Travel marketing is so much more than selling rooms–it’s selling time. When you help a traveler enrich their time, they’ll be willing to give you more of it.

And with deep roots in the community, independent hotels are uniquely positioned as hosts to help travelers maximize their time. And more time leads to better profitability.

That’s why Ed St. Onge and Hal Fickett from our team recently joined Trevor Stuart-Hill and Catherine Smagala of Revenue Matters as part of our open mic jam session.

Take a peek at a few top highlights from our conversation. 🎙️

“…the reason you want to sell the experience is to ultimately sell more time.”

Elevate destination experiences with the community

To help you showcase your property’s destination and its experiences, put to work relationships with past guests, your team, local businesses, and if you have one, your destination marketing organization.

These resources can help you crowdsource the experiences that ultimately help win over new audiences of travelers.

“If you want to stick out amongst your competitive set, be the best source of knowing your community.”

Maximize your role as host, online and off

Once armed with the experiences around your community, use them to win over planners on your site in the consideration phase.

Showcase stories from guests not only enjoying their time at your property, but also encountering these community gems.

“If you can give [the traveler] the information that they need about your destination, things to see and do…you’re setting yourself up for success.”

Have more personal, meaningful traveler conversations

Once travelers are educated and excited about your destination, it’s time to engage them in meaningful conversations on your site. These digital conversations should reflect real-life conversations that aim to be helpful.

By doing so, you’re building stronger relationships and trust among your audience—gains that ultimately help and increase direct, incremental revenue.

“Your website and booking engine should be as good of an experience as if they called you… We should be narrating these digital journeys as a conversation.”

Align marketing + revenue management

Collaborating on an integrated strategy where marketing, revenue management, and distribution are all aligned ultimately means we all can get better, together.

“[The bottom line]—if we don’t all row in the same direction, then we’re not going to have optimal performance.”

Being a better host leads to better profitability

Selling more time leads to greater profitability. When independent hotels shepherd the story of their destination well, that leads to a highly engaged audience that costs less to acquire and opens properties up for extended stays since travelers know how to maximize their time.

Blending that with your revenue management strategy amplifies your impact even more.

“If you’re taking that incremental approach to having better conversations [and] information on your site, you will see… lower costs of acquisition [down to] transaction.”

To hear more from the minds at Revenue Matters, give them a follow here. And if you’re ready to reach, inspire and win over more travelers, say hello to Hal here at Flip.to—we’re ready to kick off the conversation on topping your goals!