When you own or manage a hotel or restaurant, success comes through a combination of excellence and individuality. You need to ensure that you operate your property well; both by avoiding problems and providing something important to your customers. Beyond this, though, you need a way to stand out from a crowded field. Your branding can make all the difference between a good property that fails and one that succeeds in the market. Working with a hotel and restaurant consultant can help give you the expert guidance you need to build success.
The Importance of Brand Identity
The first way in which you can stand out for your customers is through your brand identity. This comes from your logos, your lettering, your colors, and the image in general through which you present yourself to the world. If you think of the most famous chain restaurants and hotels, you can usually envision the logos and imagery they present in all of their advertising. These connect the business to the public.
You should take time and effort to put together a brand image that reflects what you want your company to be. You can project elegance, strength, care, or hundreds of other traits through the way you compose your logo. The key lies in a focus on details that help set your brand identity apart. A good hotel and restaurant consultant can apply his or her experience to your branding efforts and help you come out with imagery that works.
Selling the Product
Beyond the brand, though, you need to back it up by providing excellence for your customers in a way that your competitors do not. This can come from one of two primary focal points. The first is product-based. In a restaurant, a signature menu item, or group of items, should help distinguish you from other restaurants in your market. In a hotel, it would be a unique selling point within the building: the rooms, the lobby, or the commons areas. You need to provide something that people cannot find everywhere else.
Chances are you already do something differently from other similar properties. Work with a hotel and restaurant consultant to help you accentuate this in your marketing and build out on the identity you establish for your potential customers.
Selling the Service
In addition, you can provide service offerings that are unique to the market. In either the restaurant industry or the hotel industry, your focus should always begin with customer service. What do you offer that your competitors do not? The way you present yourself includes the extra things you do to take care of your customers: late checkout at a hotel, recommendations or extras at a restaurant, or thousands of other potential offerings can help you do this. It doesn’t need to be a large or costly service offering; the key is to do something that matters to customers in your area, and to do it very well.
Success in the hospitality industry requires standing out from the crowd. When you work with an experienced hotel and restaurant consultant, you stand to benefit from a wealth of understanding of how you can achieve these goals. Learning to distinguish yourself from others in your area can not only help you gain new customers, but give you something to help bring your current customers back for more.
