ABT educational sessions: how to make a marketing plan and to find new clients in the hotel industry
Tens of hotel industry participants from Moscow, Moscow region, Kaluga and Brest visited the educational session «Sales in the hotel industry: sales and marketing plan. Part 2», which was organized by the Russian Association of Business travel on July 29th in Moscow Hilton Leningradskaya. The presentation that was prepared by Irina Bosshard, director of «Business and Conference Hotel Attestation Program», continued the first session «Sales in the hotel industry: search of new clients», that was held in April and was highly appreciated by its participants.
According to Ms Bosshard, when she prepared the session, it was decided to focus on the very process of marketing plan elaboration.
When you start drawing up such an important document like that, you should bear in mind that it should correlate with the hotel’s strategic goals and its budget for the next year. The starting point is the swot analysis: you should evaluate political, social, cultural, technological factors and the economic climate. It is important to point out business segments and define the target group that could be interested in your product.
A marketing plan is rather group work. It is hard to answer questions like «Where are we now?», «Where should we be?» and «What is to be done to get there?» alone.
«It should be admitted that the session participants had various levels of knowledge», Ms Bosshard said after the meeting was over. «Some have never dealt with a marketing plan. Those who had an idea of it were active, asked questions, even started discussions. That is, the dialogue was present.»
On the next day, July 30th, due to numerous requests the educational session «Sales in the hotel industry: search of new clients. Part 1» was repeated. It was again presented by Ms Bosshard. Many of the participants of the first session were among its visitors.
This time hotel industry representatives clarified how to find the right contact person in the bulk of information. Apart from the websites of various exhibition centres and embassies, in this case even the professional LinkedIn network may be useful. By the way, by the beginning of the year it included more than 200 million users. You should also pay attention to the diversification of the company which may be your potential partner, i.e. how many business areas it includes.
At the end of the seminal Ms Bosshard again stressed the importance of the issue.
«Many hotels, if we do not take into account brand hotels, lack understanding what the sales department is to do. It often turns into an emergency service — a department that solves all the problems that occur in a hotel, which is not appropriate. A sales manager’s task is to find new clients, promote sales, collect information about the market. And this session attempted to turn all hotel market participants to the right direction. Information is around us, you only should filter it in the right way. Then work efficiency will be much higher in the end.
Sessions like that help you once again highlight key points and remind us of how we should work, in what way everything should be organized.»
Literally, we can say that ABT educational sessions are unique.
«There are lots of trainings aimed at finding new clients», Ms Bosshard says, «but they are not aimed directly at the hotel industry. Besides, these presentations are based on 20 years of my personal experience.»
According to the session participants, such sessions are really very useful and let you not only arrange the important information, but also discuss burning issues with other hotel industry participants and share experience.
«First of all, the advantage of meetings like that is the opportunity to acquire practical experience through communication with colleagues», Vladimir Kuzichev, commercial director of «Vozdvizhenskoe» country park hotel says. «Frankly speaking, the hotel department that is responsible for sales is more like a storeroom: there is a lot of information, but it needs to be put in order. Many things that I heard here were already familiar to me. Another thing is the skill of arranging it orderly. And it was my main task.
My second task was finding new managers. I attended the session devoted to sales and marketing plan together with a marketing specialist. And I visited the presentation about the search of new clients together with a key account manager.
Is it easy to manage to attend a session like that? Unfortunately, it is not. It is rather hard to be understood by the directors. You have to stand your ground regarding long-term development prospects of accommodation facilities. And when I appeal to my and my colleagues` experience, I often hear „You should read books and not rely on someone else’s practical knowledge.“ But it is for from enough to read „Marketing battles“».
Besides, according to the participant, an investment like that into the company’s staff is a positive initiative that works for its reputation.
«And finally, meetings like that are a good opportunity to assert yourself», Mr Kuzichev continues. «We get asked rather often, „And what is the situation like in the Moscow region?“ After all, just think about it — it is the forth travel market. After Moscow, Sochi and Krasnodar and Saint Petersburg.»
Marina Terlitskaya, front office director of Hermitage Hotel has come to ABT educational sessions from Brest.
«Our hotel is going to participate in ABT`s „Business and Conference Hotel Attestation Program“ very soon», Ms Terlitskaya said. «Thanks to this initiative we learned about educational sessions. It is hard to trace information about events like that yourself, but in this case we received an invitation and were glad to accept it.
The topics of the sessions are very important for us. We have a marketing plan as such, but it needs to be updated. Hermitage Hotel is a small hotel, we do not have a separate sales or marketing department. Both the reception and the booking department make reservations. It is obvious that Moscow and Brest are completely different directions. The market, the level and the contact search area differ a lot. I suppose, the sessions have helped me put information in order, we now understand how to go on working and what direction to follow.
Of course, we are interested in visiting trainings like that very much. And if there are new events, we will be glad to visit them!»
Anastasiya Nikolaeva, reservation service specialist in the hotel of Skolkovo business school who visited both sessions, expressed her gratitude to the organizers for the opportunity to participate.
«I admit, the second session had more to do with my job and turned out to be very interesting. I discovered new sources of client search», Ms Nikolaeva said. «The presentation devoted to the marketing plan is not really my direct responsibility, but this information was very useful for me. Because I plan to work in a sales department in future!
I think it will take me quite a lot of time to study all the materials provided to the participants after the session was over!»
Elena Zhuk, sales director assistant in Radisson Blu Belorusskaya, ABT member, in her turn expressed her gratitude to the Association:
«The problem of new clients search is related to our business sphere. I have not attended meetings like that yet, although I have not seen any other offers. Taking into account that I have long been working in this area, I can say that the information I received here was very helpful. For example, before that we did not use the LinkedIn social network to attract new clients.»
Julia Nazarova, corporate manager in Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya, pointed out the competent presentation of information: «I work in the corporate segment and the session on new clients search was very useful for me. I even put down some aspects that I considered important. I am sure that it was presented by a professional. The information was outlined very clearly and in a structured fashion.»
The next few educational sessions of the Russian Association of Business Travel will be held in September. The first is called «Sales in the hotel industry: sales and marketing plan. Part 2», the topic of the second is under discussion and depends on requests the participants expressed in their questionnaires. All information will be available on the Association’s website www.businesstravelrussia.ru.
Marina Osipova