Resort properties like Dolce Stockton Seaview Hotel & GC in Galloway, N.J., and Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin, Texas, are bringing business travelers to their properties by emphasizing food and beverage, shops and historical displays that are specific to their locale, while encouraging guests to “Instabrag” through social media about their experiences.
While group business travelers are acting globally, when it comes to holding meetings and conventions, they are thinking local, Hotel News Now reported.
“[Travelers are] looking for an experience, not just to come to a normal meeting in the ballroom to turn around and go home,” said Seamus Gallagher, director of sales and marketing for the Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte (N.C.). “They want to come, to get their work done and experience the city. If we can get people here and check some things out, it’s all the better.”
Local food and beverage help to differentiate and appeal to group business clients. For his property’s F&B nourishment program, Andrew Stegen, General Manager of the Dolce Stockton Seaview Hotel & Golf Club in Galloway, N.J., said his team created menus from wholesome ingredients sourced within 50 miles of the property, Hotel News Now reported.
“We do that obviously to try to distinguish ourselves from most traditional hotel banquet offerings, the proverbial rubber chicken dinner,” Stegen said. “We give guests a taste of the locality.”
Among the property’s local programs is Cultivate, in which it brings in shops and historical displays from a nearby seaport where guests can learn more about the area, support small businesses and try local food. “If they can walk away and say they learned something tonight and had a great meal from local ingredients, we consider that a success,” Stegen said.
When guests sit on a longhorn steer or race an armadillo during their stay at the Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin, Texas, they want to take pictures to share on social media, said Terasa Rivera, director of conference services at the hotel. When they do that, Rivera encourages them to hashtag their photos with the hotel’s name when they post it to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, Hotel News Now reported.
The hotel acts as its own destination management company, Rivera said. Things can get lost in translation when working with a middleman, she said, so she personally reaches out to vendors for services and meeting planners to find out everything group business customers want to do. Attracting new customers hasn’t proven to be too much of a challenge, she told Hotel News Now.
“As long as we can send them a picture, it sells itself,” Rivera said. “People want to see something they’ve not seen before.”
Resorts are targeting millennials and the way they travel, The Ritz-Carlton’s Gallagher said, which is different from marketing to baby boomers. “They like to ‘Instabrag,’ as we say, and show off pictures and show experiences they’ve had,” Gallagher said.
During its peak season from late March through mid-November, the Omni in Austin sells its Texas-style activities about three to four times a month, Rivera said. Though the marketing helps attract in new customers, the activities have done well in bringing back repeat business, Hotel News Now reported.
“We have some customers every single year who want the armadillo races because the customers can’t stop talking about how much they love that,” Rivera said. “It’s something that definitely brings people back.”
The local programs have helped increase and retain customers, Stegen said, as business has increased about 15% over the two to three years the programs have existed. “I’m positive some of that is attributed to offering something that differentiates us from our competitors,” Stegen said.
The resort has about 20 to 25 group business programs running throughout the year, Stegen said. March through October is the Dolce Stockton Seaview’s corporate group busy season, he said, and social groups mainly make up the rest of the year, Hotel News Now reported.
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