It all starts where we don’t want to go: the data

Good marketing does not start with Google Ads, a good website, or even trying ‘to go viral’ (I can’t even explain how frustrated this last bit gets me). Like most things in business, good marketing for hotels, serviced apartments, or parks starts with insights, also known as ‘the data’. 

Before you start yawning, I know that data may sound boring for us in marketing, who, more often than not, thrive in highly collaborative and creative environments and not in front of spreadsheets. 

But, but, but, like any ‘journey’ (if you don’t know where you are, or where you have been, you are unlikely to figure out where to go.)

So, on our quest to build more direct revenue for our business, we need to start with the data.

Data does not have to be daunting

Before we go into how to extract data from your business, let’s take a minute to realize that data is actually nothing more than a map. It tells you how your property is and has been operating. From there, you can build reasonable expectations of what you can achieve next.

Data myths busted

• You don’t need to have a PhD to be able to handle data. Anyone with a good business mindset can learn to manipulate and read data. In fact, I encourage any marketer or any property operator to try and understand their business’ data. There is no quicker way to learn and gain authority in a room than knowing the numbers. 

• Start with a question, not with the data: What are you trying to uncover from looking at data? Are you trying to understand your average nightly price? Or your busiest months? Asking the right questions will help you find what you need. 

• The tools will help you find the answers, but they won’t help you find the questions. Excel or Google Sheets are brilliant at handling large volumes of data and will help find the answers you need, but it won’t tell you what you need to find.
  

Data will be a necessity to leverage AI 

If you are over a certain age, like I am, you might remember around 2010 when the topic of ‘big data’ was all you could hear in business talks and conferences. There were huge promises on how big data would transform decision making and a lot of fear mongering about missing out if you were not already deep into the big data. Personally, having been in businesses of various sizes and shapes for all these years, I have not seen a huge difference in decision-making processes: leaders are still looking at a limited set of data on various spreadsheets and interpreting the best they can. 

In 2025, the AI hype somehow reminds me of the big data years. But this time, I wholeheartedly believe that it will deliver on the promise of transforming decision-making, marketing, operations, etc.  

Having just returned from ITB Berlin, AI was everywhere, infiltrating all aspects of property management, from revenue management, guest communications, loyalty. Check out HotelTechReport’s ITB recap for more information. 

While AI is taking centre stage, what is also certain is that it cannot function without data. Data is fuel for algorithms to learn and make accurate predictions. 

So, all in all, the message is clear: don’t be afraid to dig in. 

Data 101 for property managers – where and how to start?

The objective of this blog series is to help property managers of all categories and sizes grow their direct booking channels, a job that typically falls on marketing.  

For the purpose of this exercise, we are going to focus on three types of insights.

Starting with the guests

Know your audience is what I could have also called this blog. This is very true for hotel or park marketing teams. I imagine your place of work is in the property you help market or sell, so my guess is that you have a fairly good understanding of who your guests are already. However, anecdotal observations do not replace factual verifications. 

Here are some top-level insights I recommend you start investigating and documenting: 

Demographic data  

• Country of origin: List the top five 

• Family structure: Are they single travellers? Families? Business travellers? 

• Average age: This will help determine marketing channels and services 

• Occupation: Know whether your guests are professionals, retirees or students.  

• Income levels: This would help inform your pricing strategy, but bear in mind there might be reluctance to share that level of information with you, so this is a nice to have 

Travel purpose: 

• Leisure or business: Are they travelling for work, vacation or special events? 

• Event or occasion: What prompted the trip? A special wedding anniversary? A Taylor Swift concert or just a well-deserved holiday? 

• Travel to your property: Did they drive to your property? Took a tube/train/bus? Did they Uber it? 

Booking behaviour 

• Booking channel: Did they book directly through your website or through an OTA? Did they have someone else make the booking on their behalf? 

• Booking lead time: How long before the stay did they book? 

• Average length of stay: How long are they staying in your property for? 

• Are they returning guests? 

• Pre, during, post check-in: Did they check in online through your guest portal? (If you don’t have a guest portal, you really should. RMS has a great one) Did they communicate with you beforehand? Or after their stay? 

You don’t need every single answer to each question for your research to be valid. Start by aiming high, but leave blank if you can’t access the data you need and think of a way to collect the data later and populate it retrospectively. 

Remember that no park, hotel, or business has complete data integrity. Don’t let the unknown stop you. 

Next, build the business data 

You’ve got a decent picture of your guests data, so now you need to understand how your property is performing.  

Revenue by distribution channel 

• Average room rate by channel 

• Average stay by channel 

• Proportion of returning guests by channel 

Revenue from food and beverage  

• Average F&B spend by guest  

• Average F&B spend by channel  

Additional revenue beyond rooms and F&B (If you are not commercialising spaces beyond the rooms today, you really should. Speak to RMS on how to configure it for your property) 

• Average ‘beyond the room’ revenue by month 

• Distribution channel for any ‘beyond the room’ revenue: email, front desk, signage, website etc? 

Finish with the marketing data 

This may be the hardest for you to obtain, especially if you don’t have a CRM or an email platform today. Nonetheless, here is what I would recommend to start with 

Website data (if you don’t have one, skip to the next part) 

• Total monthly users, with the breakdown between new and returning users 

• Average engagement time per active user 

• Primary channel for user acquisition 

• Average pages viewed and page path 

Email data 

• Average database size 

• Average number of emails sent by month 

• Average open rate 

• Average click-through rate 

Social data 

• Number of followers per channel 

• Number of posts in the last 30 days per channel 

• Numbers of engagements (comments and reactions) 

Once again, this doesn’t have to be complete to be helpful; start with what you have and build from there. 

How far back should you go? 

This answer is very much ‘it depends’. It depends on how much data you have available today and how easy it is to access it, and how comfortable you are with getting stuck in. 

For the purpose of developing your direct booking engine, I wouldn’t go much further than a year back.  

Ideally, you should have three months’ worth of data available for it to successfully inform any decision you make. If your business is highly seasonal, then look to gather two months of slow season data and two months of peak season data and compare the two. 

Now you have the data, start building!  

Create three to five personas 

Now you have the data available, you need to try and group it to make sense of it. Identify patterns in the data you’ve gathered and aim to create three to five of persona profiles to better understand your target audience and test your marketing strategies on. 

Your persona profiles should have a fictional name and unique characteristics that represent the core of your audience.

A persona example for a mid-scale hotel could look like this: 

Persona Name: David Mitchell 

Demographics: 

• Age: 42 

• Gender: Male 

• Job Title: Regional Sales Manager 

• Location: Chicago, IL 

• Education: MBA in Marketing 

• Income: $90,000 - $100,000 annually 

• Family: Married, two children  

Background: 

• David is a seasoned business traveler, frequently traveling for work-related meetings, conferences, and client visits. He typically travels once or twice a month, staying in mid-scale hotels in both urban and suburban locations. While traveling, he tends to prioritize efficiency and convenience above luxury. He’s comfortable using technology to book his accommodations and manage his travel itinerary. 

• David works for a national sales company, overseeing multiple territories. He’s always on the go, trying to balance work demands with spending quality time with his family when at home. 

Goals and motivations: 

• Goals: 

• To stay productive while traveling, with access to quick and efficient services (fast Wi-Fi, comfortable workspaces, etc.). 

• To maintain high professionalism and comfort while away from home, ensuring that business needs are met without compromising on relaxation during downtime. 

• To keep expenses within a reasonable budget without sacrificing essential amenities. 

• Motivations: 

• David wants to feel like he’s staying in a hotel that understands his needs as a business traveler—quick check-in/check-out, reliable Wi-Fi, and good meeting spaces. 

• He values hotels that offer perks like loyalty programs or partnerships with airlines to earn rewards for frequent stays. 

Challenges and pain points: 

• Challenges: 

• Limited time between meetings, making it difficult to take advantage of hotel amenities like fitness centers or restaurants. 

• Difficulty finding hotels that offer a balance between cost, comfort, and convenience—many places are either too expensive or don’t offer the right business-friendly amenities. 

• Noise and distractions—he often has early morning meetings, so he needs a quiet environment to focus and rest. 

• Pain points: 

• Unreliable or slow Wi-Fi makes it hard to keep up with emails or join video calls. 

• Lack of flexible check-in/check-out times, which can disrupt his tight schedule. 

• Hotels with poor lighting or uncomfortable workstations, making it difficult to get work done in the room. 

  Channels: 

• Booking through online travel platforms like Booking.com or directly on the hotel’s website for loyalty benefits. 

• Email and mobile notifications for booking confirmations, room upgrades, or special offers.    

Set yourself some goals 

Now that you know precisely how your business is performing, you can aim to set some goals for your marketing strategy.  

Aim for moderate but attainable objectives: if your proportion of direct bookings is next to zero today, it is not realistic to aim to grow to 30% in 6 months. Depending on the size of your investment (budget and teams) I would aim for a 5% increment growth every 6 months, which would make a huge difference to your business bottom line. 

Take the time to set some marketing objectives as well: database growth, follower growth, frequency of posting... all of which will pave the way for scalable direct growth.  

Next time, I’ll walk through the core principles of a good website, the foundation for a direct booking strategy. It is very timely as we are going through the same project at RMS so we’ll share our learnings along the way.

By Sandrine Zechbauer
Chief Marketing Officer