You can take advantage of natural disasters and be embraced as a wonderful servant of those evacuees who have been displaced and those in the Disaster Relief!
This creates a wonderful public relations momentum for your business and your brand to make it THE Hotel of Distinction in your marketplace!
First of all, be sure you collect every guest’s email address at sign-in! Be sure your form points out that they may be receiving email from you. Then, be sure you enter the email addresses into your system for future use.
If your facility is in the direct area of the hurricane disaster’s path, you can do several things to make some profit and a tremendous amount of goodwill to be leveraged as your Hotel of Distinction in your local marketplace.
If you plan to try to ride it out and remain open during the storm, you immediately send out an email to EVERY guest who has ever stayed in your hotel or motel!
Here is what you say:
We at <your hotel> in <your location> are very concerned about the people who will be adversely affected in the next few days! We want to reach out to make their problems less agonizing for them!
<your hotel> in <your location> wants to help!
If you, your family, or friends are in the affected area please get this message to them!
Not only are we not raising our prices, we are offering package discounts and special amenities for evacuees. All they have to do is identify themselves as evacuees recovering from the <storm/FIRE/flood>.
We also extend this offer to anyone helping with the disaster area in Disaster Relief.
Spread the word to anyone you know who I would like to take advantage of this special offer.
If your facility management software does not offer an emailing program, there are many good ones available.
One that offers a very liberal free account is MailChimp. It has a paid version for more active users.
Forever Free
When you create an account with MailChimp, you’ll automatically start on our no-cost Forever Free Plan. It’s ideal for beginners who want to grow their lists and create campaigns while testing out MailChimp’s powerful, built-in tools and features. You can send up to 12,000 emails per month and have up to 2,000 total subscribers.
If your facility is outside of the directly affected area, email all your previous guests and invite them and their friends and relatives evacuating from the immediate storm area to stay at your inn.
Here is what you say:
We at <your hotel> in <your location> are very concerned about the people who have been adversely affected in recent days! We want to reach out to make their problems less agonizing for them!
We want to help!
If you, your family, or friends are in the affected area please get this message to them!
Not only are we not raising our prices, we are offering package discounts and special amenities for evacuees. All they have to do is identify themselves as evacuees recovering from the <storm/FIRE/flood>.
We also extend this offer to anyone helping with the disaster area in Disaster Relief.
All they have to do is identify themselves as Disaster Relief workers.
Spread the word to anyone you know who I would like to take advantage of this special offer.
You should send this message out several times as the storm passes. Then, send it out a few times afterwards saying how much you enjoyed helping theevacuees and Disaster Relief workers.
Send your emails frequently during the lead-up to the storm, during the storm, and after the storm. You can position your faciltiy as a storm information center drawing from the local news, weather service, and state and local sources for your information.
This will make everyone love you and firmly posiltion your facility as the Hotel of Distinction in your marketplace!
Hurricane Harvey response
Here is to your facility being the dominant, most successful hotel business in your marketplace!
May you have a wonderfully profitable business!
Your Hotel Marketing Dominator Team
Robbie Meek and Paul Elliott
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