It’s the most wonderful time of the year…..
Did you know that half of all annual gift card sales are done in the final two months of the year? If you aren’t already, it’s time to push your festive gifting campaigns.
According to Google, after increasing steeply from mid-November last year, ‘Hotel Gift Card’ searches spiked between 13th -19th Dec in the UK. Globally, the busiest week for Gift Voucher searches was 20th-26th December.
Gift vouchers are a fail-safe gift choice for those who leave it until the last minute, so it’s no surprise that Christmas Eve is traditionally one of the busiest days of the year for voucher sales!
Some fun facts
- Almost a quarter of gift voucher recipients don’t know you yet, so focusing on gifting campaigns is a great way to expand your reach into new audiences
- Over two thirds of gift card recipients will spend more than the value of the voucher. These guests are more open to exploring what else is on offer and that gives your team an opportunity to upsell other services and experiences
So, how to promote Gift Cards?
Paint the picture, sell the dream!
- Invest in great photography – show them all your best bits (more on this here)
- Paint a vivid picture with brilliant copy and the right keywords for your hotel
- Video – it’s an eye catching format for social ads and the most literal way you can showcase your hotel and its facilities
Know your audience
Low hanging festive fruit comes in the form of guests (and potential guests) who already know you. So it’s worth considering content and campaigns to target your existing database and social media followers.
Create reasons to buy
Drive sales via urgency, limited time offers can be a great incentive to convert interest into action and everyone loves to get a deal.
If you’re looking for an even smarter way to drive bookings, have you heard of allora.ai?
allora.ai is a unique and innovative AI tool, created by Avvio. It harnesses 4 years of booking data (that’s over 400m guest interactions) to understand the guest and predict patterns in future booking behaviour; it learns continually and combines a wide range of helpful features for the hotelier that allow you to not only personalise the experience from the moment a guest arrives on your website, but to also drive direct bookings, reduce cancellations and maximise revenue. Find out more here.
