Show off your international breakfast menu. Recent research shows that breakfasts are the most wanted amenity, so travellers certainly care about what you have to offer. Use your booking engine to upsell your breakfast and highlight the fact that you have a variety of breakfasts on offer. For example, have a noodle and vegetable dish for Chinese travellers or crepes for the French travellers.
Speak their language. Win over your international guests by having translation options on your website and booking engine. Translating your room descriptions, rooms and rates into their native language and currency will make the online booking process as convenient as possible. Your global guests will easily understand what you have to offer, so language isn’t a barrier to booking with you.
Give them free Wi-Fi. Much like online booking, free Wi-Fi has evolved into an expectation for today’s international traveller, and it was voted as the most important amenity after breakfast. Websites like TripAdvisor even allow guests to filter out hotels that don’t offer free Wi-Fi! In a foreign country, travellers want to keep in touch with their loved ones back home, search for places to eat and things to do. Make sure that you include Wi-Fi in your room description online.
Get them excited for their stay. International guests may not be very familiar with the your destination, so sending them an outline of their transport options, local attractions and events would be very helpful and much appreciated. Your booking engine should be able to send automatic pre-arrival emails to your guests. This will give you that personal touch, showing your guests that you truly care about them having an excellent stay in your city.
Without a modern online booking engine in place, reaching international guests is hard work! The right system will allow you to reach guests in those hard-to-reach global markets.
Little Hotelier is built to meet the needs of small hotels, bed & breakfasts, guesthouses and motels.
Little Hotelier
Dallas, Texas
972.685.2160
1 800 604 0679
Sources:
World Tourism Organization UNWTO: International tourism on track to end 2014 with record numbers (http://media.unwto.org/press-release/2014-12-18/international-tourism-track-end-2014-record-numbers)
Skift: Skift Asks: Which Hotel Features Do You Most Look Forward To?
(http://skift.com/2013/11/07/skift-asks-which-hotel-features-do-you-most-look-forward-to/)