You know how they say that successful people often have a great support team behind them? Well, the same goes true for successful businesses. A business prospers because of a great team of employees, suppliers, and partners.
Partnerships are important in any business, including the hospitality industry. But it’s surprising that not too many businesses in the industry are taking advantage of the benefits of partnerships. Strategic partnerships with well-defined goals can significantly increase the growth of both parties. Teaming up with a group as passionate and as professional with their core competencies as your own group can only lead to better customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to a higher growth in business.
Need more reasons to dive into a partnership? Here are some that will get you thinking.
It’s a cost-effective marketing strategy
It won’t cost you a lot more just to add another logo and name in your marketing materials and the same is true for your partner. But if you both promote each other’s businesses then your reach will be twice as much as before.
Choose a partner you share the same vision and principles with and also has the same target market as you. You can share your ideas, thoughts, and visions and you might find a creative way to get noticed by your target audience.
Marketing has gotten more difficult these days. It’s true that there had been a lot of additional and cheaper platforms to advertise but just getting your brand out there doesn’t ensure it gets noticed by the people you want to show it to. One of the things you need to secure a spot on your target audience’s mind is social proof – and partnerships help you get that.
Say you partner with a trusted travel agency. People may not avail their all-in package but saw your hotel or resort in their list of partners. They would assume you are a trustworthy company too and the chances of them booking you are now higher. The agency would benefit in the same way. If your guests did not book their tours prior their trip then they can see the travel agency’s name and logo in your hotel and they’ll likely book their tours from them.
This is just one example, of course. You can partner with other industries and benefit in the same way as long as you do it strategically.
Partnerships can boost the economy
Partnerships can impact more than just your and your partner’s business, you can possibly help you country’s own economy too.
A good example of this would be the strategy of Corfu Beer in Greece. Now, Greece is country whose tourism significantly depends in best-time-to-visit assumptions. Summer is considered peak season for tourists in Greece but it’s not as lively during any other time of the year. Corfu Beer then decided to start a festival at the start of fall to extend the tourists stay. This, of course, meant that more local businesses continued to enjoy better income for a longer while.
Imagine if you partnered with Corfu Beer and hosted that festival with them? You’d get loads of guests and even help businesses near you. You won’t even have to worry about guests booking a room with you just to earn more from the festival. There are other opportunities to earn in this kind of activity. You just have to get creative!
It can make your guests’ stay more meaningful
Now, let’s take Corfu Beer’s example again. An activity like that will definitely make your guests’ stay a lot more meaningful and memorable. People love festivals and parties and thanks to your partnership with a local brand, your guests got to experience the feel of a local festival in a place possibly foreign to them.
There are lots of ways to give your guests a meaningful experience through strategic partnerships. You can partner with local restaurants to offer them unique cuisine from your area. You can also seek partnerships from recreation providers to give them a one-of-a-kind experience.
Suppama, a water recreation company, partners with hotels, resorts, and water sports enthusiast to bring the sport of stand up paddle boarding to more places in the world so that more people can enjoy it.
Stand up paddle boarding is among the fastest growing water sports in the world today and it’s showing some promise of helping increase tourism in beaches and places near different bodies of water.
What could you get as a partner? The first would be a more enriching experience for your guests. Promoting stand up paddle boarding to your guests can make your hotel or resort among the ones they remember because you were able to provide them with a unique and memorable experience.
You can also possibly reach more people. Stand up paddle boarding isn’t confined to a certain place or country and Suppama doesn’t partner with people or companies in a certain country only. Imagine if a person enjoyed the experience in one of Suppama’s partner hotels and decides they want to do it again in their next trip. If they see your hotel or resort offers the same experience, the chances are higher that they’ll consider you for their next vacation.
Those are only a few examples of how a partnership with Suppama, or any other business or industry, can significantly affect the growth of your business.
So don’t worry about teaming up with another company. Go ahead and hold each other’s hand so you can get to the top faster!
