Sara Guild heads to Argyll and discovers how two remote hotels are employing new technology and innovative marketing strategies to boost business
The Kersley family may have only nine bedrooms to fill for eight months of the year, but they are still investing in new technology to fill those rooms. Web sites, a promotional video and access to global reservations systems ensure the hotel runs at 80% occupancy.
The Kersleys run Invercreran Country House Hotel in Glen Creran near Appin in Argyll. The hotel is off the beaten track and has become even more isolated since a new bridge has closed off the top of Loch Creran on the A828. Potential guests who drove round the loch and happened upon the Invercreran sign will no longer drive this way. However, brothers and co-directors Tony and Colin Kersley are happy about the new bridge.
"It will be wonderful to be able to send guests off on bikes around the loch, certain that they will have a quiet road to ride on," says Colin. And with 99% of guests pre-booked, passing trade is not a priority.
Being off the beaten track and being located between two well-known hotels - the Isle of Eriska and Airds hotel - has made it challenging for the hotel to attract business.
Database marketing
After 15 years, repeat business is high - about 80% in the shoulder months. Part of the reason is the Invercreran Club. Guests' details are kept on a database, which the Kersleys began five years ago and now holds 2,500 names. Guests are mailed three to four times a year and offered special deals, which help fill the shoulder months of April, May, October and November. Discounts of between 10% and 20% are always offered to club members.
But it is the new technology that helps ensure the rooms stay full. Eight years ago the family commissioned a seven-minute video of the hotel. It cost £8,000 to make, and it costs £4 to send a copy to potential guests, but the conversion rate is 6.5 bookings for every 10 enquiries compared with two or three bookings when the family sent out brochures.
"They may get other brochures, but with the video they devote seven minutes solely to us," says Tony.
And even this they regard as old hat. Now it is a Web site and a link into the international reservation systems that are the focus of Colin's efforts. His philosophy is to maximise the hotel's exposure, exemplified by the 7% of turnover spent on marketing annually.
The Web site is delivering five or six bookings and 250 hits per day. Colin says the Web site has clear advantages over brochures. It used to cost £1.50 to send a brochure to the USA. Now the potential guest can print off the pages that interest them at their expense. Even a fax to the USA could cost £1 compared with the minimal telephone charges of using the Internet, says Colin.
The family also pays $35 (about £22) per quarter to VIP International Corporation for a listing on the major global distribution systems such as Sabre and Galileo. Colin allocates three bedrooms to the listing and can change it daily if necessary. The hotel pays 10% commission on bookings, and by late June, 22 had been taken. With an average booking of £400, Colin says this is clearly worthwhile.
This reliance on new technology means the brothers are turning their backs on more traditional marketing routes, such as guidebooks. Invercreran has dropped out of the Johansens guide this year. Colin says the payback for £2,000 is nothing compared with the relatively low cost and high return of the Web site, for instance.
In the shoulder season, 80% of guests are British. Year-round the clientele is 50% British, 40% European and 10% American. There has been a conscious effort not to concentrate on the US market, which the Kersleys feel can be fickle.
The Kersleys appear to have their marketing cracked, but it is a different story at the 11-bedroom Kilfinan hotel, Kilfinan. Managers Lynne and Rolf Mueller are even more isolated, not even close to a main road. The hotel is a 45-minute drive from Dunoon, where US nuclear submarines used to be harboured. Yet, in the eight years the Muellers have been there, Kilfinan hotel has achieved an 80% AA rating for a two-star hotel and has kept its three AA rosettes this year. It is a walkers' paradise on 6,000 acres of the Otter Estate, which owns the hotel. The hotel has a good reputation for food, but it has a desperately low average occupancy - "well below 50%", says Lynne.
The hotel's turnover over the past three years has been stagnant at about £225,000.
This year, following their usual February closure, Lynne added a residents' lounge and converted a little-used function room into a 30-seat bistro to give the property an additional dining facility to Rolf's highly praised 22-seat restaurant. The couple are hoping the lower average spend in the bistro - £15 to £20 compared with £28 for four courses in the restaurant - will attract more lunchtime trade and give hotel guests an alternative.
While half their guests are Scottish and 80% come on personal recommendation, the Muellers knew they needed to boost their profile, and this year the couple have decided to hire PR and marketing consultant Libby Weir Breen.
First on the marketing list is either a newsletter or direct-mail campaign using the hotel's database of 2,800 previous customers. Advertising spend is considerably higher this year - £8,000 compared with £1,800 last year - and will go on consultancy fees, mail-shots and hospitality rather than press advertising.
Promotions will focus on the top-class food, the walking possibilities and the offer of a comfortable bed at the end of the day.
Like the Kersleys, Lynne is careful about the associations the hotel belongs to. The hotel is an AA and Scottish Tourist Board member and, through Rolf's culinary achievements, is part of Taste of Scotland, the Scotch Beef Club and a member of the Aberdeen Angus Producers Association.
"I tend to stay away from guidebooks that are not anonymous in their assessment," says Lynne. "If you can buy your way into them, I'm not interested."
For the AA, however, she has nothing but praise - possibly due to the fact that her ratings have improved each year - and she finds her local inspector's suggestions helpful. "I have yet to disagree with him, and he helps me focus on the next step," she says.
This next step, in marketing terms, could well be the Internet. Like the Kersleys the Muellers may find that, although geography isolates them, the Internet exposes them to a whole new world. n