3 WAYS HOTELS CAN USE INSTAGRAM STORIES TO GET MORE BOOKINGS

Hospitality is a sector that grows every day. The competition for the hotels is getting tougher, It takes time and patience to create a good reputation for a hotel and target the relevant customers. According to STR, there are 187,000 hotels, offering 17.5 million guest rooms, around the globe. Moreover, the famous hotel reservation site, Booking.com says that it offers 202,842 hotels globally. Social media is not a small word for the business people, for them, it is something that can abruptly change the good into bad. The hospitality industry is vast and most of the bookings are done online, therefore, the social media reputation matters a lot. There are many situations that the hotels can face such as bad reviews troubling social media platforms, or a guest posting something unsuitable on the brand’s official account. But, not everything about social media is alarming. This platform is not only used to run a single strategy of gaining more bookings, it can also be used to target new customers by sharing intellectual content. Hoteliers need to realize that using social media in combination with all other online strategies can make them powerful to deal with the upcoming challenges. The number of monthly active Instagram users as of June 2018 reached 1 billion monthly active users, up from 800 million in September 2017. The count on social media increases every day because of its visual impressions and this gives a clear idea that users are more likely addicted to it. Offer Discount Codes People appreciate discount codes on hotel bookings and it can be a way of generating more revenue. Instagram is a highly recommended platform to offer discounts. The visual effect can make your posts catchy and more travelers can be targeted at the same time. The codes on Instagram will be reachable to your followers only, which means it will make them feel special and honored. The 24-hour status availability option on Instagram is also useful as it urges the user to avail the discount quickly. Let People See Behind the Scene We all love to see "Behind the Scenes" of every favorite thing we saw online. Whether it is a famous TV show or a movie scene, looking at the videos or pictures of how this was prepared always get more views by general people. Showcasing your hotel's behind the scene can be a great way to target customers. You can simply display your hotel's cleaning process or a video of the chef making delicious food for the lunch, the options are endless! Taking people to a general tour of the hotel by Instagram stories can also be very interesting and unique as compared to other competitors. Adding Polls for Customer Feedback Adding polls is similar to any other sticker on Instagram: just drag and drop it onto your image in your story, and you'll automatically be presented with the option to customize the question and choices. People viewing your story will be able to tap on a choice to vote, which will then show the overall results so far.With this amazing technique, hoteliers can get feedbacks from normal people to enhance their services such as from what color to design the central hallway, to what different dish to serve for breakfast, or how they like their towels wrapped.