Hotel content marketing is one of the best ways for a hotel to generate leads for a consistent flow of bookings. But what exactly is content marketing, and how do you do it for hotels?
Well, at its core, content marketing is the creation of content that resonates with your potential guests, building connections and growing your hotel brand. Unlike traditional marketing, content marketing isn’t about direct selling. Instead, it emphasizes storytelling and providing helpful information to establish yourself as a trusted partner in your industry.
For hotels, this typically includes sharing local tips, unique experiences, and behind-the-scenes content that showcases why your hotel is the top choice for travellers in your destination.
Let’s face it. The hospitality industry is saturated with competition. This is why content marketing is essential for boutiques and other small hotel chains. By creating effective content that reaches your target audience and offers insightful connections, you can stand out from the sea of conglomerates and home rentals operating out of your area.
This guide will explore everything you need to know about content marketing and how you can begin leveraging it to boost bookings, enhance brand loyalty, and establish trust with your travel audience.
The Foundation of Hotel Content Marketing
Why Travel Demand Is Driving Content Marketing
It’s no secret that travel is on the rise. But just as the demand for local accommodations is growing, so too is the number of stays in just about every popular destination. And it’s not just hotels. With Airbnb and other rental platforms continuing to grow, there seems to be new accommodations around every corner.
To stand out from the competition, you need to show that you are the best option. Not just as a hotel but as a trusted resource your guests can lean on throughout the duration of their trip. And the best way to present this level of expertise to your audience is through content.
Building Trust and Loyalty Through Content
Whether showcasing seasonal events, offering unique travel tips, or highlighting a unique feature of your hotel, you can use your content to speak directly to your audience throughout their travelling planning process. In turn, you establish yourself as the go-to ally in making their accommodation decisions.
By consistently sharing helpful insight, like behind-the-scenes hotel stories or destination-specific travel guides, you create a sense of connection with your audience. When done right, your audience will share your engaging content on their platforms, growing your reach and promoting your hotel to future guests.
Blending Online and Offline Marketing
A successful hotel content marketing strategy incorporates both digital and traditional methods. Digital marketing is the most effective way to reach potential hotel guests. It offers a variety of touch points for communicating with potential customers, including through social media, email newsletters, blogging, creating video content, and featuring in podcasts.
However, content marketing isn’t just about gaining mass exposure. It is about establishing yourself as a leader in your local travel market. You do this through offline tactics. By hosting local events or collaborating with nearby local businesses, you deepen your community ties. This blend creates a holistic brand that ensures your hotel remains top-of-mind when booking local accommodations.
Strategies for Hotel Content Marketing Success
Harnessing Multiple Marketing Channels
A blog is the primary tool of a content marketer. But the key to a successful hotel content marketing strategy is promoting your content across a variety of channels. Social media posts, email newsletters, and even paid advertising are all fantastic ways to boost your hotel content marketing efforts.
And, if you already have a hotel blog on your website, repurposing this content to other channels is a quick and effective way to reach new audiences. Simply take your blog posts, break them down into bite-sized packages that fit the format of your target platform, add some visual content, and share them on all of your social media channels and email marketing campaigns.
Creating Content Consistently
Whether focusing on your blog content, social media posts, or newsletters, the trick to executing a successful content marketing campaign is to keep your audience consistently engaged. This means publishing consistent content.
Not only does this generate engagement with your target audience, but it actually improves your online visibility. Search engines and social feeds love reliable resources that publish content frequently. The more often you post, the more impressions you will have in Google search results and social media platforms.
Leveraging Digital Marketing for Hotels
The majority of hotel bookings begin with a web search. As such, digital marketing should be at the forefront of your content marketing strategy. Start by making sure your hotel website is optimized for search engines. This includes your design, load times, and web content.
Of course, it doesn’t stop there. Since Google loves active websites, you will want to have a regular publication schedule for SEO blog posts. Along with keeping your site active, publishing blog posts also creates more pages that can rank for new keywords, growing your overall online visibility.
While SEO promises the best long-term ROI, you can also generate more immediate results with Google ad campaigns. A strategic digital marketing approach focuses on both organic and paid advertising for the best results.
Storytelling as a Core Strategy
Storytelling should be at the heart of all of your content marketing efforts. Whether showcasing unique guest experiences through social media or publishing destination guides on your blog, stories create an emotional connection with your audience.
So, don’t be afraid to embed some of your personal character in your content. It’ll produce a helpful and friendly voice for your brand. Just make sure that voice is the same across all of your content marketing channels.
Engaging Content Ideas for Hotels
Highlighting Local Area Attractions
Whether for a blog post, social media, or email, your content needs to address the interests and pain points of your audience to be effective. Luckily, local area content is highly relevant for hotels catering to out-of-town guests.
Focus on local events, historic sites, and hidden gems. These are the topics travellers are looking for when planning their trips and creating content around them demonstrates your local knowledge of the area. It shows that your guests can rely on you to deliver an exceptional travel experience that goes beyond accommodation. Just be ready to deliver on all of your promises.
Incorporating User-Generated Content
Creating and publishing content is the cornerstone of an effective content marketing campaign. But it can also limit your results if you rely solely your own content production. Instead, you want to actively and consistently encourage guest feedback.
User-generated content is the ultimate referral. Guests who leave photos or reviews show that you are a brand that can deliver on its promises. When a guest has a positive experience staying at your hotel, encourage them to share it on their social media channels.
You also need to be proactive when it comes to managing your reputation. Comment on all reviews, thanking guests for positive feedback and asking questions when it’s negative. This shows that you actively care about the guest experience and that you are committed to improving your hotel for the best possible stay.
Offering Travel Tips and Itineraries
For travellers, planning the trip is half of the fun. So, creating content around travel tips and itineraries is a great way to connect with your audience while they are in a position to make purchasing decisions. Provide guests with helpful resources like packing lists, seasonal event guides, or curated itineraries.
This shows that you have the local insights to create the best experience for their holiday and puts your brand at the top of their mind when it comes to booking their stay.
Include Visual Content
A picture paints a thousand words. So, to get the most out of your content marketing, you need to incorporate visual content. This includes high-quality images featured within your blog and social media posts. But it can also include an effective video marketing campaign.
Visual content is proven to be one of the most effective strategies for engaging audiences. Things like interactive virtual tours showcasing your hotel’s amenities offer firsthand insight, helping potential guests visualize your stay and making them more confident in their choice.
Measuring the Impact of Your Efforts
Tracking Metrics and ROI
It’s not enough to publish content and hope for the best. You need to actively monitor analytics to ensure your efforts are being met with results and adapt your strategy if it’s not. Use tools like Google Analytics to monitor traffic, engagement, and conversions. These KPIs provide you with the essential insight you need to refine your strategy and ensure your campaigns drive profitable customer actions.
Reducing Costs Through Evergreen Content
Strategic, high-quality content can reduce marketing costs by delivering long-term value. Evergreen blog posts and videos can continue to generate traffic and bookings long after they’re published. As such, they should play a prominent role in your content strategy.
With that said, there are a few exceptions. Content around events and festivals can be a great way to generate bookings around a specific weekend. But they are also only limited to a specific weekend.
Before creating content around these events, you need to weigh the popularity of the occasion and whether the potential profits outweigh the cost and resources of content creation.
Case Study: Cameo Hotel & Suites
While you can find countless other hotel content marketing examples and successes among all the major hotel chains, let’s take a moment to focus on a small boutique hotel in Halifax.
The Goal
Opening their doors in May 2023, Cameo Hotel & Suites had a vision of becoming the premier stay in the Nova Scotia capital. The problem was that they had no brand recognition.
When they contacted us at Kurt’sCopy in August 2023, they averaged 400 website visits per month and virtually zero branded searches. This was a bleak contrast to Halifax’s top hotels, which averaged 5,000 visits and 3,000 branded searches per month.
The Strategy
As a new hotel, we started with a modest marketing budget. We planned for two highly relevant hotel blog posts per month. The problem with Halifax is that it has a very busy peak season but a very slow off-season.
As such, we started with a strategic marketing approach focused on seasonal promotions with event-related and informational content. This way, we hoped to generate some quick bookings through the slow winter months before capitalizing on the summer crowds. Through targeted keywords and market research, we identified high-potential topics designed to drive engagement and visibility.
The Results
After a year, Cameo Hotel & Suite’s website traffic grew to over 2,000 monthly visits. Thanks to our seasonal focus, traffic continued to rise exponentially, reaching over 3,000 the following month. While not quite the benchmark of the best hotels in Halifax, Cameo Hotel & Suites is one of the top up-and-coming stays. It is growing to compete with brands with a three-decade presence in the city in just under two years of its content marketing campaign
Stay tuned for a complete case study of this campaign.
Conclusion
Hotel content marketing is more than just a buzzword—it’s a powerful way to connect with guests, build loyalty, and drive bookings. By consistently sharing valuable content, engaging your target audience across multiple platforms, and measuring your efforts, you can elevate your hotel’s presence in a competitive marketplace.
Ready to transform your hotel’s content strategy? Let Kurt’sCopy help you craft content that captures attention and drives results. Contact us today to start creating content that turns lookers into bookers!
Kurt Norris is the founder of Kurt’sCopy, where he helps B2B, e-commerce, SaaS, and local businesses craft compelling content and SEO strategies that deliver measurable results. With over six years of experience, Kurt specializes in creating data-driven campaigns that drive traffic, increase conversions, and establish brand authority.
