What are hotel tips?

Hotel tips are the pieces of advice that can help you make small improvements to all parts of your business. Collectively, these small tips can ultimately make a big difference to the success of your property.

Some hotel tips you might see include how to make a great first impression on guests, how to work more efficiently in your admin, or how to squeeze extra revenue from your bookings.

This blog will take through the importance of hotel tips and give you all the examples you need to start running your business better today.

The benefits of seeking hotel management tips

Unlike a full-scale strategy, hotel management tips can be implemented quickly and take effect quickly too – making them all the more worthwhile to seek out.

Hotel management tips can also cover a range of topics, allowing you to improve multiple aspects of your business at the same time. Here are some of the benefits of following the tips we’ll discuss in the article:

  • Learning new knowledge or skills
  • Discovering how to upgrade your tools
  • Improving how you sell your rooms
  • Track performance more effectively
  • Maintain quality guest services
  • Use social media to your advantage
  • Understand the market more deeply
  • Collect and act on feedback
  • Improve your website

Let’s get started!

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Tips for successful hotel management: Administration

Setting up your hotel for success means getting everything on the back end right. While admin may seem time consuming, boring, or difficult – it’s crucially important if you want to be able to attract guests, keep everything running smoothly, and maximise revenue.

Here’s our list of tips for successful hotel management when handling admin tasks:

1. Seek out what you don’t know

No one knows everything but we can all learn! Because property management covers every facet of your hotel, constant adjustments need to be made. Make sure you’re staying informed about the travel/hotel industries. 

If you don’t find what you’re looking for in this article today, sign-up to Little Hotelier’s blog to receive regular content.

2. Upgrade your tools

Using better tools invariably equals a better result. Managing your admin tasks can get extremely time consuming and running a business from a notebook or excel spreadsheet is always prone to error. 

Nowadays, there are software tools like all-in-one property management systems that you can use to significantly reduce your workload. You’ll be able to automate and speed up many of your tasks, such as managing reservations and check-in/out.

In short, hotel management software is technology that allows hotel operators and owners to simplify their administrative tasks while also increasing their bookings. The best products can be used anywhere on any device, as long as you have an internet connection, and are designed with small properties in mind. Here’s a little more about it.

3. Connect to more online booking agents

When it comes to getting your property noticed by travellers, more online sales listings is often better. If you aren’t selling online at all or are just getting by with Airbnb, consider expanding to booking channels such as Booking.com and Expedia to name a couple. These online agents have huge marketing power and are the go-to option for many travellers booking trips. 

This process is made much easier with a channel manager, which automates your inventory management, ensuring it’s always accurate and up-to-date across every listing.

4. Connect to the RIGHT channels

Quality is important, too. Every property is an individual, so for your particular business, you may need to look beyond the popular big players for channels that suit your niche market. 

For instance, some channels cater more to adventure travellers or romantic couples. Examples include Mr and Mrs Smith or Intrepid Travel.

5. List your property on metasearch

Metasearch sites such as Google Hotel Ads, Trivago, and TripAdvisor are more valuable resources that travellers use when going on a trip. Think of metasearch as an online tourist information board. 

These sites are dedicated entirely to sharing information and reviews about travel businesses, including hotels and other small accommodations providers. Listing here will mean you’ll need a budget dedicated to running ads but it will ensure you reach more people and provide potential guests with the information they need about your property. The more detail and photos you include the better! Once set up, you can start earning reviews to boost the strength of your profile and send more travellers to your website.

If you’re worried about handling your listings and the complicated business of managing bids, metasearch services such as Little Hotelier can manage it all for you!

6. Keep track of performance

Maintaining a record of data around how well your hotel has been performing is essential to understanding how to make things better. It also helps you identify trends that may aid you in forecasting and knowing what packages and promotions to build. 

Ensure you keep a close eye on channel performance (which channels are bringing you the most bookings vs which ones are actually the most profitable?), website visitors and conversions, monthly occupancy, RevPAR (revenue per available room), and ADR (average daily rate). 

Here’s a blog in case you need help calculating some of these metrics.

7. Never forget that seasonality matters

The price people are prepared to pay for their hotel room will depend on the supply and demand trends over time. You’ll have to change rates a number of times during the year to reflect buying behaviour and market conditions. 

This, together with the date and timing release of packages and promotions, should form a major part of your business plans.

8. Stay on top of housekeeping

When times are busy and you have most of your rooms booked, hotel housekeeping software can really help you stick to a schedule. Keeping a routine schedule for cleaning and housekeeping will go a long way to helping you stay organised and prepared at your property, and also ensure you keep guests happy. 

One of the most common complaints from guests is about dirty rooms or general uncleanliness of a property.

Hotel Management Tips

How to manage a small hotel successfully: Guest experiences

Once you have things organised on the back end, there’s still a big job to do at the front of house – manage your small hotel successfully to satisfy and delight your guests.

Guests are the reason your business continues to exist so you need to do everything you can to inspire repeat visits and positive reviews.

Here are some ways to both gain the attention of potential guests, and keep them happy once they’re a customer.

Stay engaged with email and social media

Marketing your property is necessary (unless you’re lucky enough to have repeat guests every week) to keep your occupancy rate and incoming revenue healthy. This means making sure you’re never out of sight or mind. 

Email and social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, are very effective and affordable ways to reach and influence travellers. Use social media to maintain your brand presence, engage with an audience, and even book guests (an online booking engine makes this simple). 

You can also pay for advertising on Facebook and Instagram, choosing which demographic you want to target. Emails can be used to communicate seasonal promotions, last-minute deals, or to keep in touch with previous guests. For even better results, get to know your guests and tailor personalised messages!

Communicate effectively and utilise personalisation

Some of your guests may be coming from far away, even overseas, so the more information you give them the happier they’ll be. Keep in touch (via email or a mobile app) before, during, and after their stay to ensure you’ve done everything you can to help them enjoy their stay. Additionally, the more you can learn about them, the more you can add a personal touch to your messages and make the guest feel understood and welcomed.

Communication is also vital for you and any staff or partners you have to keep the property running smoothly.

Keep your website friendly, not scary

There’s a few things that are important for you to know when it comes to your website presence.

Loud autoplay videos or flashing pop-ups are a big no. Since travellers tend to book trips during office hours, it’s the last thing they want.

Another annoyance for them is the need to download elements such as menus to view them. Try to make these accessible on your website pages.

Thirdly, high quality photography goes a long way to securing a booking. Guests want to picture themselves at the property so make sure the image is a sweet one. If you think your website needs a facelift, there are simple solutions for that too, such as Little Hotelier’s website builder.

Use the local area to your advantage

Guests aren’t simply buying a hotel room when they come to stay at your hotel. For them, they’re paying for an experience delivered by the destination. It would be a missed opportunity not to take advantage of this. 

Make sure you partner with local businesses and run promotions and packages around local events and attractions. Back on the topic of photography, make sure you have some spaces in or around your property that are ‘selfie’ worthy. Travellers love to share their snaps on social media so it’s great when they do your marketing for you.

Treat feedback seriously

Depending on where your hotel is located, reviews can make or break you. Customer satisfaction is vital to the continued flood of bookings. The worst thing you can do is ignore the feedback guests leave on social media or sites like TripAdvisor. 

Both negative and positive reviews need to be responded to diligently to prevent any bad blood. If you do receive bad feedback during or after a stay, do your best to remain calm, acknowledge the issue, and come to a mutually beneficial resolution. Make sure the guest feels listened to and that they are important to you. Sometimes, resolving an issue can lead to even better feedback than if nothing had gone wrong in the first place. 

The more you can automate manual processes at your property, the more time you can spend on guest experience.

Best tips for hospitality

When it comes to the best tips for hospitality, it’s all about how good the guest feels while at your hotel and while interacting with your staff.

Here are some tips to ensure you aren’t letdown by a lack of hospitality:

  • Treat guests like ‘guests’: They are not just a number or a source of income, guests are your most important asset. Treat them like you would your family. Greet them by name, remember their preferences, and give them gifts.
  • Train your staff to be consistently excellent: Smiles, eye contact, and going the extra mile for guest’s requests can sometimes make all the difference.
  • Prioritise simple pleasures: Cleanliness and comfort are vital and one of the things guests remember most. You absolutely must ensure rooms are clean and furniture is comfortable.
  • Embrace feedback: Feedback and reviews are one of the best ways for you to identify where you can improve to ensure every guest has a better experience than the last one.
  • Prioritise convenience: Anything you can do to remove friction from the guest experience is a winner. For example, mobile or remote check-in so they don’t have to spend time waiting to get to their room.
  • Be a local guide: Guests will be looking for recommendations and insider tips on what to see,where to eat, and where to explore so make sure you have all the local knowledge and hidden gems ready to divulge.
  • Create a stimulating environment: Whether guests want to relax in a spa, get a massage, or take an exercise class, make sure you have enough amenities on offer to fulfil a few different needs they may have.
  • Offer flexibility: People love to have choices and the freedom to make requests, so make it clear that guests can be catered to if they have special needs such as dietary restrictions.

If you keep reminding yourself of these simple tips, guest satisfaction should take care of itself!

Refine your hotel management techniques with Little Hotelier’s software

Hotel management techniques become much easier to implement when you don’t have to spend all day pulling your hair out while trying to do manual admin tasks.

Managing reservations, keeping track of guest information, making sure housekeeping is on schedule, and measuring your business performance can be a handful when you have to do it all yourself.

Using software like Little Hotelier’s all-in-one solution takes all the stress and difficulty away. Little Hotelier is designed specifically for small accommodation providers, allowing you to be in full control of your operations. 

Use automation and a single dashboard to perform all your necessary tasks faster and more effectively. Features include:

  • Front desk system: The heart of your property. Manage your reservations, calendar, guest profiles, and more all in one place.
  • Channel manager: No more racing to update your inventory manually, on every booking channel, every time you receive a booking. With automated, real-time, inventory updates you can list in more places and never have to worry about double-bookings.
  • Booking engine: Take direct bookings on your own website, via your social media pages, and via metasearch sites. Own the guest relationship and boost your profit in the process.
  • Mobile app: Take your front desk with you wherever you go. Manage reservations anywhere, anytime.

That’s just the start! Try Little Hotelier for free or learn more about our software.

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By Dean Elphick

Dean is the Senior Content Marketing Specialist of Little Hotelier, the all-in-one software solution purpose-built to make the lives of small accommodation providers easier. Dean has made writing and creating content his passion for the entirety of his professional life, which includes more than six years at Little Hotelier. Through content, Dean aims to provide education, inspiration, assistance, and, ultimately, value for small accommodation businesses looking to improve the way they run their operations (and live their life).