“ THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT TAKE-AWAY WAS THAT THERE ’ S AN APPETITE FOR GUESTS TO BE GIVEN THIS TYPE OF PRODUCT .”
SALES & MARKETING
DRIVING BOOKINGS
WHY ‘ FOMO ’ WORKS , EVEN WHEN IT COMES TO LOYALTY . with a fest
By CHLOE RILEY , ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Marriott International has had its eye on the music fest scene for a while . In March 2017 , the company offered the option to book pop-up branded Safari tents to any and all Marriott loyalty member attendees at the California-based Coachella Music Festival . Fast forward a year later , and loyalty members ( with Marriott Rewards , Ritz-Carlton Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest [ SPG ] all newly combined ), now have access to their own music festival via W Hotels Worldwide ’ s globally oriented Wake Up Call , a two-day event making stops at three W Hotels this year : W Hollywood ( September 1-3 ); W Barcelona ( September 21-23 ); and W Bali ( October 4-6 ).
Why go all out with an entire music festival ? W Hotels ’ Pablo Henderson , senior global director of brand marketing , explains .
HOTELS : What inspired a music festival ? Why was it a good fit for the W brand ? Pablo Henderson : Basically , ( it was ) our opportunity to take the regular festival and kind of flip the concept on its head .
In 2016 , we decided to test the idea . Scottsdale , Arizona , hosted our first Wake Up Call and everybody absolutely loved it . In every single way it proved that there was a need for W to bring the credibility that the brand has in the music space and match that with the experiential component of the hotels , and put that all together in a multi-day festival .
H : What were the learns from that test run ? PH : The first and most important takeaway was that there ’ s an appetite for guests to be given this type of product , which we did not know going into it . That was the hypothesis . The other was that it is feasible to create demand on a date based around an internal event . Additionally , there was a much greater opportunity after the first festival to create efficiencies .
H : You found an appetite for festivals like this . How was that measured ? PH : Can this be something that is profitable and generates not only ticket sales , but also generates higher-than-average F & B sales ? The response on social channels and in the media was another opportunity , because we realized that there was a halo effect from the event , in that media outside of that market were writing about it . Scottsdale is not necessarily the most talked-about destination in the United States , and we were getting national attention . So that was another proof point .
“ THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT TAKE-AWAY WAS THAT THERE ’ S AN APPETITE FOR GUESTS TO BE GIVEN THIS TYPE OF PRODUCT .”
– W HOTELS ’ PABLO HENDERSON
H : Were you able to turn a profit on that test run in Scottsdale ? Yes . It was very profitable .
H : What are you projecting for this go around ? PH : This is all about bookings , hotel room bookings on the first round . And so the idea is for the hotel rooms to sell out , and then to make what limited supply of day passes we have available thereafter . Our projections are to make sure that we ’ re at 100 % occupancy for each one of the festivals .
50 hotelsmag . com September 2018