Luxury Resort Marketing: 4 Tips to Create an Experience Before the Stay

Luxury resort guests expect a certain level of service. They’ve paid a premium to stay at a top flight resort or hotel and expect that their experience will match (or hopefully, exceed) the price tag. Your luxury resort marketing needs to match that expectation. Here are 4 tips to make your luxury resort marketing strategy create a unique experience before the stay that will help fulfill that expectation.

1. Do more with your emails

Everyone gets email in their inbox and when you book a stay at a resort, you expect a confirmation. As a luxury resort, you should be leveraging this touch to your customer as much as possible. Doing a few simple things can make your email stand out from the crowd. First, use the customer’s first or last name and salutation. An email with the subject, We look forward to welcoming you to The Beach Club, Mr. Smith is much more welcoming than Your confirmation. If you’re going for a more playful vibe, think of including the first name, such as, Mike, the party starts when you arrive at the ABC Casino!

Doing a few simple things can make your email stand out from the crowd. First, use the customer’s first or last name and salutation. An email with the subject, We look forward to welcoming you to The Beach Club, Mr. Smith is much more welcoming than Your confirmation. If you’re going for a more playful vibe, think of including the first name, such as, Mike, the party starts when you arrive at the ABC Casino!

Consider going the extra mile as well – ask your customers to select some favorite activities from a drop down on their registration form, then include that information in the confirmation email. So, if I select water sports from the web interface, your luxury resort may send me some information on how I can book jet skiing rentals and sailing lessons and even offer me a discount for doing so right then and there. That extra touch goes a long way!

2. Narrow down high-quality imagery

Often times, your luxury resort is placed in an area of specific beauty. The reason you are able to have a luxury draw is because of that beautiful landscape or feature. Make sure you’re highlighting it! The very first image that guests should see, whether they go to your website, see an email, or visit your social media profiles, is the image of your resort. It makes your location unique, sets the stage for your guest’s stay and sets your luxury resort marketing apart from others. That thing could be a particularly beautiful area of beach or a perfectly framed shot of your pool bar or even a whole wide angle shot of the mountain on which your luxury resort sits.

Certainly, you want to provide other images, including good shots of the accommodations you offer, some of the food and beverage options, the lobby, and any pool or fitness areas you offer, as well as anything else that sets your property apart from others.

3. Instill FOMO with consistent content

Operating a luxury resort means that you’re not offering someone a place to stay for a few days – you are offering them an experience, one which they will hopefully want to relive over and over again in the years to come.

The way to engage guests before their stay and keep them engaged after it is to create consistent, engaging content on your blog. Your luxury resort marketing strategy has to include a content production side to keep customers coming back to your property. What you want to instill in the luxury consumer is a constant state of FOMO, the fear of missing out. Perhaps they get a monthly or even bi-weekly email from your resort marketing team highlighting some of the great events going on, new restaurant dishes and an off-topic article to draw them in.

You can virtually guarantee that if the content is good, you’ll end up with a bunch of customers planning their next trip to your location!

4. Engage, Engage, Engage

Remember, the same as above. Luxury resort marketing is about creating an experience, not providing a consumer a place to stay for a few nights. That means being engaged with your customers where they are. If they are on Facebook, you better be on Facebook, all the time, answering questions and producing fresh content for them to enjoy. If they are Twitter users, ensure that you are on their timelines, constantly making them feel that FOMO and getting them to absolutely need to be at your resort.

All of these luxury resort marketing tactics help you create a community. When you can create a community, your visitors will feel your resort is something unique and will feel that FOMO to head right on over for a vacation!

How do you create an experience in your luxury resort marketing? Let us know your tips in the comments or on Twitter!

Up next, get luxury hotel marketing tips to differentiate your property.