not a place to securely leave it locked up. Hotel Cycle in Japan was made especially for this purpose. They have a bike parts shop where they also rent bicycles, wide hallways for wheeling your bike inside, and a wall rack to store it in your room. That’s a great way to stand out from other hotels and earn word of mouth within cycling communities.
3. Do more to make up for your mistakes
Marriott Hotels knows that one of guests’ biggest concerns is that their room won’t be available when they get there. Accidental overbooking and cancellations happen to everyone. To make up for when it does happen, Marriott Hotels has a “no walk” policy. They won’t just simply turn someone away. They’ll pay for their lodging at another hotel, their transportation there, and a $100 gift card. Marriott’s former head of strategy, Lee Pillsbury, says the expense they pay to make it better is worth the good feelings and preference they earn back from those guests.
