As promised – here’s the Nisbet Plantation Case Study that Jamie Holmes and I presented at the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association meeting in St. Thomas last month.

It’s good news that proves you can market your way around a recession.

Here’s what Nisbet Plantation Beach Club, an intimate luxury resort in the Caribbean, did to outperform other hotels in the region. As a result of following best practices and adhering to customer relationship marketing, Nisbet is also well positioned to flourish as the recession subsides.

You can download the complete article here.  Here’s a top-line summary.

• Focus on Marketing Basics – A recession is not the time to experiment – especially if you have a very limited marketing budget. Make sure your 4-P’s of Marketing – Product, Place, Price and Promotion – are performing perfectly. Experiment only if there are any opportunistic funds left in your budget.

• Don’t Deep Discount – Study after study show deep discounting is easily copied, doesn’t stimulate demand and hurts RevPAR over the short term.Long term revenue also suffers. STR estimates it will take between five to ten years for hotels to return to pre-recession pricing once inflation is factored in. Used to cheap rates, the trade and consumers will resist your attempts to raise them.

• Deliver a Great Guest Experience/Provide Value – Hotels need to cut expenses, but caution needs to be taken to cut those that will least impact the overall guest experience.Cutting staff to skeleton crews, draining the pool, closing the spa and shuttering restaurants are not what a guest expects. And most likely their displeasure will be shared with others on TripAdvisor.

• Maintain Marketing Spending – Hospitality marketing budgets are always easy targets for budget reductions in recessionary times. It is the tool that will help convince potential guests that your hotel is better than competition, provides good value and is certainly worth a few more dollars a night than the other hotels that are using Price as their primary marketing tool.McGraw-Hill did a study of companies during the last Great Recession of 1981-82 and found that those who maintained or increased advertising spending outperformed competition during the recession and recovered more quickly than those who cut spending.

Click here for the complete Nisbet Plantation Hotel Case Study.

Safe Travels – Madigan Pratt

Last week I was in St. Thomas speaking at the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) Small Hotels Retreat and have to admit it was one of the best conferences I have attended in quite some time.

Sponsored by HSMAI there were more than 250 attendees including hoteliers, allied members and suppliers.  What impressed me most however, besides the quality of the material presented, was the amount of interaction taking place between all three constituents.   It was obvious everyone was interested in gathering information and putting it to use in an effort to put the past behind and start down the path to recovery.

Lindsay Culbreath, Director of Sales for Smith Travel Research offered insights into the State of the Caribbean Hotel Industry. Although only 20% of Caribbean Hotels are currently reporting their numbers to STR Lindsay showed the impact of the current recession on the Caribbean hotel industry by reporting the following RevPAR figures:

Not the prettiest of pictures.  STR is looking for Caribbean hotels to participate in its confidential industry survey which can only help hotels be more competitive in the future.  Every Caribbean hotel should participate and can by contacting Linsday at 615 824 8664.  For those hotels that do – your first year’s subscription to STR Reports will be free.

John Fareed, who helped organize the conference, spoke about “Winning Social Media Strategies for Small Resorts” and was as entertaining and insightful as always.  Professor Eric Brey from the University of Memphis offered hoteliers a framework from which to assess and and deliver a Memorable Customer Experience.  And today, surviving in the competitive hospitality arena - it is all about delivering and excellent guest experience.

If you would like a copy of Professor Brey’s presentation on  “Driving Revenue – Creating Memorable Guests Experiences” you can contact him at ericbrey@memphis.edu.  Just mention you found out about it in Hospitality Marketing Blog.

There were 12 different round-table presentations held during the two-day conference and every one was very well attended.  Each table was set up for ten people and in most cases seating was two and three rows deep as hoteliers crowded around to hear the latest in marketing and operations.

Jamie Holmes, general manager of Nisbet Plantation and I presented a Case Study on “A Small Luxury Hotel That Prospered in Difficult Times.”  We gave two separate presentations and in the end ran out of Case Study reprints.  I am in the process of updating the Study and will summarize it next week on Hospitality Marketing Blog.  You will also be able to download the full Case Study so look for details next week.

Alec Sanguinetti, Director General and CEO of CHTA, announced at the meeting that the Small Hotels Retreat has earned a permanent place on the roster of CHTA events and that plans are already being made for next year’s event.  Of course details will follow.  Seriously though, if you represent a small Caribbean hotel or have a product or service that a small hotel could benefit from I would strongly urge you to plan on attending next year’s event.

Safe Travels – Madigan Pratt

It’s January 2008 and Hillary Clinton was ready for the coronation.  As the front runner for nomination as the Democratic Presidential candidate she looked invincible.

How times have changed.  As the media pundits start to dissect what went wrong a valuable marketing lesson for small luxury hotels is emerging.

To begin with, Hillary’s main message (experience) was off target.  It wasn’t what people wanted or were interested in hearing.  Later her message started to waffle from one topic to another and in the end what she really stood for became nebulous in voter’s minds.

In the meantime Barack Obama kept a single minded focus on delivering the same message – one people wanted to hear – change.

So what’s the lesson for small luxury hotels? 

• Make sure your marketing message is very clear and delivers a benefit people are looking for.
• Be consistent!  Drive your message home with every piece of communication your deliver.

There are marketing lessons just about everywhere you look these days.  Good ideas and important lessons can be gleaned from beyond the hospitality or travel industries.

What do you think?  Safe travels – Madigan Pratt

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