Boy am I glad we're off the beaten path a little.
We get virtually no walk in traffic, but I can tell you that the trend has been for many more than past years who are calling, emailing, etc.. to at least ask about a deal or some kind of discount since last fall.
Getting creative seems to be working for us. Our philosophy and preference has always been to spend less out of pocket on advertising methods that we can't fully quantify the effectiveness of and offer more personalized, one on one discounts that don't really cost you anything until someone takes advantage of it.
We've been relaxing our minumum night stays even if its close to a holiday weekend, talking more about our sliding scale extended stay discount with folks to try and get more nights out of them, highlighting the fact that our local sales/lodging tax here is 5% lower than at properties located within city limits, etc. We also have a nice "drive green" special that ironically more people are taking advantage of now with gas at $2.20 a gallon than last summer when it was $4 a gallon..
Some thoughts about this...
We have not cared for the walk-in price point at any point in our first 4 years. Even when our rates were much lower, it was always too high for a walk-in. That is how a lot of people are taught to behave by the hotels. Walk-in at 7 pm and get the super bargain rate! SOOO.. we know there are potential walk-ins out there that are not price pointers but rather experiential travelers. Sure they booked the so and so resort for a week, but if they find something that they think would enhance the trip.. they just do it. After a variety of chats with people in the general biz, we are beginning a "High Coffee" event in the mid-day as many visitors are driving by. Instead of pasively letting walk-ins come to us, we are setting up an opportunity for them to discover us. Amonst those may be some gems.
On the sliding scale...
Although we are in a very small minority as far as we can figure... the sliding scale has worked for us. It doesn't work well for the industry software, but we have worked around that. What has happened is two-fold
1) Our single night guests rarely flinch at the $30 or $50 premium they are paying and often are big coffee buyers. At $249, they see us as being at the low to middle end of their price point. They are likely to return for longer stays in the future because they visit Hawaii more often, so they figure they can take advantage of the discount next time.
2) Our 2 night ($219) guests and our 3 or more nights ($199) guests see us as being at the middle to high end of their budget, but see the discount as a way to stay at a nicer place and still get a break. Since they are including the cost in their decision, they extend their stay to enjoy added savings. They get here and feel as if they actually did get a good deal and tend to be very happy with the amenities and extras.
We get a premium to manage the cost of shorter stays and we get, on average, longer stays.
What we do not do is discount. It is our opinion that this behavior is a hotel behavior and it leads to dissatisfaction, inappropriate negotiation, and long term damage to our rates. Those guests will not return to stay with us at a higher price- because they now know we drop our price when asked. In this way, last minute discounts have a hidden cost that will hurt us later.
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