How to Attract More Families to Your Hotel with RoomRaccoon

Having a variety of guests booking at your hotel is a great way to build your business and increase revenue. Having a diverse customer base makes you less dependent on specific market segments. It’s essential that your hotel can manage family bookings and exceed their expectations. What is the best way to attract more group bookings? By using an all-in-one hotel management software solution!

There are many benefits to having families book a stay at your hotel:

• Generate more revenue – family stays will often book larger suites or groups of rooms at a time, bringing in more profit.
• Encourage repeat business – ensure that your hotel provides a great experience and that a family will likely re-book their stay, saving on acquisition.
• Boost word-of-mouth marketing – families talk to other families. A satisfied guest will spread the word about your family-friendly hotel.
• Longer stays – Families usually have more extended leisure stays, ensuring a steady income source and improving operational stability.
• Shoulder season bookings – some families travel in off-peak seasons due to school holidays or budgeting. This can help create consistent hotel revenue.

So, with all of those benefits in mind, let’s discuss how RoomRaccoon can help you attract more families to your hotel.

How Our New Features Can Help You Manage Family Bookings

Welcome to our latest feature – Child Policy! This crucial feature empowers you to optimize revenue by enriching the guest experience. How? Through adaptable family rates and a refined booking process with an upgraded search engine. Now, you have the capability to devise tailored child policies. Our Child Policy feature encompasses city taxes and additional charges and allocates these policies to specific room categories and date ranges.

With RoomRaccoon’s latest innovation, your hotel is now fully equipped for family bookings. Families can seamlessly make reservations, and your Property Management System (PMS) is adept at managing what were once intricate bookings. This enhancement ensures a smoother booking experience for families while underscoring the operational efficiency of your hotel’s management system.

The Benefits of Using Child Policy:

Enhanced search in the booking engine

Child Policy has also ensured it is easy for guests to book their stay through RoomRaccoon’s booking engine. Now, guests can input precise details, such as the number of adults and children and their preferred dates, streamlining the search for room availability.

The search results are tailored to display only the rooms and rates that match the guest’s specific criteria. This refinement not only simplifies the selection process for guests but also ensures that they find the most relevant and cost-effective options based on their individual needs and preferences.

These improvements to the user interface allow for better navigation. The precision in the display of room availability and rates results in a simplified guest journey. All of these great new additions to our system aim to boost your bookings and delight guests. There is also enhanced control over room occupancy and rate structures for hoteliers.

What Are Occupancy-Based Rates and Why Use Them?

Setting up occupancy-based rates is vital to utilize our new booking engine fully. But what is an occupancy-based rate structure? An occupancy-based rate structure is a rate pricing strategy where the cost of a room varies depending on the number of guests staying in it – including adults, children or both.

This approach can maximise revenue by allowing you to charge more for additional guests while offering a more competitive rate for single occupants. It does so by providing competitive rates for different occupancy levels while ensuring that the pricing reflects the value of the room and services. This encourages flexibility and attracts a broader range of guests, from solo travelers to larger groups.

How does Child Policy work?

Child Policy is easy to configure with RoomRaccoon. Simply head to your “My Property” module and navigate to “Policies”. Once in the correct tab, you will see a new section on “Child Policy”, where you will follow the steps below to set up your new policies.

• Define city tax applicability per Child Policy.
• Assign city tax for each Child Policy by percentage or a fixed amount.
• Establish age ranges to apply specific policies.
• Set surcharges per child based on the policy.
• Customise date ranges for city taxes and surcharges.
• Link child policies to specific room categories.

To complete your policy, you’ll need to head to the “categories” tab. Simply edit the room category, navigate to occupancy, and you can edit the room’s maximum occupancy. This step is vital in creating the boundaries of your Child Policy. The last thing you want is two adults with four children booking to stay in a double standard room, where they’re over the max capacity.

Our top tip is to double-check that Child Policies created in RoomRaccoon are mirrored in your OTA(s) to maintain consistency across booking channels. However, sometimes, your rules for Child Policies set by websites you partner with (like OTAs) might not match what you’ve set up in RoomRaccoon.

Luckily, we have a simple solution! To avoid any potential issues, you can create helpful fallback policies (backup rules). These pre-determined backup rules will kick in automatically, ensuring you have consistency and control over your rates. Once you have set up your advanced Child Policy settings – you are ready to go! Your hotel will now be aptly configured to accept and manage family bookings with ease.

4 Strategies to Attract Family Bookings

1. Create Unique Packages

Packages are a great way to attract family bookings. Packages may offer all-inclusive meals, perfect for a family who wants to focus on activities and save time on cooking. Packages can also include special activities or amenities at your hotel. We recommend creating a unique family package that encourages families to book directly through your hotel.

Let’s say you are a coastal resort; your family package may include:

• Breakfast & dinner
• 3 surf lessons
• A guided beginner’s hike
• Full access to children’s daycare

The array of activities and add-ons offered is ideal for parents who want to plan their vacation without stressing about what the children will be able to do. One of the perks of selling packages is increasing your total revenue per available room (TrevAR).

The addition of packages not only increases your bottom line but elevates the guest experience. In the digital age, online consumers crave convenience and inspiration. Offering pre-determined activities and amenities can encourage family vacations to your property.

2. Create Seasonal Discounts

Since the children’s holiday dates often dictate family travel, they may travel during off-peak seasons or “shoulder seasons”. A great way to attract families to your hotel is by offering relevant seasonal discounts for a minimum number of occupants. In this way, families booking through your hotel website directly get value for money. And you can help increase your occupancy significantly in the low season.

Another great option is offering family bookings returning discounts. This could be the difference between a family re-booking or visiting a new property. Returning discounts such as “welcome back” help to build rapport with families. This, coupled with a delightful stay, is the perfect recipe for repeat bookings from families traveling.

3. Offer Relevant Add-ons

One of the best things about hosting families on vacation is catering to their diverse needs. A family holiday doesn’t necessarily need to be for young children and parents. Families may travel with an entire party of adults. So, how can you capitalise on this? By setting up a variety of add-ons that cater to guests of all ages. We’ll review some add-ons you’ll want to include in your online booking experience.

Add-ons for families with young children:

• A Baby bed
• Child care
• Children’s activity packs
• Access to the Kid’s Club
• Baby food in the mini-fridge
• Baby-proofing in room
• Kid-friendly dining options

Offering parents a more child-friendly experience encourages more families to book at your hotel. The convenience of relevant add-ons for children will make planning their vacation that much easier. Therefore, it contributes to a positive booking experience and a great brand experience.

Add-ons for families traveling with adults:

• White or red wine
• Local activities
• Fun group activities
• Special dining experience
• Late check-out
• Interconnected suites

Add-ons for adults are the norm in most hotels. Organising a family hotel for any age group can be stressful. By upselling services and products in your booking engine, the guest can easily plan the perfect family getaway. These tried and tested add-ons also help boost your revenue per available room!

4. Keep it clean with Housekeeping

What’s one thing guest don’t want to do during their vacation? Clean. What do most parents need a break from? Cleaning! When guests pay to stay at your hotel, they expect clean and hygienic rooms. Most hotels offer daily cleaning services during the guest’s stay, keeping everything spick and span during the family vacation.

A good hotel front desk software enables you to streamline your hotel’s housekeeping. Automating your housekeeping is quick and easy with the right software system. RaccoonHousekeeping, our advanced housekeeping module, makes creating profiles for each team member easy. Including their roles, contact info, work schedules, and more!

Efficient housekeeping in a hotel saves time, money and resources. Family holidays can be busy, activity-packed and stressful. Your hotel should be an oasis for your guests. A clean and well-kept room gives guests a tidy space to unwind and relax.

Attracting Family Bookings: A Holistic Hotel Acquisition Strategy

Implementing strategies to attract more families to your hotel enhances revenue generation and fosters repeat business. The allure of larger suites and group bookings contributes to increased profitability while delivering a memorable experience encourages families to return, reducing acquisition costs.

Furthermore, the positive word-of-mouth from satisfied guests creates a ripple effect within the family-oriented demographic, serving as a powerful marketing tool. The inclination of families toward more extended leisure stays not only ensures a steady income source but also bolsters your hotel’s operational stability.

Embracing a family-friendly approach proves to be a holistic strategy with a multitude of benefits for your hotel’s success. Invest in hotel reservation software today and be prepared to delight families booking a stay at your hotel. You can learn more about our pricing options for our all-in-one PMS here!