How Hotels Can Learn From Marriott Marketing Strategy (2024)

Marriott has successfully been at the forefront of the hospitality industry for such a long time, and no doubt its marketing strategy is a heavy contributor to its success. The Marriott Marketing Strategy involves the Marriott Marketing Mix consisting of the 4Ps which are product, price, place, and promotions.

Product Strategy

As a hotelier, it is important to understand your products and services and understand which of those products and services bring in the major part of your revenue. This will help you to understand where to focus your marketing effort. Marriott divided its service into three main parts which are core, actual, and augmented services.

Their core products are the ones that generate their maximum revenue and their core service is their hotels. This made Marriott focus mainly on their hotels and its customers and make sure that every guest has a wonderful experience before, during, and, after staying in any Marriott hotel brand across the world.

Pricing Strategy

We couldn't emphasize enough how important it is for a hotelier to have a pricing strategy. We found that Marriott's main pricing objective is to offer the right product at the right price to their customers. Marriott also uses the demand and supply pricing strategy. Not just that, they also use the competitive pricing strategy which means they sometimes determine their hotel price based on their competition behaviors.

We don't expect you to copy Marriott's pricing strategy but rather to determine the pricing strategy that will best serve you and your hotel without chasing away your customers. Having the right pricing strategy is very important because it is the factor that will determine how much profit your hotel can make.

Place (Distribution) Strategy

When it comes to place, Marriot is location specific. They built their hotels in a location that will naturally attract guests. This can be near the airport, highways, or markets. Having a hotel close to a tourist attraction will attract tourist guests to your hotels.

As a hotelier, you should be able to know which type of guest your hotel attracts based on your hotel locations. When you have determined this, then you will know which audience to target for your marketing and advertising campaigns.

Promotion Strategy

Having a promotion and advertising strategy is a must for a hotel if they really want to have a high occupancy rate. For Marriott, its promotion and advertising strategy are focused on digital promotions. This means they focus on promoting their hotels through their website and social media. Example: creating a promo code to offer to their guests by sharing on their hotel website "promotion" page or their social media platforms.

In addition to this, they get user-generated content such as aesthetically pleasing photos of guests taken in their hotels. This allows for original content with increased exposure as an incentive to aspiring influencers, bloggers, and internet celebrities. A win-win situation for everyone involved.

Being a well-known international brand, they have a website that shows all their hotels which allow guest to book their room easily, therefore creating a good user experience starting from their website. As a hotelier, you can’t ignore online promotion and advertising. It is advisable to embrace it and find what works for you.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is not a must to copy the marketing strategies of Marriott rather it is advisable to understand it and try and come up with a strategy that will benefit your hotel. The most important thing is having a strategy that is suitable for your hotels and making sure it works and that it makes money for your hotel.