What is brand awareness and how does it benefit your hotel?

Do your customers recognize your hotel brand? When we think of a certain product or service, a specific brand generally comes to mind, right? Each time we think of a beverage, for example, we remember the brand we use in accordance with our consumer preferences, its logo, colours and even the packaging.

This is normal considering it’s a product of daily use. But, what happens with products and services we don’t use as often?  What happens with brands in the tourism sector? Something quite similar. Just think about it. Each time a consumer decides to plan a trip, the first thing he/she thinks of are the brands that have made the best impression in the past, the most useful ones and the ones with the best service, etc. And these brands are the ones that actually work the most on their brand awareness.

What exactly is brand awareness?

This concept, also considered brand recognition, is what measures the popularity of a corporate brand. Popularity in terms of how long products and services, in this case, from the tourism sector, remain in consumers’ heads.

In other words, brand awareness is a metric that takes into account how many users recognise a brand and how they do so.

Why is brand awareness important to your hotel?

Let’s assume that all consumers have a mental ranking of their favourite brands. Specifically in the hotel sector, users conscientiously or unconscientiously create a mental selection of the brands that most identify with them and provide them with the most value.

So, you might wonder why it’s so complicated to get them to book through your hotel’s website. But, have you ever thought that what they actually remember is your hotel, not exactly the brand? Consumers of tourism products and services seek experiences and that’s what they remember after coming home unless we’re talking about a major chain.

The purpose of improving brand awareness is gaining more notoriety and credibility for your hotel.

Have you ever heard someone say, “what’s important is that they talk about you, not how”? Well, in the case of brand awareness, what’s important is implementing strategies so they talk about you, but not just in any way but rather positively. Because it’s no use to your brand to be recognised when it’s not reliable for consumers.

As your brand awareness improves, your hotel will be better rated and will depend less on factors like price.

So, in order for your guests to consider your brand a second, third and fourth time… you have to remind them who you are and the reasons they were happy with their stay. You need to take brand awareness into account in your digital marketing strategy.

How does brand awareness benefit your hotel?

Consider brand awareness as just another part of your online strategy to earn benefits like:

• More direct bookings

As already mentioned, consumers make a mental list of their preferred brands. That’s what makes us buy certain products or services again and again when we trust a certain brand.

When talking about tourism sector product and services or, more specifically, the hotel sector, consumers also prefer repeat stays at hotels they trust without giving any real opportunity to the hotel brands they aren’t familiar with.

For this reason, brand awareness must be applied to your strategy to attract new customers mainly and make them loyal. And although repeat customers must not be omitted from this strategy, the news ones require the most work.

• An increase in scope

One of the objectives of brand awareness is improving notoriety and, as a result, the scope increases. Because the target public of brand awareness strategies will very likely recommend your products and services as long as they are satisfied with the brand.

Just think how we talk about “experiences” in the tourism sector. So, if the consumer experiences in all phases of a traveller’s journey (or traveller’s buying cycle) have been positive, they’ll be more easily influenced by your marketing and brand awareness efforts and will more likely rank your hotel as recommendable. In other words, the scope of your brand will also increase.