What makes a boutique hotel stand out?
A boutique hotel is a class apart from a regular one. It has a totally different ambiance and decor to the outdated style of standard hotel chains. Let’s look at the top three things that set boutique hotels apart.
1. Unique aesthetics
Undoubtedly the most distinguishing features of a boutique hotel are its location, architecture, and aesthetics. Boutique hotels flaunt remarkable interior design and picturesque architecture that guests won’t find in a standard property.
2. Quality service
A boutique hotel offers highly bespoke services to meet every guest’s expectations. These guests typically get a personalized experience, with greater choice when it comes to the type of room they stay in as well as dining options and local activities.
3. Clever marketing
When you manage an independent hotel, your marketing strategy must go beyond a direct booking website and a few social media posts. Boutique hotels typically target niche audiences, so owners have to map out specific marketing tactics that would resonate with their ideal guests.
Case in point: the Taj Lake Palace offers a luxurious experience near the lakeside in Udaipur, India. The hotel’s Instagram page presents the most scenic views inside and outside the hotel to attract a certain type of clientele.
The Taj Lake Palace posts beautiful images of its hotel and surroundings on Instagram to appeal to a luxurious audience.
4 Steps to set up your boutique hotel for success
If you’re running things without the support of a hotel management company, you need to finetune your business plan yourself. There are four critical steps to successful boutique hotel management:
- Get strategic with digital marketing
- Create unique, memorable experiences
- Build a powerful tech stack
- Assemble an organized team
Let’s take a closer look at each step.
1. Get strategic with digital marketing
The beauty of boutique is taking a refreshing break from the dull aesthetics of hotel chains. So, your marketing strategy should reflect the charm that characterizes your hotel.
Here’s what you need to do to market your boutique hotel effectively:
Define your brand
Boutique hotels bring more to the table compared to standard ones. That means you can take the defining characteristics of your property and build an unmistakable brand around them.
Remember that building a brand goes beyond a fancy logo and font. For a boutique hotel owner, brand = reputation. Think about how you want people to perceive your property, the message you wish to deliver, and the values you want to embody. Consider:
- The philosophy behind the hotel’s origins. The Maison Souquet in Paris elaborates on its philosophy on the hotel’s website with this page.
- The primary value propositions that are unique to your hotel. For instance, COMO The Treasury uses its website to flaunt its exquisite location, fine dining experience, and personalized event planning.
COMO The Treasury highlights fine dining among other aspirational value propositions.
- Your logo, color palette, typeface, and overall “look” of the operation. For instance, Hotel Amparo’s minimal logo and fonts resonate with its decor and theme, speaking to an audience that values modern twists on tradition.
Hotel Amparo uses a striking logo and minimal font to enhance its modern yet cozy aesthetics.
Identify your ideal customer profile
Your marketing strategy can fall flat without the right target audience. Defining the ideal guest persona for select-service boutique hotels isn’t straightforward. Since you offer unique amenities and services following a specific theme, not everyone will have a taste for it.
So, once you’ve established your brand identity, create an ideal customer profile (ICP) based on:
- Demographics. Identify the age, gender, income group, and nationality of people you’re most likely to attract.
- Buying motivation. Supplement the quantitative data with qualitative feedback around customer pain points and desires to analyze buying motivation for your guest personas.
- Booking purpose. Map out the reasons each persona would choose to book a stay with you, whether it’s a romantic weekend getaway or a large family reunion.
Refining accurate ICPs will help you identify where to focus your efforts when it comes to prioritizing certain marketing channels or activities.
Get listed on the right channels
Once you’ve completed the initial planning stage, it’s time to list your property on relevant online travel agencies (OTAs).
For example, Airbnb is an excellent channel for boutique hotel owners to tap into the real revenue potential of their property. And getting started is easy if you’re clear on the best Airbnb SEO tactics.
That said, you can also consider listing your hotel on more niche websites for boutique properties, like iescape, GoUnusual, and Sawday’s.
Airbnb isn’t the only place to get bookings. Jetstream can help you define your target market and get you listed on global distribution channels suited to your business.
2. Create unique, lasting memories
Even when you promise a truly boutique experience, chances are that your hotel industry competitors offer the same or similar amenities. Seizing that competitive edge isn’t going to be easy.
But there are a few tried and tested ways to deliver an extraordinary guest experience:
Sell an experience, not just a room
A stay at your boutique hotel is more than just a room with fresh linens and impressive decor. It’s a memorable experience immersed in the local culture with activities that give your guests a feeling of wonder. Here are a few tricks to try:
- Include group experiences to give guests a taste of the local area. This can include performances (musical, dance, or fine local art) and activities like cooking classes or wine tasting tours.
- Give guests goodies or souvenirs to remember their stay at your hotel. Choose items that best represent your theme and locale.
- Allow guests to personalize their experience. Whether it’s the kind of rooms they stay in, the excursions they book, or the cuisine they can order.
- Make every stay as hassle-free and seamless as possible. Answer their questions, offer quick solutions, and send housekeeping anytime they need help.
Remember to go that extra mile to build on your unique brand identity and win your guests with outstanding hospitality.
Digital welcome book
Planning a trip isn’t straightforward. But a digital welcome book can help even the most travel-shy guest feel prepared. For example, Operto Guest helps boutique hotel owners create a customizable welcome book to enhance their guest experience from the outset.
When you partner with Jetstream, Operto Guest becomes your digital front desk, and the ultimate toolkit for handling guest enquiries. And you won’t even need to get trained on how to use it.
Your welcome book should include details like directions to your hotel, the check-in and check-out process, recommended local attractions and tips on how to visit them. That way, you give guests all the crucial details before arriving plus a few extra personal touches. So, you don’t have to worry about answering multiple calls and repeating the same answers for every booking.
Your hotel doesn’t sleep when you do. Make guest communication effortless for you and flawless for your guests with the Operto Guest and Jetstream integration.
Personal touches
To make your boutique hotel stand out from the rest, you have to add personal touches and delight your guests. Think of a hotel pet that greets every guest at the reception. Surprising details like this can make guests feel at home and create a solid impression.
Here’s what you could try:
- Welcome and goodbye emails citing your conversations with each guest
- Tailored packages with unique add-ons for each ICP segment
- Handwritten notes and gifts to surprise them before they leave
This keen attention to detail will make your guests feel special and set you up for long-term success.
3. Build a powerful tech stack
Running a boutique hotel can mean you spend your days wearing many hats, handling everything from front desk inquiries and local area recommendations to cleaning management schedules and listing optimization.
But with the right software, you can automate repetitive tasks and create seamless workflows. Let’s look at the must-have hospitality tools for a robust tech stack.
Keyless entry
The biggest problem with most chain hotels is keeping guests waiting at the front desk for their room keys. You can address this pain point and give guests the convenience of checking in instantly using smart locks.
Smart locks allow for secure, keyless entry. So, guests only need to enter a pin to open their room—it’s fuss-free.
Plus, if you’re partnered with Jetstream, you can integrate with Operto to generate access codes automatically and get 24/7 guest support from our multilingual guest-facing team.
Operto’s smart locks can offer keyless access to guests and help you deliver a modern check-in experience.
Automated guest screening
Guest screening is an integral part of the process that hotel owners can’t afford to overlook. It’s also equally time-consuming, so you’re either spending much of your time manually screening every guest or dedicating your resources to do it.
Automated guest screening tools simplify the screening process and give you a more accurate picture of every guest. For example, Autohost uses hundreds of data points to perform intelligent guest screening and flag any risky or fraudulent guests.
Jetstream integrates with Autohost to leverage intelligent guest screening and identify any risks or threats proactively.
Dynamic pricing
Boutique hotels are generally priced higher than the standard ones because of the added amenities they offer.
However, manually choosing the proper pricing based on seasonality, demand, and travel market can prove difficult in the long run—especially if your occupancy rate is increasing.
Dynamic pricing tools like Wheelhouse can set your pricing preferences according to your revenue goals. Then the tool will update the pricing every night after factoring in over 10 billion data points. The best part? Jetstream integrates with Wheelhouse to easily manage your pricing across every booking platform.
Wheelhouse determines the best prices for your hotel every night based on its analysis of various factors.
4. Assemble an organized team
The last piece of the jigsaw puzzle for managing a boutique hotel is building a well-equipped team to support you. Instead of shouldering every responsibility, hire a team of capable cleaners and maintenance staff. Here’s what you’ll gain:
Phenomenally clean rooms
Cleaning and maintenance can quickly become a headache if you don’t have reliable staff and the right tools to monitor their performance. And there’s nothing more likely to damage your reputation than unclean rooms and broken appliances.
Instead of losing sleep, you can outsource cleaning and maintenance to professionals. These pros will work on schedule per your occupancies to keep your hotel spick and span and in a safe pair of hands.
Excellent guest communication
A lot is riding on how you communicate with guests and handle their queries. Without a solid team to manage guest comms, you can’t deliver a memorable customer experience and create a standout reputation for your hotel.
A team of well-trained employees can make a difference with impeccable customer service. Powered by the messaging platform within Operto Guest, Jetstream’s guest-facing team is fully-equipped to meet you and your guests’ needs round-the-clock. It’s the ideal combination of automated workflows and the human touch.
Expertise where you need it most
Here’s the bottom line for boutique hotel owners: focus on building a capable team and giving them the right resources to do the heavy lifting for your hotel operations. This gives you time to focus on the more critical aspects of your hotel—like shaping the guest experience and personalizing your customer services.
Say hello to an unforgettable guest experience. Jetstream can connect you to a powerful tech stack designed to optimize your listing and streamline your workflows.
