5 Booking Engine Messages to Help You Achieve Your Hotel Marketing Goals

Your booking engine is the perfect canvas to craft compelling messages that align with various guest needs. Even if you have a strong booking engine with all the key features, offering a tailored experience for each of your target audiences can go a long way in boosting your conversion and helping you meet your marketing goals. Whether you’re targeting couples seeking a romantic getaway, families in need of a relaxing retreat, or business travellers looking for a productivity boost, the key to success lies in addressing their needs while ensuring your objectives are also met.

To kickstart your strategy, we've compiled five clever booking engine messages to help you achieve your goals. And to make it easier for you, we've also included some witty copy ideas sure to resonate with your guests and drive action.

1. Upsell to couples: breakfast in bed

The art of upselling is all about convincing your guests that the additional expense will significantly enhance their experience. It requires showcasing the value and unique benefits of a more luxurious offering. In this context, targeting couples provides a prime opportunity for upselling.

This demographic often seeks romantic and luxurious experiences that they wouldn’t normally have at home. Specifically, one of the ways in which you can ensure they get the romantic getaway of their dreams is through in-room experiences. A great example? A breakfast-in-bed package. This approach is sure to tick all the boxes for couples seeking a dreamy, intimate getaway. Tapping into this opens up an opportunity for extra revenue while ensuring a memorable stay that encourages return visits.

Your floating dismissable message:

• Goal: Upsell
• Idea: Pamper couples with a breakfast-in-bed package.
• Targeting: Two guests booking a single room with a double, queen or king bed, or a romantic suite for two. Additionally, you could show this offer to guests searching for honeymoon or anniversary packages.
• Message: This offer, witty and straight to the point, tackles a mundane household concern in a light-hearted way. Who wouldn't want breakfast in bed without the dreaded worry about crumbs?

💡 Tip: When writing copy for your offers, delve into your audience's desires. What luxuries would they see as worth paying a little extra for? In this case, the promise of a leisurely morning together without the burden of clean-up is sure to tempt couples looking for quality time. This form of personalised, benefit-oriented messaging is what makes an effective upsell.

2. Inform families: highlighting child-friendly amenities

Clear, comprehensive information is crucial in the hospitality industry. Highlighting your unique selling points (USPs) in the booking engine, not only ensures guests are well-informed about the value they'll be receiving, but it also serves as a persuasive tool. Showcasing your hotel's amenities can make the difference between a browsing guest and a booking guest, giving that extra push they need to finalise their booking.

In this example, by showcasing the unique aspects of your property that cater specifically to families, you are directly addressing their needs and demonstrating why your hotel is the perfect choice for their stay. Parents value amenities that make the stay easier and enjoyable both for them and for their kids. Besides family rooms, you can also make parents’ lives more comfortable by giving them some peace of mind. Do you offer playrooms, children-only zones, or an animation team for kid-friendly entertainment? If so, it's essential that you communicate these features clearly. Showcasing kid-friendly amenities can be a decisive factor in booking, as it takes some of the mental load away from parents.

Your inline message:

• Goal: Inform guests of your on-site amenities
• Idea: Highlight USPs in the booking engine
• Targeting: Guests booking multiple rooms or family suites, with at least one child in the group. Possibly searching for family or kid-friendly stays.
• Message: This inline message, though lengthier than the previous offer, serves to fully inform guests about your family-friendly amenities. By providing all the necessary information upfront (amenities, opening times, processes), you eliminate any confusion and reduce the need for further queries.

💡 Tip: Don't shy away from detail when crafting informative messages. The goal is to provide a comprehensive overview so that guests can find all the information they need, reducing the need for direct contact. Transparency builds trust, and a well-informed guest is likely to be a more satisfied guest.

3. Boost Occupancy: workcation package for digital nomads

In the age of remote work, digital nomads are becoming a significant demographic in the hospitality industry. More and more remote workers are taking advantage of this new age of working arrangements. As a result, hotels have an opportunity to boost occupancy rates and create customer loyalty through extended stays.

Looking to combine work and leisure, digital nomads want comfortable spaces that will help them stay focused while acting as their temporary office. If you think you have what it takes to attract digital nomads, a good offer may be what it takes to align your property with modern work trends. Packages that incentivise longer stays—such as offering unlimited coffee refills, room upgrades, or laundry services for bookings of a minimum of seven days—can be attractive to this group. Such an approach is not only likely to increase your occupancy rates but can also build a relationship with these guests, encouraging them to return to your property for future workcations.

Your floating dismissible message:

• Goal: Increase occupancy and build guest loyalty
• Idea: Highlight a workcation package for digital nomads
• Targeting: Guests booking stays for just under a week to incentivise longer stays, or any stay for over a week for boosting loyalty; single or double rooms—potentially looking for additional benefits, like laundry services. Can be narrowed down to hotels located in cities best suited for remote work.
• Message: Digital nomads are booking a hotel room for a prolonged period of time. To attract them, you will need strong USPs that can set you up for success against your competitors. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to these—if you have serene and quiet spaces and desks in your rooms, these are already strong USPs for the digital nomad.

💡 Tip: If you're unsure whether your property is suitable for digital nomads, consider offering a trial package for a limited number of rooms. You can then gather feedback from these guests and make necessary changes to better cater to their needs in the future.

4. Generate Leads: engaging Gen Z travellers

In the age of digital communication, growing your email list is non-negotiable. This allows for personalised communication, sending tailored offers, and staying top-of-mind for your potential guests. Specifically, an excellent demographic for growing this list is the Gen Z travellers—especially those visiting your site from social channels.

This demographic is incredibly tech-savvy. Their comfort with digital communication, coupled with their engagement with brands online, makes them more likely to subscribe to email lists than the older generations. These are guests who expect seamless experiences and value personalisation and exclusivity—the exact benefits your email list can provide.

Moreover, the very fact that they're visiting from social channels demonstrates a pre-existing interest in your brand. And as 99% of people worldwide access social networks on mobile devices, targeting Gen Z travellers browsing on mobile can be a great way to deepen their engagement through email sign-ups.

Your mobile newsletter sign-up message:

• Goal: Generate Leads
• Idea: Encourage email sign-ups for exclusive deals or insider tips for your mobile booking engine
• Targeting: Adults travelling without children, visiting your mobile website; have previously visited pages with a UTM tag including one of your social channels; (Note: this targeting will not fully exclude older audiences from seeing the message, however more in-depth targeting is not possible due to privacy concerns)
• Message: Highlight the advantages of subscribing—exclusive deals, insider tips, early bird access, and more. Show them that signing up means they get the best value and personalised experience.

💡 Tip: To make signing up even more attractive, consider offering an immediate benefit, such as a small discount on their current booking or a complimentary welcome drink when they stay. This quick gratification can significantly boost your sign-up rates. Remember, for this demographic, the value proposition needs to be compelling, immediate, and relatable to their travel needs and lifestyle.

5. Converting: displaying guest reviews to first-time visitors

First-time visitors rely heavily on one thing above all: trust. This trust is often built based on the experiences and opinions of others. Here's where the power of guest reviews comes into play.

Online reviews have a massive influence on booking decisions, providing real experiences and opinions about your property. Actually, 81% of people frequently or always read reviews before booking a hotel. For hesitant first-time visitors, positive guest reviews can serve as a powerful endorsement and tilt the scales in your favour. They provide authentic, real-world experiences and feedback, making them incredibly persuasive.

Displaying reviews in the final step of the decision-making process is a strategic move. It not only shows transparency but also leverages social proof, which can be incredibly effective at converting visitors into guests. Similarly, the presence of guest reviews shows transparency, signalling to visitors that you value feedback and continually strive to improve your service.

Your TrustYou reviews message:

• Goal: Convert and convince
• Idea: Ease guests’ decisions and give them peace of mind by displaying reviews.
• Targeting: First-time visitors to your site. If you’d like to narrow it down, target those who spend a substantial amount of time browsing different options.

💡 Tip: With our TrustYou integration, you can easily display your rating anywhere on your hotel website—simply choose how many of your best highlights you want to show.

Your next steps to a powerful booking engine messages

Personalisation isn't just a perk—it's an expectation. By leveraging your booking engine to deliver personalised, goal-oriented messages, you can significantly boost conversions, guest satisfaction, and ultimately, your bottom line.

Remember, it's not about bombarding your guests with offers. It's about crafting targeted messages that resonate with them on a personal level, addressing their needs, and exceeding their expectations. This is the key to driving engagement, loyalty, and ultimately, revenue. First, examine your guest demographics. Then, analyse your goals, and begin crafting personalised messages for your booking engine. Your next loyal customer could be just one cleverly crafted message away.

To learn how you can create your own targeted booking engine messages, contact us at welcome@hotelchamp.com.