The summer season is a pivotal time for hotels, often bringing a surge in bookings and bustling activity. As the warmer months come to a close, it’s essential to take a step back and critically evaluate your marketing efforts. A comprehensive review helps identify successes and opportunities, allowing you to refine your strategies and enhance your return on investment in the future. 

To guide you through the process of evaluating your summer marketing efforts, we’ve developed a detailed checklist specifically designed for hoteliers and hotel marketers. This tool will help you systematically assess the effectiveness of your summer marketing campaigns, uncover insights into your performance, and lay the groundwork for an even more successful summer season next year. 

1. Review Your Marketing Performance
2. Assess Guest Experience and Feedback
3. Reflect on Resource Allocation
4. Evaluate Promotion and Offer Success
5. Benchmark Against Competitors
6. Prepare for Next Summer

1. Review Your Marketing Performance

Analyzing Key Metrics

Seasonal Performance

Bookings and Occupancy Rate

Examine your summer booking data to determine if you hit your targets. Compare this season’s occupancy rates with the same period in past years to spot trends and assess your performance. If your rates are up, it’s a sign that your marketing is hitting the mark! 

Take it one step further and measure how your occupancy stacks up against industry averages, which helps you understand if you’re keeping pace with your competitors and the market as a whole. Industry research such as the Smith Travel Research, or STR Report, provides detailed information on competitor hotel performance, including occupancy rates, ADR and RevPAR. In addition, OTAs often provide information about competitor pricing, availability, and sometimes reviews, which can offer indirect insights into competitor performance and market positioning.

Website Traffic 

• Track Traffic Trends: Use tools like Google Analytics to see how your website traffic changed over the summer. Look for patterns, such as spikes during certain promotions or area events, as well as drops during quiet periods.
• Understand Where Visitors Come From: Find out if visitors found your website through search engines, social media, or paid ads. This insight can help you fine-tune where to focus your marketing efforts.
• Explore User Behavior: Review how visitors interacted with your site. Did they stick around or bounce quickly? Understanding user behavior can guide improvements to keep people engaged.
• Measure Conversions: Look at how well your hotel website converted visitors into bookings. This will tell you how effective your website was at turning interest into action. As a rule of thumb, any conversion rate below 1% is a red flag. Looking at conversion rate by channel will provide a more accurate view of your summer performance.

Social Media Performance

• Bookings: Did your social media efforts translate into increased bookings?
• Brand Awareness: Were you successful in raising awareness about your hotel?
• Engagement: Did you enhance interaction with your audience?
• Customer Service: Did you improve your customer service through social media?
• Engagement Rate: Look at likes, shares, comments, and overall engagement.
• Reach and Impressions: Measure how many people saw your posts and how often.
• Follower Growth: Track changes in the number of followers on each platform.
• Click-Through Rate: Analyze how many users clicked on links to your website.
• Conversion Rate: Measure how many of those clicks resulted in bookings or inquiries.
• Sentiment: Evaluate the tone of comments and messages to understand perception.
• Top-Performing Posts: Identify which types of content performed best.
• Best Times to Post: Determine when your audience is most active and engaged.
• Hashtag Performance: Analyze which hashtags drove the most engagement.
• Campaign Effectiveness: Assess the performance of any campaigns 
• ROI: Calculate the return on investment for any paid social media advertising.

Email Campaign Success

• Review Open Rates: How many people opened your summer emails? A low open rate may mean you need to adjust your subject line or timing, or it could signal something worse.  
• Analyze Click-Through Rates: Look at how many recipients clicked on your links. Higher click-through rates mean your email content and calls-to-action were compelling.
• Check Conversions: How many people took action after reading your emails? Did your marketing emails generate revenue if that was your goal? This tells you how effective your campaigns were at driving results.

Max ADR and RevPAR

ADR (Average Daily Rate)

Analyzing your Average Daily Rate is critical in evaluating your summer marketing success. ADR represents the average revenue earned per rented room per night, and it’s a key indicator of how well you’ve been able to price your rooms.

• Target Achievement: Review whether you achieved or exceeded your ADR targets. Compare the actual ADR with the goals set at the beginning of the season. Did your marketing strategies, such as promotions or seasonal offers, help you reach or surpass these targets?
• Historical Comparison: Assess how your ADR for this summer compares to the same period in previous years. This can provide insights into whether you’ve successfully adjusted your pricing strategy in response to market trends, guest demand, and competitive dynamics.
• Competitive Analysis: Examine your ADR in relation to your competitors. Research similar hotels in your area to see if your rates are aligned with the market. Were your rates competitive enough to attract guests, yet high enough to ensure profitability?
• Seasonal Trends: Consider seasonal fluctuations that might have impacted your ADR. For example, did you adjust your rates effectively during peak periods or low seasons to optimize revenue?

RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room)

RevPAR is a crucial metric for understanding how efficiently you are generating revenue from your available room inventory. It combines both occupancy and ADR into a single measure, providing a clear picture of overall revenue performance.

• Revenue Maximization: Evaluate your RevPAR to determine how effectively you’ve maximized revenue from available rooms. Compare your RevPAR with historical data to assess whether recent changes in your marketing strategy, such as targeted promotions or discount offers, have led to an increase in revenue.
• Industry Benchmarks: Compare your RevPAR with industry benchmarks and competitors. This will help you gauge how well your hotel is performing relative to others in your market. Are you outperforming your competitors, or is there room for improvement?
• Occupancy and Rate Strategy: Analyze how changes in occupancy rates and ADR have impacted your RevPAR. For instance, did increasing room rates lead to higher revenue despite a slight drop in occupancy, or did lower rates drive a significant increase in bookings that improved overall revenue?
• Market Segmentation: Consider how different market segments (e.g., corporate, leisure, group) have contributed to your RevPAR. Tailor your marketing strategies to enhance revenue from high-value segments while optimizing pricing for others.
• Seasonal Adjustments: Reflect on how well you adjusted your strategies for summer. Effective use of RevPAR during peak times or local events can significantly boost overall revenue.

Evaluate Channel Effectiveness

Return on Investment (ROI)

Calculate the ROI for each marketing channel to determine which were the most cost-effective. Analyze how much revenue each channel generated relative to its cost.

Channel Performance Insights

Identify channels that performed exceptionally well and those that underperformed. Use this information to reallocate your budget and resources more effectively.

2. Assess Guest Experience and Feedback

Guest Reviews and Ratings

Feedback Analysis

Collect and review guest reviews from platforms like TripAdvisor, Google, and Booking.com. Look for recurring themes in comments, both positive and negative. Identify common compliments to understand what guests appreciated and recurring complaints to address areas needing improvement.

Trends in Reviews

Analyze trends over time to see if there were specific issues or highlights during the summer. This can help in understanding whether certain aspects of your service or facilities need attention.

Customer Service Performance

Service Quality

Assess how well your team handled the increased volume of guests. Look at metrics like response times, resolution rates for issues, and guest satisfaction scores.

Gather feedback from staff about their experiences and challenges during peak times. This can provide insights into operational inefficiencies or training needs.

3. Reflect on Resource Allocation

Marketing Budget and Spend

Budget vs. Actual Spend

Compare your planned marketing budget with actual expenditures. Identify any discrepancies and understand why they occurred.

Evaluate whether your budget was distributed effectively across different marketing channels. Determine if there were areas where you overspent or underspent.

Effectiveness of Spend

Assess if the money spent was justified by the results achieved. Look at whether high-cost campaigns delivered proportional returns.

Team and Staffing

Adequate Staffing

Evaluate whether your team was sufficient to handle the summer rush. Consider whether additional staffing or temporary help was needed.

Review if staff had the necessary training and support to manage peak season demands efficiently.

4. Evaluate Promotion and Offer Success

Promotions and Packages

Success of Promotions

Review the performance of summer promotions, special offers, and packages. Analyze how well they attracted bookings and whether they met revenue targets.

Assess the profitability of each promotion. Determine if discounts or special rates generated enough bookings to cover the cost and deliver a profit. 

Special Events and Partnerships

Evaluate the success of any special events or partnerships. Analyze attendance, guest feedback, and the impact on bookings.

Review the results of any collaborations with local businesses or tourism boards. Determine if these partnerships enhanced your marketing efforts and guest experience.

5. Benchmark Against Competitors

Competitive Analysis

Comparative Performance

Analyze how your summer marketing efforts and results compare to top competitors. Scrutinize their summer marketing strategies, promotions, and performance metrics, if available.

Identify any best practices or strategies that were used by competitors that could be applied to your own marketing plan moving forward.

Industry Trends

Research current and emerging trends in the hotel industry, such as new technologies, guest preferences, or marketing innovations.

Consider how these trends might influence your future marketing strategy and how you can adapt to stay competitive.

6. Prepare for Next Summer

Lessons Learned

Summarize the major insights gained from your evaluation. Highlight what worked well and what needs improvement. Then, identify specific actions you need to take based on your analysis.

Strategy Adjustments

Develop a plan for implementing changes based on your evaluation. Outline adjustments to marketing strategies, budget allocation, and resource management. Then, set a timeline for implementing these changes and monitoring their effectiveness.

Setting New Goals

Establish clear goals for the next summer season, including targets for ADR, RevPAR, and other key performance indicators (KPIs).

Create a detailed plan for achieving these goals, incorporating insights from your evaluation.

Evaluating Your Summer Marketing Efforts: Wrapping It Up

Evaluating your summer marketing efforts is crucial for understanding what strategies worked and where improvements can be made. By using our checklist, you can gain valuable insights, refine your approach, and enhance your marketing effectiveness for the future.

We encourage you to apply this checklist to your own summer campaigns and begin developing strategies to ensure even greater success in the months ahead. Your proactive efforts now will set the stage for a stellar summer next year.

Want to increase your direct bookings? Contact our team of experts to take your hotel to the next level.