ABT Educational seminar: instruments of client search in the hotel industry

On March the 20th Moscow Hilton Leningradskaya Hotel hosted the first educational seminar for hoteliers «Sales in the hotel industry: search of new clients» organized by ABT. Its participants included hotel industry representatives from Moscow, Tyumen, the Tver region and the Nizhni Novgorod region. The speaker of the meeting was Irina Bosshard, Director of Business and Conference Hotel Attestation program. She spoke about the main directions of search for prospective clients, ways of obtaining information about them and setting priorities in the process of work to increase sales.

Sources: internal and external

Ms. Bosshard divides sources of prospective recipients of hotel services into internal and external. The former includes current clients` recommendations, for example, their partners, and the hotel’s guest list. A good source may be the previous business and unrealized plans. «Many live by a code „out of sight — out of mind“ and stop keeping in touch with the company when the client drops off», she explains. «On the contrary, a constant reminder is necessary. It is also useful to communicate with your colleagues from the purchase department, they may find clients among their suppliers.»

External sources include competitors, first of all. Useful data is usually obtained from information about events in the nearest hotels. Ms. Bosshard recommends visiting hotels in turn with colleagues, in order not to be recognized by hotel safety guards.

Other sources may include:

— reference books («yellow pages») and news (television, radio, press, the Internet). The expert recommended looking through newspapers or listening to radio stations specialized in business topics. For example, about seven companies are mentioned daily on the main page of «Vedomosti» web-site;

— the surroundings (office buildings). Tenants` names may be listed on the business-centre website or on the board on the ground floor;

— exhibitions, whose programs are published on the exhibition complexes websites. It is not necessary as well as costly to take part in all events, but you may confine yourself to attending them or buying the exhibition participants catalogue;

— trade chambers and associations. For example, you can find member lists on the websites of Russian-British and American trade chambers. A company’s name is enough to find information about it on the Internet;

— search engines. The free Google Alerts service allows you to keep a watch on new pages with certain keywords (for example, business travel), as they appear on the web, or trace mentions of a certain person or a company;

— social networks. Vast possibilities are provided by LinkedIn — a resource for establishing business contacts. It includes 200 million people from 200 countries in 150 business areas. You may search for a certain company’s or a certain person’s contacts. After you get acquainted with a prospective client or a partner at a meeting, get linked in with him and then you’ll have access to all his contacts. But bear in mind, that these data may be accessed by your competitors. So it is recommended to hide your contacts in LinkedIn settings — the speaker explains.

«New client sources, such as fairs or business centres, were used by us before. And the idea of working with trade chambers and associations is quite new», Anastasiya Kallo from the Moscow hotel «Aminevskaya» shares her impressions of the seminar. And her colleague from «IBIS Moscow Paveletsky», Tatyana Kvasova, admits that she has never thought about taking advantage of LinkedIn social network before. Elena Juk, Radisson Blue Belorusskaya representative, mentioned Google Alerts as the most important source of prospective clients.

Marker research and prioritization

Finally, a company is found. But apart from its name you need to know its business field, phone number, addresses and whether it has offices in your city or not. If you fail to find a contact person, you should at least find out what specialist or department is responsible for accommodation. It can be a travel-manager, protocol or administrative department, HR, purchase or marketing departments, personal secretary of the general director. Ms. Bosshard pointed out several priority areas of sales manager’s work, allowing to optimize time for contacts with new clients. First of all, you work on the following:

— current clients` or partners` recommendations;

— information about companies with advantageous location (mainly it goes about business centres, situated within reasonable distance from the hotel);

— information about events and meetings (here the key principle is «if you don’t call today, tomorrow your offer won’t be valid»);

— information about companies, that are entering the market or broaden their presence on it (build works, open a new office, etc.);

The main recipe of success, when you are looking for new clients, is a complex approach, analysis of available information, prioritization and database keeping. «Put down what you did and when and what you are planning to do. Keep a list of all potential clients — this actually is strategic planning, it is a good help in your work», Irina Bosshard says.

Participants marked a lot of examples from the speaker’s first-hand experience as an advantage of the session. They also emphasized a large number of hot topics that came up to their expectations.

The second part of ABT educational session for hoteliers, whose place and time will be announced later, will be devoted to planning the first contact with the person, responsible for signing agreements with accommodation facilities. (Julia Inysheva)