10 factors to consider before opening your new hotel

During this pre-opening phase, a hotel has the chance to anchor itself in the local market and capture mindshare with future guests, and it all comes back to planning.

Generating awareness about your newly opened hotel is crucial in the competitive hospitality industry. With thousands of new hotels set to open globally by the end of 2024, breaking through the noise and capturing guest attention is more challenging than ever.

To compete effectively in this saturated market, especially for independent hotels, you need to be strategic. Launch your website well before opening to build brand awareness, and ensure your tech stack, including property management systems (PMS), is properly implemented to drive results when you start selling rooms.

You want to turn initial consumer awareness into demand and have your commercial platform ready to set the right prices to capture bookings. The stakes are high: studies indicate that more than half of project failures happen during the pre-opening phase. Don’t become one of those statistics.

Here’s how to take full advantage of the (relative) calm before the storm.

1. Strengthen your tech backbone

The spine of your hotel is the systems trifecta: property management, revenue management and central reservations. These hotel technology systems work together to help you operate your hotel more efficiently and profitably.

Before evaluating systems, separate your must-have features from the nice-to-haves. Each property has its unique business mix, so be sure to find systems that give you the tools to balance your property’s unique needs.

For example, if your hotel plans to rely heavily on online travel agents (OTAs), consider a cloud-based channel management solution that allows for convenient grouping and bulk updates to make managing those channels much easier.

Also, consider the user interface of each system: you and your team will spend a sizable chunk of your workday within these platforms. If they’re cumbersome, you will lose too much time learning how to use them.

Timing is critical; involve your revenue management team or consultant in the evaluation process early on. Rigorous testing of these systems before your soft launch is essential. Your technology stack should integrate seamlessly to support operational efficiency and profitability from day one.

2. Fine-tune your hiring and training

In many countries, it is still a struggle to hire and retain hospitality staff in the post-Covid job market. Whether in a competitive or favorable job market, your hotel requires a strong hiring and training strategy.

Before opening, plan how you will recruit and retain the type of hospitality-minded employees who contribute to a memorable guest experience. Here are some pointers to get you started:

• Create comprehensive job descriptions and promote your job advertisements effectively.

• Look for candidates with a passion for hospitality – it takes a specific character to thrive in this industry, so character fit is a top priority.

• Create an inviting and inclusive culture that prioritizes employee well-being.

• Offer competitive salaries in line with the market and provide strong employee benefits.

• Encourage personal development and career growth, and invest in training.

A consistent onboarding experience ensures staff start on a firm footing. When guest-facing staff are well-trained, guests notice. More importantly, when staff are poorly trained, guests notice – and take to online review sites to vent. Bad early reviews can jeopardize a sustainable launch.

3. Tackle property management

Operating a hotel involves a multitude of tasks: overseeing reservations, managing check-in and check-out procedures, monitoring rooms and availability, handling guest communications, and coordinating housekeeping – that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

While traditional methods can manage these tasks, they are labor-intensive and inefficient. Today, most hoteliers turn to a property management system (PMS) to streamline hotel operations.

This not only enhances operational efficiency but also significantly improves the guest experience, so it’s worth getting a good one in place from the outset.

4. Marketing your new hotel

Developing a comprehensive business plan should have been step one in your journey to opening a hotel. This plan should encompass your marketing strategy, outlining a roadmap to get your hotel noticed in the forthcoming months.

It is critical not to overlook your marketing efforts pre-launch. This is the time to make a real splash. Establish and amplify your brand identity and generate excitement for the day your hotel opens its doors. Effective marketing strategies may encompass:

• Investing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to enhance your visibility in search results

• Utilizing Google Hotel Ads for targeted advertising

• Implementing email marketing campaigns

• Using social media platforms for promotional activities

Your brand identity is vital. It embodies your hotel's character and the emotions it evokes in people when they encounter your hotel, be it online or in person.

Weave this narrative throughout all of your communications to attract the right clientele and craft an unforgettable guest experience.

5. Establishing a robust online presence

Your online presence is intrinsically linked with your hotel's marketing efforts.

Today’s travelers are self-reliant and predominantly book their accommodations online. They shortlist potential hotels, scour various OTAs for the best rates, ratings, and reviews, and look for deals.

To generate maximum online exposure, list your hotel on several OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia. However, an engaging website with a leading booking engine that offers guests the option to book directly can be a game-changer.

This will save you a great deal in commission fees to third-party OTAs. Therefore, driving direct bookings should be a top priority.

It’s also essential to maintain a consistent social media presence and monitor and respond to reviews. Constructing and meticulously managing your online presence is a significant part of running a successful hotel.

6. Reputation management starts… yesterday

It's never too early to start managing your hotel’s reputation. While there are many options for reputation management software, the first step is to strategize.

How will guest feedback be incorporated into your hotel operations? Will you respond regularly to reviews? Will you ask for reviews directly via guest communications, or will you take a passive approach? Which analytics will you use to track performance?

Once you've codified your strategy, seek out vendors that can help you execute it successfully. Your reputation influences where your property lands in OTA and metasearch results, so managing it should be a priority from the start.

Your reputation influences where your property lands OTA and metasearch results, so managing it should be a priority from the start.

7. Consider hooks for a pre-launch PR campaign

Overlapping with the point above and part of your broader marketing strategy: will there be anything noteworthy about your hotel?

Is it a new-build created in a unique style? Are you converting an architecturally significant old building? Will you have world-class facilities? Are you catering to guests drawn to local attractions or events? Are you planning diverse cuisine in your restaurant? Is there anything innovative about the guest experience, from booking to check-in?

These are all questions journalists might be interested in. With a PR campaign, using press releases, social media, and outreach, you could drum up real interest before opening your doors. Even if the coverage is local, if published digitally, these efforts will boost your SEO, generate social proof, and create a halo effect for your property.

It also makes sense to incorporate a launch party as part of this opening PR campaign, inviting all relevant media and social media influencers to spread the word of your hotel opening far and wide.

8. Get your room prices right from the start

A market-leading rate shopper will make a significant impact on your revenue from the outset.

Understanding competitor pricing is the foundation of your emerging pricing strategy, especially at the beginning of your hotel’s life when there's no historical data on your property.

Coupled with demand forecasts, parity management and a detailed event calendar, your rate intelligence tool guides how you should price each room type with real-time rate data.

This tool will help you craft an effective pricing and promotional strategy in response to your market competition and boost your hotel’s revenue performance with minimal fuss.

Revenue management means getting your room prices right daily. To make this a reality, you need accurate rate intelligence to spot and capture every opportunity.

9. Monitoring and acting upon market demand shifts

In the run-up to opening your hotel's doors, being able to spot and track demand coming into your market is critical for both your revenue management and marketing efforts. There simply isn't time for a trial-and-error period – you want to make sure that you are making bookings from the outset.

You now can look at pre-booking, top-of-funnel data points, to get a clearer picture of unconstrained demand and move ahead of the booking curve.

With a powerful, predictive market intelligence tool, you can see in real-time where demand for your market is originating from and how it develops. This can give you the edge over your compset – enabling you to easily grasp demand shifts up to 365 days in advance, hotel availability and pricing in your market

Even before your hotel has opened you can identify spikes in demand and proactively reach the right traveler, at the right time, with the right price point and targeted advertising campaigns.

10. Bringing it all together under a commercial strategy

Traditionally, hotel commercial teams tend to demonstrate a ‘Silo Mentality’– a mindset in which they feel as though they belong to a specific group in their workplace rather than a collective. As a result, information, resources, metrics and strategies aren’t shared as readily.

To stop this at source, you should look to have a commercial strategy in place prior to opening.

A commercial strategy unites all of a hotel's revenue-generating teams: sales, marketing, revenue management, and distribution – within one goal structure and typically under single leadership. This holistic approach fosters a business culture of transparency, communication, collaboration, and most importantly, improved operational efficiency.

A holistic commercial strategy fosters a business culture of transparency, communication, collaboration and most importantly, improved efficiency. Improving operational efficiency and combining the unique strengths of each commercial team will put you in an optimal position to realize your property’s potential for profit.

Adopting technology solutions that consider the complete commercial cycle is a straightforward and effective approach to apply a unified commercial strategy.

By supplying teams with actionable insights, based on real-time data, common strategies and goals come into view. You can then easily track progress and replicate these tactics for future success.

Conclusion

Opening a new hotel is incredibly stressful and challenging but properly executing an opening to rave reviews is incredibly rewarding. A deliberate, detailed approach during the pre-opening phase will establish your new hotel’s reputation and build momentum.

From selecting the right property management system to ensuring your pricing strategy is competitive and your marketing efforts are aligned, each of the factors discussed above plays a crucial role in setting the stage for your hotel's success. A successful launch puts you on the front foot and will drive the entire organization forward, setting the foundation for sustained profitability and growth.

Don’t leave anything to chance. See how our commercial platform can help kickstart your hotel’s journey to becoming a market leader in the hospitality industry.