Whether it’s the number of return visits a guest makes, labor costs, or how much money went into landscaping and food preparation, the hospitality industry, like other verticals, craves metrics. But of all metrics tracked, occupancy rates – next to REVPAR – are hotels’ gold standard. That’s why I was pleased by recent data which shows occupancy rates rising across the industry. Cities all across North America including El Paso, Williamsburg, Colorado Springs, Orlando, New York, you name it, all had positive January occupancy news to report. And in Hawaii, room rates are up 12% from last year and 30% from 2010.
This is great news.
The challenge though, is how hoteliers plan to maintain this wave of early travel season popularity. With cut throat competition, customer experience must 
remain tops. Achieving that status requires two hotel improvements – a topic I address in my recently published Hotel Executive article, Hotels, Meet Your New Omnichannel Loyalty Program: Checked In For Success, How Hotels Plan to Engage Their 2013 Guests.
What’s needed is the commitment to an omnichannel marketing and loyalty experience, combined with streamlined customer management styles that merge existing customer relationship management and loyalty metrics together.
Doing so ensures an enhanced customer experience. As the weather warms and the travel season peaks, hotel managers can be comforted knowing this winter’s occupancy spike wasn’t a blip on the radar, but a true measure of improving industry health.
You can read the complete article here. What else can hotels do to improve their guest experiences, bolstering those ever-coveted occupancy rates? I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
