HOSPITALITY: With the recession shrinking promo budgets, hotels and eateries find spicier ways to fill out
When Yum Yum Tree, a smart restaurant in Delhi’s New Friend’s Colony preferred primarily by the expat crowd, decided to start a series of wine dinners on week nights, it didn’t go about promoting these the usual way. Instead of ads in city supplements and magazines — or even PR activity, usually the way to push such promos — the restaurant’s young owner, Varun Tuli, relied on Facebook.
Updates were sent to the Yum Yum Tree community, with the schedule, details of wine, sommelier and prices (sub Rs 2,000 for a six-course meal matched with wine). In fact, ever since its inception a little over a year earlier, the restaurant has hardly been following the usual publicity patterns you expect from any new, "with it" place. "As far as advertising goes, we work on almost zero budgets," admits Tuli, who prefers to use the Internet to send out his messages. "On the net, our aim is to be as visible as possible. We use social networking sites, as well as many other blogs and portals that carry free listings. We don’t pay for any adverts, even on travel portals," explains Tuli, who does not have a PR firm to represent him.
Tuli is not the only one. Restaurants and hotels, with much bigger budgets and turnovers, are increasingly looking at newer (and cheaper) methods to advertise, instead of relying on the mainstream media, especially with the recession having eaten ad budgets. At the Park Hotels, for instance, Rupa Thomas, director, corporate communications, admits ad budgets are now down by 60 per cent.
The hotel group, with boutique properties across the country, is extensively using social networking sites to promote its various food and beverage outlets, entertainment spaces and spas. On Facebook itself, for instance, there is a 150-member strong "Agni community" (referring to their Indian restaurant in Delhi), an Italia community (Italian restaurant in Bangalore) and a Tantra (nightclub) community whose members have zoomed to more than 400 in just a couple of months.
"All our outlets reported a very good response on Valentine’s Day," says Thomas, though it obviously isn’t possible to say if it was only because of such "tageted" promotional activity.
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The method has two big pluses. One, it’s almost free of cost. Instead of advertising on a site such as Facebook, a member of the hotel’s marketing/PR team creates a page and sends out links to all his/her "friends" and relies on the power of compounding. Two, the use of social networking sites also means the "right kind of people are targeted." Thomas says that in a print advert, for instance, one doesn’t quite know who the message is going out to. Here, "the effect is much faster and immediate." As on SMS — another tool that’s rapidly caught on in the past year — people respond immediately and the recall is also higher. In fact, outlet managers at places such as Dublin (ITC Maurya) have been provided with data banks for guests they can contact on SMS or email.
Jaypee Palace Hotels and Resorts, with properties in Delhi, Agra and Mussoorie, among other places, is another chain aggressively looking at such new measures. "In the last fiscal itself, we had decided to look at more innovative ways of marketing," says Taran Deep, director, marketing and communications, Jaypee Vasant Continental. Apart from SMSes and social networking sites, the group advertises on travel portals as well, where the cost for a month’s exposure is approximately a tenth of a print ad. Besides, outdoors advertising also works well at lesser cost.
An interesting way in which some of the smaller or "budget" properties are promoting their outlets is through the use of mobile outdoor vans. These carry a huge promotional message, stationed at strategic and busy locations at particular times, as in Gurgaon just when the corporate crowd is getting out of their offices in the evening.
Hotels such as Uppal’s Orchid (near Delhi’s IGI airport) and The Fortune Hotels (an ITC brand with 25 operational properties) are using this relatively new way to advertise, too. In addition, says a note sent by the Fortune Hotel, "animated situations at strategic locations have been found to be a great attraction for festive themes at mini-metros such as Calicut, Ludhiana and Vijaywada."
Then, there are the airport trolleys that hotels are also considering for branding exercises. While banks and public sector undertakings have used these trolleys that function like "pole kiosks" for several years to garner eyeballs, "We now expect hospitality, FMCG and technology companies to leverage this means," says Ajay Dhawan of AD World, a company with contracts for outdoors at several airports in the country. "With the meltdown, companies are exploring new avenues of reaching out and stretching their rupee," he points out. “The cost of a trolley is Rs 100 a day, compared to the Rs 5 lakh a small 20x8 ft hoarding costs for a month, say at Defence Colony," Dhawan adds.
The list of cost-saving measures does not end here. At the Park Hotels, postcards are being sent out instead of couriered letters, since this saves the cost of both the envelope and couriering. Next time you get a mailer from your favourite restaurant, examine it closer.