Hotels achieve bookings boost following digital marketing support

Digital marketing agency Ascensor is celebrating after achieving significant uplifts in bookings for two prestigious hotels, and has been appointed by hotel management company Inntelligence to drive digital growth across their portfolio of clients.

The Leeds based marketing team has been engaged by the hotels to drive visitor website traffic and online bookings for Raithwaite Sandsend (recently rebranded from Raithwaite Estate), a coastal retreat near Whitby, North Yorkshire, and Burgh Island Hotel, a fully restored art deco landmark on a private island, off the South Devon coast.

Ascensor MD Andrew Firth comments: “The hotel sector has been particularly hard hit by the various waves of Covid tiers and lockdown restrictions. These tough trading conditions have made it all the more important for our clients to harness the power of digital marketing and Ecommerce, to improve their flow of future bookings, and bounce back as quickly as possible.”

Andrew adds: “Digital marketing is crucial within any industry, and it’s extremely effective in the hospitality market. We are established in this sector and provide a range of digital marketing services, enabling our hotel clients to rank high in search results, and be found quickly and easily by their guests.”

“Through a focused approach to website design and digital marketing we have been able to drive more traffic to our clients’ sites and improve the conversion of site visits to bookings.”

“By increasing the number of direct bookings for our hotel clients, we have also reduced the role of online travel agencies and so improved their acquisition costs. Booking volumes are important, but so is profitability.”

The luxurious Raithwaite Estate on the North Yorkshire coast, recently created a new brand identity and has evolved to become known as Raithwaite Sandsend. To properly showcase and promote their new identity, Ascensor built Raithwaite a bespoke website to ensure that they could convey the message they wanted.

Andrew says: “It’s vital that luxury accommodation is displayed clearly and effectively, and each style of room has its own page with a standout image and key features listed.”

In addition to developing a compelling hotel booking website, Ascensor have also recently built the ‘Village’ area of the website to support the owners with the sale of properties, as part of the ongoing estate development that includes a community village.

Max Hunter director at Raithwaite Sandsend says: “As a result of the valuable work undertaken by Ascensor, we have achieved significantly higher levels of website traffic, increased room bookings and significant interest in the village development.”

Ascensor have also recently been appointed by Thief Hall, a wedding venue in Northallerton to help them grow bookings as the recovery kicks in. Owner Jessica Barker says: “I am very pleased to have engaged Ascensor, who have achieved great results in the early stages of their work with us.”

Burgh Island Hotel is an architectural gem, located off the coast of Devon. It is an iconic landmark that has been welcoming guests including Agatha Christie, Noel Coward and many other pre-war luminaries since 1929.

Andrew says: “Ascensor’s role was to drive more bookings for Burgh Island Hotel with the main focus on improving brand awareness through paid ads, increasing bookings by driving high quality traffic by a promotional offer, and reducing the cost per acquisition of online advertising by using an alternative to booking websites.”

“We also used Facebook’s geodemographic and demographic targeting to pinpoint relevant audiences for the hotel.”

Angela Germain of Inntelligence Hotel Management comments: “We were very impressed by the digital marketing strategy developed by Ascensor for Burgh Island Hotel. They helped us to achieve a return on investment of almost 550%, with a return on advertising spend of more than 800%. We’ve appointed Ascensor to work across our client base and support our new-client acquisition process. The ongoing restrictions have left many hotels struggling, and Inntelligence are positioned to support their recovery through our managed services and investor relations.”