In whatever industry you work in, all you hear is that a specific, profound and coherent positioning is key for every business. But what is this all about and why is this also important for a family hotel?
The competitiveness in all global markets has increased tremendously within the last decades. If you just position yourself as a family hotel, it is not enough. Why should the guest choose you instead of any other family hotel? What makes your family hotel unique? Disneyland is not world-famous because it is a family park, but because it focuses on Disney that every child knows and loves. This can be transferred to family hotels. Just positioning as a family hotel is not enough, you need an extra.
Through globalization and digitalization, nowadays a family hotel in the Swiss Alps does not only compete with other family hotels in the Swiss, Austrian or French Alps anymore, but also with family safaris in Africa, family adventure trips in Canada or family city sight-seeing in cities. Therefore, in order for the family hotel in the Swiss Alps to keep running successfully, it needs to have a unique positioning and offering that differentiates them from all the other family offers and adds value to the guest.
Creating and implementing a strong positioning and brand is hard work. It must rely on profound research, it needs to be unique, add value and finally yet importantly, it must be carried out holistically. A brand is not only a logo and a catchy slogan; it goes to the roots of the business and influences its culture, architecture and processes. Hence, it is not enough to just display a family-friendly logo or award on your website. You must offer a profound product and service that is focused on families and then apply it to your branding, so that it can also be sold the right way.
In order to know what your USP is and what your strengths are, you need to analyze your business. Do not only define your strengths but also your weaknesses. Determine what you stand for and what your guests’ value about you and your family hotel. What is your vision and mission? Maybe the creation of a SWOT-analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) can help you to define the core functions and unique strengths of your business.
Of course, your target group is probably families. But not all families are the same, what kind of families do you host? Adventure-lovers, tech-savvy families, families with babies or youngsters? Next to knowing your strengths and USP, it is essential to know what your guests’ desire, need and except. It could be that your business has a great USP but it does not add any value to the customer. If you offer baby swim lessons but your guests actually only come with children who are 6 years plus, it is a nice offer, but it is irrelevant for your target group.
Therefore, you have to speak to your guests and ask what is important for them, what do they appreciate about you and what kind of problems they want you to solve. Talk to your guests and get to know your target group, their desires and needs.
Furthermore, you have to analyze the market and your competitors. It is great if you have a USP, which differentiates you from the competition, but if there is no demand for it on the market or easy copyable for competitor, it is useless. Moreover, you should analyze the opportunities and threats of the market. What trends will arise, what are new standards and what could get dangerous in the future? Do you observe that more and more children like to read their books on displays instead of paper-based books? Then invest into displays and create a tech-world for the children. However, if you monitor that this is just a short-term trend or 10 other competitors do the same thing, then you might need to find another USP.
4. Set yourself measurable goals
In order to be motivated and stay on your path, it is vital to have clear stated positioning goals. However, you should not just set any visionary goals that are not achievable. It is important to define the objectives in a SMART way, which stands for:
If you have defined your positioning objectives, you need to have a strategy, which determines how the positioning can be reached in a long-term. Do you need to break into new markets, do you need to redefine your products and services or widen your range and assortment, or is even an additional target group needed? What should the brand stand for?
Maybe you realize that three generation family holidays are trending, so you might want to introduce bigger family suites with an extra room for grandparents. Or you observe that the average family income in Russia increases. Hence, there will be more Russian families-travelling in the future so you could adjust your offers and start marketing in Russia.
6. Establish tactics to achieve your perfect family hotel
In order to break down the strategy into realistic steps and tasks, it is important to define tactics. The best-known marketing tactics are the 4 P’s of Jerome McCarthy (1960) that represent:
If you have done all the analyses, set your positioning goals, defined your strategy and characterized your tactics for your dream family hotel, you are ready for the implementation. Hence, you can implement the defined tactics into reality. This is the part, where the strategy turns into real operations. Therefore, it is crucial to stay on the path and not loose your vision due to busy daily business.
8. Keep controlling and adjusting to become the best family hotel
Lastly, it is essential to keep monitoring and controlling your success. It often happens that hotels define awesome strategies, but after getting back in the operative, daily business, you forget about the strategy. Therefore, keep working on the strategy, have regular team-meetings where you discuss it and make adjustments when needed. Furthermore, trends are evolving. Maybe one year families love your biking activities but the other year no one wants to bike anymore. So, you must stay on the pulse of time.
If you follow all these steps, you will be on the right path for a successfully positioned family hotel!
The Clayoquote Wilderness Lodge is located in a remote area of Vancouver Island and is only accessible by seaplane. Adventure-filled outdoor days including fishing, hiking, horse-back riding, whale watching and much more are faded out in the luxurious glamping lodge, where a fine dining restaurant translates the wilderness onto the plates. The unique combination of a friendly family lodge, the harsh wilderness and high-end facilities and services, make the family hotel a huge success.
Picture: https://clayoquotwildernesslodge.com/gallery/
Gibb’s Farm is an African farm which has been extended with a hotel and offers unique family activities such as morning baking class, coffee picking, elephant walks, bird watching, coffee roasting and safaris. Nevertheless, it does not only focus on holiday activities but also tries to educate their guests about agriculture, environment, history and community in Tanzania. Once again, the unique combination of a family hotel, unique and educating activities in a beautiful landscape promise a prosperous family hotel.
Picture: https://www.gibbsfarm.com/gallery/
As already mentioned, Disneyland and its related hotels, such as the Disney’s beach Club Resort are the flagships of well positioned family hotels. Its profound focus on families in correlation with Disney movies and characters, make the stay a must on every child’s bucket list.
Picture: https://milesforfamily.com/2020/08/10/disneys-beach-club-resort-closure-extended-through-2021/
The successful hotel has focused their positioning fully on keeping families happy and telling fairytales. They have an enormous fairytale land where children can play, various activities such as an own zoo, climbing wall and so on. However, the main attraction is the fairytale, which is told every evening at 6pm by the hotel director himself. They know that “if the kids are happy, the parents are happy as well”. The hotel runs successfully ever since the owner changed their positioning from a “regular” hotel to a fairytale hotel.
Picture: https://www.maerchenhotel.ch/de/index.php?section=gallery&cid=85
All of the hotels have analyzed the market and target groups and build their strategy and positioning accordingly. These examples show that a holistic and coherent positioning and branding strategy is the foundation of an outstanding family hotel.
How do the EHL Campus Passugg students of the Swiss Professional Degree approach the positioning of a family hotel?
As a final project of the Swiss Professional Degree at EHL Campus Passugg, the students get the unique chance to solve a real business case.
In spring 2021, the students received the task to create a business plan for the positioning of the family hotel Sunstar Hotel Arosa. The Sunstar Hotel Arosa is a family hotel located in Arosa within the Swiss Alps. They have positioned themselves as a family hotel and have adjusted a lot of their infrastructure accordingly. However, the business is not flourishing. Therefore, they asked the students of the EHL Campus Passugg to analyze their positioning and to develop a new more coherent positioning strategy.
How the students approached the case and what their results were, can be found here. (Downloadable Link to PDF Case Study)