hotel management

Chapter 24 Hotel Marketing Management (4)
The marketing channels of hotel products mainly include direct sales channels and indirect sales channels.

1. Direct Sales Channel

Also known as zero-level channel, it means that the hotel directly sells products to guests without any intermediary, that is, guests directly purchase products from the hotel.Hospitality businesses typically have three direct sales channels to choose from.

(1) Hotel-customer (the point of sale is the hotel site).It means that the hotel sells hotel products and services directly to the guests who visit the door, which is the traditional sales method of the hotel.

(2) Hotel-customer (the point of sale is the customer source, the customer company or the guest's home).Refers to the customer booking products with the hotel through telephone, fax, Internet and other channels.In recent years, with the widespread application of information technology and the popularization of computers, the important marketing channel of hotels is the Internet.The hotel should do a good job in homepage design, website construction, information update, demand response, etc. to strengthen the marketing effect.

(3) Hotels—self-established sales outlets—customers (sales outlets are on-site outlets).Refers to hotels setting up their own retail outlets in their operating areas or target market areas, such as hotels setting up sales outlets at airports, stations, etc., to sell directly to guests.This model also includes the hotel company (group) member hotels between the agency reservations, mutual recommendation of customer sources.

2. Indirect sales channels

With the further internationalization of the tourism market, it is difficult to effectively attract guests scattered in various places by relying on direct marketing channels alone, and the direct sales channels are becoming more and more fragile. Information advantage to carry out sales activities.This way of transferring hotel products to final consumers with the help of middlemen is called the indirect sales channel.

Depending on the number of intermediaries involved, indirect sales channels have different lengths and widths.The length of the marketing channel refers to the number of intermediaries involved in moving the product from the hotel to the guest.The greater the number of intermediaries, the longer the sales channel.The so-called width of sales channels refers to the number and distribution pattern of middlemen and sales outlets in a hotel's specific sales channels.Those with many middlemen and sales outlets belong to wide channels; otherwise, they can be called narrow channels.Hotels typically have two indirect sales channels to choose from.

(1) Hotel - retailer - guest (at the retailer's business site).The hotel sells products to retailers at a lower price, and the retailers organize the source of customers.

(2) Hotel - wholesaler - retailer - guest (at the retailer's business site).On the basis of price negotiations with wholesalers (such as travel agencies operating group package tours), the hotel sells or books its products in bulk at a price substantially lower than the rack rate, and the wholesaler entrusts the retailer to Products are sold to end guests.

([-]) Selection of marketing channels
Which marketing method the hotel chooses in the marketing process, direct marketing or indirect marketing, how to determine the length and width of marketing channels, involves the selection of marketing channels.

1. Factors to be considered in choosing sales channels

(1) Product factors.Product factors mainly refer to the quality and nature of the product.Products with high quality and high price are often purchased repeatedly by a few wealthy buyers, so direct marketing channels or narrow marketing channels should be used.On the contrary, popular products should adopt wide and long marketing channels due to the large number of buyers and wide distribution.For new products, because they are not yet well-known, it often takes more "words" to sell through indirect channels, so it is better to use direct marketing channels.

(2) The hotel's own factors.The hotel's economic strength and marketing management capabilities are all factors that should be considered. If it is a strong hotel, it can completely set up its own sales team, or organize more and better intermediary teams with higher commissions.If the hotel's marketing management ability is strong, it can also use its skilled marketing team to open up the market.On the contrary, marketing must use intermediaries as channels.

(3) Marketing object factors.The number, distribution and purchasing habits of marketing objects will all affect the choice of marketing channels for hotel companies.If the number of marketing objects of the hotel is large and widely distributed, the hotel should adopt long and wide marketing channels, otherwise direct marketing is more suitable.

2. Sales channel strategy

There are generally five types of sales channel strategies that hotels can choose from.

(1) Extensive sales strategy.It means that there is no choice for middlemen, and the more the quantity, the better.The advantage of this strategy is that it creates convenience for guests to purchase, but the disadvantage is that it will be more difficult for the hotel to control and manage sales channels.

(2) Exclusive sales strategy.It means that the hotel chooses a middleman as the sales channel in a certain market area.Adopting this strategy helps the hotel to control the middleman and supervise its improvement of service attitude, but it affects the convenience of guests' purchase accordingly.

(3) Selective sales strategy.It means that the hotel selects several intermediaries as sales channels within a certain market area, which is a relatively broad applicability strategy.

(4) Short channel sales strategy.Refers to the hotel choosing a sales channel that involves fewer middlemen.

(5) Long-channel sales strategy.It means that the hotel chooses a sales channel that involves more middlemen.When using this strategy, it is necessary to consider the principles of efficiency (easy for guests to buy), economic principles (sales channels can bring sufficient revenue and profits) and source principles (considering the basic characteristics of the source of customers).

([-]) Joint marketing is the development trend of marketing channels

With the intensification of market competition, a single marketing method is increasingly unable to meet the needs of the hotel industry. Therefore, in the selection of marketing channels, we have begun to take the road of joint marketing, set up a national and even global marketing network, and fully expand the scope of marketing channels. Length and width, in a more flexible way for the most effective and convenient marketing at the place closest to the guests.

Time sharing (Time::Share) is considered to be a new concept of hotel marketing.The specific method of time sharing arrangement is: according to certain standards, select suitable hotels all over the country and even around the world to form a network, and allocate some of the rooms of these hotels to the right to use accommodation for a certain period of time each year (such as 1 week or 1 month each year) , at a certain price and a certain period of time (such as 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, 5 years, 3 years or 1 year) to sell to customers at one time, to realize the six major rights and interests of customers (use right, exchange right, gift rights, beneficiary rights, transaction rights, preferential rights), and thus introduce to the whole society a special product that is both consumption and storage, both for personal use and as a gift - hotel sharing rights.The biggest advantage of the time sharing arrangement is that it revitalizes the hotel's assets, establishes a flexible hotel marketing network, expands the contact surface between hotel products and guests, and at the same time brings considerable convenience and benefits to customers. It is especially suitable for large companies and large trading companies Or used by guests who travel all year round.For example, a person who goes to Spain for vacation every year buys the right to use a room in a hotel in Spain on the Time::Share network for 20 years every year for 8 weeks in August.If he does not want to go to Spain in a certain year, he can exchange the use right of this room for the use right of any other hotel in any place that joins the Time::Share network, and he can also give the use right of this room to others.Shared sales of hotel time slots have begun to emerge in my country. According to reports, six centers will be set up in six major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Wuhan, and Chengdu. It is planned to launch 2 online hotels at home and abroad to achieve domestic sales in my country. Use interchangeably.

The so-called promotion strategy refers to the systematization and standardization of information communication means and processes, that is, the scientific selection, analysis, configuration, and control of promotional objects or fields, promotional tasks, promotional objectives, promotional effects, promotional inputs, and various restrictive conditions. , to improve the efficiency and effect of information publicity, to improve the effect and efficiency of promotional activities, and to make promotional activities low-input and high-output.

The following are several commonly used promotional methods. 1. Hotel advertisement
The so-called hotel advertisement means that the hotel chooses and produces information about hotel products in a paid way, and publishes them by the media to convey the relevant information, attract the attention of guests, persuade them to buy or use, enhance the popularity and influence of the hotel, and establish the reputation of the hotel and its products. A form of advertising that achieves promotional purposes.In order to strengthen the advertising effect, two basic principles of authenticity and artistry must be followed.

2. Public Relations
Public relations refers to a series of special or special activities carried out by the hotel in order to communicate information with the public, make the hotel and the public understand each other, coordinate various aspects of relations, establish a good image, improve the hotel's popularity and reputation, and create a good external environment for the hotel's marketing activities. Sum of daily sexual activity.These activities run through the development process of hotel companies, including various special public relations activities with strong professionalism, such as press conferences, large-scale celebrations, large-scale reward activities, etc., as well as all daily activities, such as daily service activities , advertising campaigns, ceremonial activities, etc.Taking advantage of the strong emotional color of public relations can often achieve "moving people with emotion".

3. Business promotion
Sales promotion, also known as sales promotion, is a general term for various short-term promotion methods adopted by enterprises to stimulate early demand or cause strong market segmentation, with the purpose of persuading consumers to buy a specific product.Promote the hotel's business, including product exhibitions, on-site operations, giving samples and other promotional methods.Various ways of business promotion can make consumers have a strong and rapid response, can be used to express the characteristics of the product, and can also be used to stimulate the sales that are about to decline, but the promotion effect is often short-term Yes, not ideal for establishing long-term brand preference.

4. Personal Selling
This method of personal selling is relatively old, and it is also the most effective and costly promotional method.Personal sales in a hotel refers to introducing and persuading guests through interpersonal communication to encourage them to understand, like and purchase hotel products or services, such as contacting and visiting agents, middlemen, institutions, groups, VIPs and scattered guests.The advantage of this promotion method is that it strengthens the emotional color in the transaction process and is conducive to cultivating a stable transaction relationship, but the disadvantage is that the cost of promotion personnel is relatively high.

The steps of hotel personnel sales are usually: looking for and identifying potential guests, doing pre-sale preparations (understanding the needs of guests, determining the purpose of visits, contact methods and time, conceiving sales strategies), approaching guests (meeting with guests in an appropriate way), Introduce and demonstrate products, handle objections, close sales promotion visits, follow-up work (particular attention should be paid to the work after the visit to ensure guest satisfaction and repurchase hotel products).

Hotel personnel sales management, including personnel sales design and sales force management.The design of personal selling includes the purpose of the sales force (such as finding new customers, passing information, selling products, providing services, collecting information, distributing goods), personal selling strategy, sales force structure, sales force size, sales force compensation (such as Fixed remuneration, variable remuneration, expense allowance and welfare allowance); sales force management includes selection of salespersons, training of salespersons, guidance of salespersons, motivation of salespersons, evaluation of salespersons, etc.

(End of this chapter)