How To Attract International Travelers To Your Hotel In 2025
International tourism is a $2 trillion market with 1.53 billion visitors recorded as of 2024. This is the third straight year of double-digit growth since the pandemic brought the global travel industry down – contributing close to 10% of the global GDP.
The growth in international travel presents a lucrative opportunity to the hospitality industry. International tourists bring foreign currency to the domestic market boosting its value. They also help create and sustain jobs that may not exist otherwise. Also, as a general rule of thumb, barring heavily populated countries like India, China, or the US where domestic tourism is big, international tourists are critical to the hospitality industry of any country.
In this article, we will look at a few strategies that can help hotel owners attract international travelers to their establishment.
Understanding the guest journey
In the hospitality business, segmentation is key. Not all international guests are the same. The travel intent, the mode of travel, and the way they enjoy their holidays is different among the various segments.
For example, travelers from some countries travel in groups or as part of a travel package. To attract these tourists, you may have to partner with local travel agencies. Similarly, some travelers like to book holiday packages that take care of all their needs, while others prefer traveling independently.
Knowing your guest type is the first step towards building a successful hotel business.
Picking your guest segment involves market research. Here are some questions you need to ask:
Geographic distribution
What is the country-wise distribution of international travelers to your city or town? You may be able to find this information on your government’s tourism website. You may also be able to find the complete figures by reaching out to your tourism ministry over email or phone.
Demographics
What is the age, and gender profile of visitors to your town? Is your town popular among families with young kids? Or, is it more popular among honeymooners? Do your international visitors come single for business purposes? Understanding these details will help plan your marketing strategy.
Booking behavior
Discerning this is kind of tricky, but is a very important part of market research. Some travelers use popular international travel websites like Booking, Expedia or Trivago to research their hotels. Others use similar websites that are popular in their respective countries or languages for hotel research. In some cases, travelers rely on their agent to book a hotel for them.
Knowing how your traveler lands at your hotel doorstep is critical to building a plan to bring more such guests to your establishment. If a majority of your guests come from online bookings, then you could dig deeper into their behavior.
You could analyze the listings to understand the ranking algorithm – this will help you identify the exact parameters that you need to focus on in order to improve your own ranking on these hotel booking sites.
Partnerships & Optimization
Once you have done your research and identified your Ideal Guest Profile (IGP), the next step is to build a marketing plan to reach your target guest profile.
Partnerships
Partnerships are an essential part of growing your hotel footfalls if your IGP involves travelers who arrive in groups or make use of travel agents to book their hotels. You could sign them up as a partner and incentivize them for each booking made by their clients.
You could further sweeten the offer by offering complementary services like airport pickup to the travel group. Or, you could offer complementary breakfast and dinner to your partner agencies. Such options help make the hotel more attractive, and also help these agencies improve on their margins.
If your town is popular for specific activities, you could look at relevant partnerships that could make their holiday sweeter. For instance, a resort that is close to a popular golf vacation spot, could offer their guests complementary golf clubs to use during the holiday.
Optimization
Booking Engine Optimization (BEO) is the process of driving the visibility of your hotel across hotel booking sites. Most popular hotel booking websites use a combination of factors such as guest ratings, hotel description, location, and amenities offered to provide their visitors with a curated list of recommendations.
Optimizing your listing could involve encouraging your visitors to leave your review, providing a comprehensive description of the hotel, the location, and the amenities. Visuals are a big part of the hotel booking process, and it is important that you keep your premises ‘Instagram-worthy’ to drive more traffic and bookings your way.
If you use marketing tools like Mailchimp, you have automation features that allow you to send periodic reminders to your past guests encouraging them to leave a review.
Standing out from competition
In the hospitality industry, standing out from competition is one of the most effective ways to carve your niche and build your reputation. There are several things you could do to establish your identity:
Provide signages in the visitor’s native language to make them more comfortable
Offer cuisines that your IGP prefers
Offer amenities (play areas, spa, gym, etc.) that is important to your guest profile
Small towns that have limited flight landings could offer checkin/checkout that syncs with these timings
In addition to these, you could also tie-up with local businesses for unique offerings. For instance, if your town is renowned for its artisanal products, you could offer discounted packages for guests who want to buy them for their homes.
Your guests expect to have a good time at your hotel. Making their experience as comfortable and convenient as possible can go a long way in growing your popularity among this travel segment, and also drive a positive reputation that could help with future bookings.
Be approachable always
International travelers visit your country from across the world, and as such may want to reach out to you with queries at any time of the day. Having someone man the phone and email throughout the day is thus an important aspect of running a hotel targeting international travelers.
In addition to this, make sure that your communication lines are aligned with the guest’s expectations. International travelers do not prefer calling over the phone for bookings or sales inquiries. While email is universal, it is also a good idea to be available over other channels like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook so that guests could reach out to you over any medium of their preference.
Final thought – Be innovating always
Brand authority works differently when you are catering to an international traveler. The chances of repeat visits is minimal, unless you are catering to a business traveler. While you may have very few repeat guests, their word of mouth is however extremely important to keep your brand reputation high and attract new guests.
Considering this, innovation is an important factor in this business. Every guest to your hotel experiences your offering for the very first time. As such, a tiny misstep that ruins their holiday could mean a negative review – which also brings your reputation down among future travelers.
Keep innovating with new services, and continue making your guests happy in order to ensure a sustained flow of new happy guests to your establishment.
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