Mr. Grossman

Social Media & PR

Five Non-traditional Ways of Getting Your Hotel Exposure

By Lanny Grossman, President, EM50 Communications

Whatever happened to just having a good product, excellent service and an interesting history in order to get great media exposure? The simple answer is increased competition in a crowded travel landscape and the everyday shrinking of the travel media. With travel pages disappearing and newspapers and magazines folding by the day, there are far fewer places to secure coverage so hotels have to fight amongst themselves for those coveted column inches. In the following several paragraphs, I will outline innovative, smart and non-traditional approaches to getting your hotel more exposure.

PR-able ideas:

There are two main reasons to create packages or promotions: to get media attention and/or to actually drive reservations. If they do both, that's terrific but for the purposes of this topic we will focus on the first one. Every hotel from the smallest to the largest, whether a city center property or a remote island retreat, offers simple packages and promotions such as bed and breakfast or a romantic package with accommodations and a bottle of champagne. Those things may get booked from time to time, but they are not going to get you press. The two types of packages that get picked up by the media either have terrific value and are rate driven (the media loves guest savings) or it is an out of the box, exciting idea or experience that it is worth mentioning. Find aspects of your local surroundings and/or property that can be incorporated. Instead of the simple champagne and strawberries romance package, organize a couples' chocolate tasting with a local vendor or your own pastry chef. With advance notice, order a custom label bottle of wine for the couple marking their special occasion. On the value side of things, use your local resources to increase the value to the guest. Approach a local vendor about gifting something to guests as a way to increase exposure for their store or service. For example, a local restaurant or clothing store can contribute a gift card to each guest to get them in the door while providing value to the package price in advance. Very simply, whenever you are creating a package or a promotion, ask yourself, would I want to read about this? Is it interesting and unique?

Alternative Outlets:

In the era of disappearing traditional media, we are forced to look outside the historically targeted media outlets like daily newspapers and glossy travel magazines. Most properties these days want to attract guests to book directly to their proprietary website to avoid paying outside fees and commissions to third party distribution companies. These efforts target Internet-using guests in an online world. So, in that respect, seek out travel blogs and websites that reach your desired end user. There area a growing number of blogs, daily lifestyle emails and websites that feature travel content on a daily basis. With new content needed daily, or maybe even weekly, there is a much greater opportunity to have your share of the pie. The bloggers or web editors need your content as much as you need their help reaching your target audience who can click on a link directly from the editorial site to your homepage. The clippings may not be as fancy and bragging rights may shrink a bit, but online outlets and alternative blogs are a great tool to reach your core customer in a timely fashion.

Promotional Partnerships:

The best way to increase your marketable assets is to seek out and create interesting, and beneficial, promotional partnerships. We briefly discussed this in the first section on PR-able ideas, but we shall now expand. Promotional partnerships between a hotel and non-travel related brands with a like target audience increases the opportunities for media exposure as the partnership spreads across industries and interest groups. For example, if a hotel partners with a local Mercedes Benz dealership to have guests test drive the latest models while at the hotel, it appeals to all lifestyle, travel and local media. The idea is to create win, win situations between partners, as well as an opportunity to reach out to each others' consumer databases. This of course is on top of the added benefit of having something new, different and exciting to talk to the media about.

Photo and TV Shoots:

Most hotels are beautiful, have open functional space and are perfect locations for photo and television shoots. Many hotels are approached about acting as a location for shoots, but the hotel quickly attempts to charge for the space usage and turns away a great opportunity. Treat these opportunities as editorial opportunities as long as the hotel receives the appropriate on page credit noting the location and if you are lucky, website or phone number. One of the most famous examples of this, which I have been successful with over the years, is Sports Illustrated's regaled Swimsuit Issue. Sports Illustrated shoots at locations all over the world and does so with little to no budget for location fees. In exchange for using hotels and shooting on location, the magazine now does a write up on the destination with photos and contact information. The magazine reaches over 15 million readers worldwide. Now, this is an extreme example, but others exist. Local fashion and lifestyle magazines always need locations for fashion and clothing spreads. If you have the space, use it.

Local Events:

Hosting local events puts your property front and center among the local community, who often become a terrific source of recommendation, as well as the local media. Once again, use your assets and your space to your advantage. Work with local charities that target your clientele and provide space for an event. Not only will a host of new people be experiencing your property, but many of these events are chronicled in society pages and on the local news. Tying into an earlier point, depending on who your new promotional partners are, you can host events with them. For example, if you partner with a winery or liquor distributor, you can host tasting events and/or dinners. Bring in a winemaker and have a themed evening. These events can become a profit center but also a worthwhile reason for the media to write about you.

Unless you are among the top 10 hotels in the world, the media is going to be far less likely to knock on your door and want to just write about you or put you on TV. You need to proactively give them a reason to put you on their radar screen and share your terrific attributes with their readers. Whether big or small, high-end or budget, every property has qualities and services they can leverage to create unique, attention getting experiences. Now go out and do it.

Lanny Grossman specializrs in PR, luxury lifestyle marketing and consumer outreach. He began working with notable hotel properties such as the Waldorf=Astoria in New York and Le Byblos in Saint-Tropez, after which he became the Director of Public Relations for two of America’s famous restaurants, Tavern on the Green and the Russian Tea Room. More recently, Mr. Grossman was Director of Brand Communications for Small Luxury Hotels of the World, an international hotel consortium whose portfolio boasts over 450 of the finest hotels in more than 70 countries. Mr. Grossman can be contacted at 646 861 2801 or lanny@em50.com Extended Bio...

HotelExecutive.com retains the copyright to the articles published in the Hotel Business Review. Articles cannot be republished without prior written consent by HotelExecutive.com.