Christmas marketing ideas for hotels: preparing your hotel for the festive season

It’s that time of year again! Christmas and New Years are just around the corner, so it’s time to start thinking about ways to advertise your accommodation, and set up a special hotel Christmas experience for your guests. 

In this blog, we’ve put together some top tips to help you prepare your hotel for Christmas – including some Christmas marketing ideas for hotels, hotel Christmas dinner ideas, and more.

The festive season is a great opportunity to pull in some more business for your accommodation property, so be sure to try something new to beat your competitors and offer the best hotel Christmas experience in your location! 

And remember; Christmas is a special time of year, so be sure to go that extra mile to surprise your guests and make their stay with you just that extra bit special.   

Let’s start by answering a few questions that you or your guest might be thinking about at this time of year

How do hotels prepare for Christmas?

Preparing your hotel for the Christmas season starts by understanding the change in traveller patterns. Due to the holiday nature of the Christmas and New Years period, many people take time off work, while most students are also on break. During this time, many choose to travel. 

Preparing your hotel for the Christmas season will start with understanding this increase in demand. You’ll need to make predictions about how many guests you expect to stay with you during this time, set rules on minimum night stay rules in order to maximise revenue during high-demand days, increase unique hotel Christmas marketing campaigns, and possibly even hire more staff.

PRENO TIP

In Preno’s powerful hotel management system, you can set availability rules to maximise revenue during the Christmas period. For example, you might set a minimum night stay rule of 3 nights, or not allow check-ins on Christmas day, to ensure that you fill as many rooms as possible, and so that your staff are not swamped with too much turnover. 

Learn more about setting availability rules in Preno here.

Do hotels do anything special for Christmas?

While many people love to travel during the Christmas season, it is still important to remember that Christmas is a very family-oriented time. Therefore, many guests would hope for, or expect, a special time at your hotel, where they feel comfortable, and at home. After all, your accommodation is your guests’ home-away-from-home, while they’re travelling. 

There are many things that you can do to make your hotel experience more special and festive during this Christmas and New Year’s season – such as:

• Decorating your property with a hotel Christmas tree
• Creating a special hotel Christmas dinner menu 
• Setting up a free fireworks display for New Years Eve
• Surprise guests with a free gift (e.g. bottle of champagne) 
• Offer hotel Christmas activities (e.g. Christmas movie night)

For more ideas on how to make your hotel Christmas experience special, read this article.

Now let’s think about how you can advertise your hotel as the best Christmas & New Years getaway spot

Christmas marketing ideas for hotels

The first step is getting potential guests excited about the idea of staying at your hotel. It is during this time, that you have to amend your hotel marketing to advertise the most magical hotel Christmas and New Years getaway there is. 

You’ll need to create a unique hotel Christmas marketing campaign that highlights all of the special Christmas features you will provide guests with (like we discussed earlier in this blog).

Following are a few Christmas marketing ideas for hotels, to get you started: 

• Collaborate with local restaurants & tourism operators to create Christmas holiday packages (e.g. tickets to a Christmas show included in your hotel package).
• Advertise your exclusive hotel Christmas dinner menu package so that potential guests can see what delicious food and other Christmas perks they’ll get at your hotel. 
• Create a Christmas competition campaign on social media where the winner can stay at your hotel for a discounted price, receive a free hotel Christmas dinner, or other perk.

For more Christmas marketing ideas for hotels, read this article. 

New Years Eve hotel packages

In addition to welcoming travellers to your accommodation property during Christmas, you’ll also notice a spike in demand for hotel rooms during New Years. 

New Years Eve is an exciting time, as people get to celebrate the year that has been and look forward to the year to come. Leading up to this holiday, you should create some New Years getaway packages and add these to your marketing campaigns, so as to stand out from your competitors and get guests excited about staying at your property. 

Here are a few ideas of New Years Eve hotel packages you could create to entice guests to stay at your hotel: 

• Pairing up with local restaurants, events and tourism providers (e.g. creating a packaged deal where the guest gets to attend a New Years festival and stay at your property). 
• Creating a romantic New Years getaway package for couples, where a massage at your hotel spa is included, as well as a complimentary Christmas gift (e.g. free champagne). 
• Hosting a New Years Eve party or event (e.g. cocktail evening or concert), where guests can buy a ticket to the party + a room as a packaged deal. 

Finally, here are some hotel Christmas dinner & decorating ideas to make your hotel festive & special

Hotel Christmas decoration ideas

As a part of your hotel’s Christmas guest experience, you will need to decorate your hotel to make it festive. After all, it doesn’t feel like Christmas if there isn’t a Christmas tree or fairy lights, does it?

The following are a few hotel Christmas decoration ideas to get you started:

• Hotel Christmas tree: choose an elegant Christmas tree design for your hotel lobby, so that guests feel festive and welcomed as soon as they enter your hotel. 
• Hotel lobby Christmas decorations: choose a theme that is simple, elegant and fits with the season of your location. E.g. a winter wonderland theme, if it’s winter where you are. 
• Hotel room Christmas decorations: add a little tinsel or fairy lights to your hotel rooms and surprise your guests with a small Christmas gift; e.g. chocolates or champagne. 

For more hotel Christmas decoration ideas to make your hotel festive this year, read this article.

Hotel Christmas dinner ideas

If your hotel has a restaurant and/or bar, you have the opportunity to create a completely unique hotel Christmas dinner and drinks menu.  

Put together some festive dishes like ham, turkey, Christmas cake, and festive cocktails to make your hotel Christmas dinner special for your guests. 

Here are a few options you could consider when putting together a hotel Christmas dinner:

• Your hotel could host a Christmas banquet where you invite both guests of your property, and locals to come and dine. 
• You could create a unique hotel Christmas dinner menu that has local dishes (e.g. in New Zealand pavlova dessert is a popular Christmas dessert. 
• You could create a special hotel Christmas dinner menu to bring to guests rooms, if they have children and would prefer not to dine in the restaurant. 

For more hotel Christmas dinner ideas to make your hotel menu festive, read this article. 

Make your hotel Christmas & New Years experience a special one

Decorate your property with Christmas hotel decorations, create a festive hotel Christmas dinner menu & surprise your guests with a special gift

So now that you know how to prepare your hotel for Christmas, it’s time to create a unique Christmas marketing campaign and get potential guests excited to stay with you.

Once they’re in the doors, go that extra mile to make their holiday special. 

Searching for a hotel management system to organise your bookings this holiday season?

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