Top 5 Hotel Key Card Marketing Secrets. Shhh!

Hotel Key Cards

Top 5 Hotel Key Card Marketing Secrets. Shhh!

With tough competition, hoteliers are very keen to enhance customer experience and improve per stay sales. Learn how hotel key cards and carriers (sometimes called wallets or holders) are helping.

There are some very innovative ideas within the industry, some of which are really useful to customers. Classic examples of using the key card and carrier space include WiFi codes, facility and spa access times, breakfast hours and emergency contact numbers and general information useful to guests to help reduce the number of queries down to reception. But it is the quirkier marketing uses we love the best:

1. Free drink voucher for the hotel bar. This is a great way to please a guest with a free drink, get to know the bar and encourage further use of the bar/restaurant at no cost. A top experience and “per stay sales” enhancer!

2. Discount for the spa or restaurant facilities. Increasing paid for facilities per guest is a priority and guest discounts help increase this.

3. Access to local attractions or events. Some city hotels have teamed up with local attractions or museums to gain reduced rate or free access with their card. This type of marketing enhances guest experience and social media activity. The attraction may even pay the hotel to increase their footfall. A free wine tasting event for every guest was our favourite!

4. Online offer code. For small business travellers a future code to encourage booking direct within a certain timeframe is a good use of the key card carrier space. Online codes can even be specific to that guest to link their hotel website access activity with their hotel stay behaviours. For example, searches around dates without booking could lead to further email automation on extra offers or capacity alerts.

5. Social media posting. Key cards and carriers can include social media hashtags to encourage guests to post, perhaps for a competition, spreading the good word of the hotel.

How many of these ideas have you seen?