For the independent hotelier or lodge manager, weekend leisure business has typically never been better.  The issue is that the slackening off in mid-week bookings can be a real challenge, often leaving a trail of unrecoverable room nights in its wake.

This is particularly felt when viewing the often empty lobby on Monday through Thursday of each week, and converting that to a percentage of overall possible occupancy, it quickly becomes apparent just how much potentially valuable business is slipping through the fingers of the local hotelier or lodge.

The idea that a hotel of 300 rooms with a large ballroom is the only type of hotel that can compete for group business in the shoulder season is not true for smart independent hotels, including many of those in British Columbia.  These hotels can lose recoverable revenue from mid-week arrivals. You don’t need a large hotel or a massive ballroom to win group and corporate business.

Local construction is a great source of week-long stays.  Regional tech companies are looking for distraction- free meeting rooms for team-building events.  Youth sports teams playing in Kamloops or, let’s say, Prince George tournaments need somewhere to sleep and to have breakfast.

Missing group sales revenue from independent hotels is not lost due to technology or staff, but rather as a result of a number of easily fixable issues. In this article, we will examine three main areas where many independent hotels are missing revenue and look at simple solutions for filling the ‘gaps’ to fill the rooms on the slower days of the week.

Gap 1: The Response Time Black Hole

A company based in Fort St. John, with employees across northern British Columbia, is holding a regional forestry conference for its employees. The administrative assistant (booker) is responsible for finding a hotel for their team and is searching for properties on Tuesday morning.  They fill out the contact form on the websites of Property A (a chain hotel with a dedicated sales team) and Property B (an independent hotel).  Chain Hotel Property A would normally respond to an RFP within 45 minutes to an hour with a quote.  Independent Hotel Property B has a General Manager who is busy covering a no-show in housekeeping or an engineering issue.  Front Desk sends an email to a booker inquiring about the group reservations, and because no one follows up, it gets lost in the shuffle until Thursday afternoon when Hotel B finally responds to confirm the booking with the booker.  By Thursday afternoon, the booking would have already been confirmed at Property A.  Corporate groups are a very time-sensitive market. Amadeus Global Hotel Sales Leader Insight Report based on 315 hotel and venue sales leaders worldwide, as reported in LODGING Magazine, found that speed and simplicity are becoming the key competitive advantages in winning group, event, and corporate business.

Just send an email acknowledgment of the inquiry within two hours to let the booker know you’ve received their inquiry.  This single step tells the booker you’ve received their email and are working on the details of their request.  

Gap 2: The “One and Done” Follow-Up

In hospitality sales, the fortune is made after the initial inquiry into potential business for group bookings has been answered by sending off a quote to the meeting planner or booker for the group. There is, however, a system of follow-up required in order to keep track of all these leads in a sales pipeline. Without a system, the potential for lost revenue from forgotten potential business is much greater. 

No CRM?  No problem.  Many of the greatest follow-up tactics to ever hit the hotel sales floor were built without the aid of expensive software packages.  By setting up a simple “Sales Pipeline” on a whiteboard in the back of the front desk or adding responsibilities into a shared digital calendar, hotels can manually track the flow of inquiries from initial contact through to the final close of a sale.

Three follow-ups for sent quotes are recommended for independent hotel properties.

• Day 1 confirm receipt of quote and to see if any additional information regarding rooms is required by the inquiring party. 
• Day 3 remind inquiring parties that mid-week availability is tightening up for their requested dates.
• Day 5 offer the inquiring party an additional 24 hours to make a decision prior to releasing blocks of rooms to competing hotels. 

Consistency beats sophisticated software every single time.

Gap 3: The Gold in Your Backyard Stays in the Ground  

There is so much potential for hotel sales for an independent property within their own backyard. Why do hotel sales staff think that the biggest and best corporate booker for independent hotels is the ‘corporate booker’ from a big company in a major city, hundreds of kilometres away?  Most major cities have their own armies of corporate bookers who would never think of booking a hotel in another city, much less from a small independent hotel.  

In terms of a local economy, independent hotels operate within a regional economy such as the Okanagan, Kootenays, Vancouver Island and the Cariboo.  In terms of main employers, these would include regional hospitals with locum doctors and travelling nurses, BC Hydro with major construction projects, local school district holding high school sports tournaments, and various ministry offices with out-of-town personnel.  These groups of people are not large enough for you to implement a formal campaign to target them however if your GM or front desk were to spend two hours Wednesday morning perusing the local newspaper looking for projects to commence around the area of your independent hotelthen phone the administrators of the government bodies, local colleges and or hospitals for an introduction and to offer them the independent hotel’s competitive local rates for their visitors then you will find that more business will surface from local sources.  

Turning Your “No Ballroom” Reality into an Asset

Most independent hotels lack a large ballroom. This can be perceived as a negative; however, there are many groups actively looking for hotel space for meetings of small to medium size. These groups can hold their meetings in the rooms where their delegates are staying.  The hotel provides all the necessary amenities, and the groups can enjoy a more personal and local experience than they would in a large conference center in a big city.  Present your lack of meeting space to prospective customers as the small independent hotel it is — personal, local, authentic – market your independent hotel to small groups and create creative breakout sessions to hold their attention and have fun with them! 

Local Partnerships

If you are an independent hotel, partner with an independent restaurant(s) and market dinner packages to corporate groups. You earn a commission by referring the corporate planner to the local restaurant; the group has an authentic local dining experience at night, and the meeting planner does not have to take time from their busy schedule to call around town to many restaurants to find one that can accommodate their group for dinner.

The Bottom Line

Your leisure business may be down on the weekdays; independent hotels are filling rooms with group and corporate business in several markets throughout BC.  Whether in a large centre or smaller community, by actively seeking out local companies, schools, and organizations, your independent hotel can be generating significant additional revenue in your own backyard.   All it takes is for someone to respond promptly to the inquiries for information that have been made, follow up on the quotes that have been sent out and start to promote your independent hotel to local companies, schools, and organizations within your local community.

Need help generating sales? Contact Brent O’Connor at brent.o@telus.net