Often the hardest part of selling hotel services is selling to a customer who has never set foot inside the hotel being considered. Pictures, stories, websites, even other customer testimony is all well and good, but nothing beats a bona fide site tour. Once a site tour appointment has been established, the selling process is all but done for hotels in modest to better than modest condition. It’s compelling a customer to make the trip that can be the most challenging.Once the customer is in the building, consider the piece of business yours to lose. The hotel needs to shine, key players should make appearances, and the customer needs to feel like the hotel is hungry for their piece of business specifically. A number of tactics can be used to convey this message, to include having the general manager or upper management greet the client; having door staff aware of the customer and greeting them by name; making sure meeting rooms are set and in show condition (even better if the meeting rooms can be set to the customers precise specifications); having the customer’s name or logo appear somewhere on the tour whether on a welcome sign or perhaps even on a screen in one of the meeting rooms; having show rooms clean and ready with keys that work; having a refreshment that appears to have been prepared exclusively for the client; having a sales kit with a hard copy of the proposal (or contract) handy if needed; and closing the site tour with the next step.
Site tours often cover the moment where the client makes their decision. It behooves one to bring their A game for when that moment arises.