Vikas Mittal
Director of Sales, Courtyard by Marriott Pune Chakan
Looking back: The Indian hospitality sector recovered steadily in FY22 after a challenging FY21, thanks to effective vaccination efforts and decreased COVID cases. Despite the Omicron wave, the industry witnessed significant growth in FY22 due to leisure and business travel demand. Also, higher wedding reservations and a major increase in MICE have bolstered this growth.
Strategies for growth and survival: As the industry comes roaring back, the evolutions the industry has made will continue in many ways, especially as travellers are looking for reassurance that their experience will be safe and comfortable. The marketing that takes advantage of these learned lessons will be set up for success. Some key strategies have been impossible to ignore, and we have implemented them at our property, like the safety of our guests, personalised experiences for our guests’, contactless payment options, flexible booking, and creating relatable, engaging, and creative content across channels to capture our audience and making the hotel a staycation destination.
Moving ahead with fresh New Year perspectives: It is acceptable to presume that we have passed through the most difficult phase. Nobody can deny how difficult it was in every way, including occupancy, daily average pricing, and income per available room.
We want to implement a few strategies in the new year, and one of them is monitoring demand for better marketing. Monitoring demand for improved marketing is an unquestionably efficient business strategy for the hospitality industry. Hotels must begin tracking traveller behaviour and preferences. As we all know, travel behaviour is evolving, and hotel marketers must capitalise on every new demand. Another strategy is to conduct a market positioning analysis. Hotels must assess their property and determine where it stands in the market. Here is when positioning analysis comes into play. It should also be in line with the demand of the target market. In terms of both traveller demand and hotel operations, the following year will undoubtedly be different. We are developing our business plan and roadmap for a successful 2023.