How to write a marketing plan for your hotel, on one page

A short plan the team uses does more than a long one nobody opens. Write it on one page, in five parts:

• Your guests: the three or four kinds who stay with you, and why each comes.
• Where they find you: the searches, sites and apps each kind uses before booking.
• What you offer each of them: the room, the price, and the reason to book with you rather than through a booking site.
• The jobs: what you do each week, each month and before each busy season, with a name and a day beside each.
• The numbers: the few things you will count each month to tell what worked.

Keep it where the team can see it, on the wall behind the desk or in a shared spreadsheet, and change it each season rather than each day.

Look at the last twelve months of bookings, from your property management system, your register or each booking site's reports, and sort them into the few kinds that make up most of your nights. For an independent hotel in India these are often:

• Families on weekend trips and in the school holidays.
• Couples on short breaks, honeymoons and anniversaries.
• Business travellers on weekdays, often booked by a company or a travel agent.
• Wedding and event guests, booked in blocks.
• Guests from abroad on a longer trip.
• People from your own city, for a meal, a party or a night away.

For each kind, write down when they come, how far ahead they book, how long they stay, where they booked last time and what they praised in their reviews. The words guests use for what they liked are the words to use about yourself, on your website and on Instagram.

Then ask every guest at check-in how they found you, and note it in the same few words each time: Google, Instagram, a booking site, a friend, a past stay, a company. A month of answers says more than a guess.

Guests look in a handful of places before they book. The plan needs each one looked after, the free ones first:

• Google: your Business Profile on Search and Maps, the prices shown beside it, and your own website in the results. Google says local results depend mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
• Booking sites: your listing on each, its photos, its facts and its reviews.
• Instagram and Facebook: what a guest sees when they look you up, and reels that reach people who don't follow you yet.
• WhatsApp: the quickest way for a guest to ask a question before booking, once your number is easy to find.
• Your past guests: by email or WhatsApp, with their permission.
• AI assistants such as ChatGPT, which answer questions about where to stay from what they find about you online.
• Companies, travel agents, wedding planners and event organisers, for weekdays and groups.

A plan needs a reason to book direct that a guest can see in a second. It doesn't have to be a lower price, and your contract with each booking site may limit what you can do with price (see the guide on what rate parity is). Something added to the stay is often easier:

• Breakfast included, or a meal plan with dinner, on your own website.
• A later checkout or an earlier check-in when the room is free.
• A better room on arrival when one is free.
• A pick-up from the station or airport for stays of a few nights.
• A welcome for returning guests: the room they had last time, a note, the dessert they liked.

Show it beside the price on your website, say it at the desk and on the phone, and put it in every message to a past guest. Google doesn't let hotels create offer posts on their Business Profile, or any post that mentions deals, promotions, special offers or discounts, so keep the offer to your own website, Instagram, WhatsApp and emails.

The first week is for fixing what guests already see. Each of these is free and takes an hour or two:

1. 1Search your hotel's name on Google on a phone. Note what comes first: your own website, your Business Profile or a booking site.
2. 2Open your Business Profile at business.google.com and check the name, address, phone, website, photos and Hotel details. Correct anything wrong.
3. 3Open your own website on a phone, on mobile data, and book a room up to the payment page. Note every slow or confusing step.
4. 4Check your price for one night next month on your own website and on each booking site, for the same room and the same cancellation terms.
5. 5Read your last 20 reviews on Google and on your main booking site, and reply to any without a reply, the low ratings first.
6. 6Write down your three or four kinds of guest, and start asking every guest at check-in how they found you.

What you find wrong in that list is the first month's work.

• In the first week: read last month's numbers (see the last part of this guide) and choose the month's two or three jobs.
• Every day: answer WhatsApp, email and phone enquiries the same day, and note where each came from.
• Every week: two or three Instagram posts or reels made at the hotel, a reply to every new review, and a Google post when something is happening.
• Mid-month: one message to the past guests who said yes to hearing from you, about the season ahead.
• Once a month: new photos of one thing guests choose you for, added to Google, your website and each booking site.

Put each job on a calendar with a person's name beside it. A job without a name is the one that slips in a busy week.

Busy dates decide most of a hotel's year, so plan each one six to eight weeks ahead:

• List the dates: festivals, long weekends, school holidays, the wedding season, and the fairs, races, concerts and conferences in your town.
• Set the price and any minimum stay for each date before demand arrives, not after (see the guide on pricing rooms for Diwali and New Year).
• Make a package for it: a festival dinner with the stay, a long-weekend break with meals, a family room with an extra bed.
• Tell people early: a page on your website, a Google post about the event, Instagram posts, and a message to past guests.
• Afterwards, write down what sold, at what price, how far ahead and from which source, for next year's plan.

The quiet months need a plan too: weekday stays for companies, longer stays, people from your own city, day use of the pool or the hall, and groups (see the guide on hotel promotion ideas).

• Google Business Profile, which Google says is free to create: your listing on Search and Maps, its posts, and its Performance report.
• Google Search Console, which Google calls a free service: the searches your website appears for, and how often people click.
• Google Analytics, which Google offers free of charge: where visitors to your website come from, and what they do there.
• Free booking links on Google, which show your own website's price beside the booking sites'. Google says there is no cost for clicks on them, and a reservation system's provider can often connect you.
• An Instagram professional account, whose insights Instagram gives public accounts free, for the last 90 days.
• The WhatsApp Business app, free to download, with a business profile, quick replies, away messages and a catalogue.
• A spreadsheet for the plan itself, the list of past guests who said yes, and the monthly numbers.

Boosted posts, ads and paid places on booking sites all cost money. Leave them until the free parts above are done and you can measure what each brings back.

Read the same few numbers on the same day each month, and compare each with the same month last year as well as last month, because a hotel's months differ by season:

• Bookings and room nights by source: your website, phone and WhatsApp, walk-in, each booking site, companies and agents. Your property management system or channel manager can usually list them.
• The share of bookings that came direct, and the commission you paid that month.
• Your Business Profile's Performance report: calls, website clicks, direction requests and, for hotels, booking clicks.
• Search Console: the searches you appeared for, and the clicks they brought.
• Google Analytics: visitors from each source, and how many reached your booking page.
• Instagram: views, accounts engaged and new followers.
• WhatsApp: the enquiries that came in, and how many booked.

To know which post, email or message brought a visitor, tag the links you share (see the guide on digital marketing for hotels). Google says some changes to a website show in search within hours and others take several months, so give each change time. One month says little; three in a row show a direction. Keep the jobs that moved the numbers, and drop the ones that didn't.