Now that it’s Halloween, it seems only fitting that we discuss holidays and what they can do to boost revenues for your hotels.

In the past, I’ve talked about what you can do to create excitement around the mainstay holidays – at least in a North American sense these include Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Father and Mother’s Day, Easter, Memorial/Victoria Day, Independence/Canada Day, Labor Day and, as of today, Halloween. While it may be a tad late to execute a plan for that last holiday, I’d highly suggest you get a plan together for some or all of the other ones.

But these common holidays raise a profound marketing question: if every hotel is working on some form of promotion or event for these abovementioned celebrations, how do you stand apart? It’s like when you are at a Halloween party, having slaved for hours over your unique costume design only to discover that someone else is bedizened in the exact same outfit. Aside from the candy, alcohol consumption and all other debauchery, Halloween is all about individual expression. So, how would you feel if when others are wearing similar costumes

Thinking about this on a macro-scale, it’s easy to see why perhaps your Christmas, Valentine’s or Halloween promotions have fallen flat. It isn’t that you aren’t being creative or haven’t put in enough effort; it’s that too many other properties have also applied their resources to the task, diluting your returns. And the doom and gloom here is that there is almost nothing you can do – Christmas will always be Christmas and Halloween will continue to be the biggest costumed event of the year.

Again, I ask: how do you stand out? Well, given that Halloween is meant to be a time for oddities, perhaps you can stir up some extra revenues by embracing the weird or offbeat holidays that remain largely untouched by your comp set. Like everything, though, this is easier said than done, so here are a few tips to make sure you are selecting the correct eclectics for your hotel:

• Think Local. What holidays or festivals do your local constituents already celebrate? Is there any way you can become a community leader by working with them and propagating their traditions and culture? This may just be the ticket to boosting your relationships with local vendors and suppliers to wondrous results in both cross-promotion and SEO.
• Match Your Theme. International Talk Like A Pirate Day doesn’t exactly mesh if you are an upscale boutique hotel in Midtown Manhattan, but it may well fit if you are a beachside Floridian or Dominican resort. Almost every day of the year is peppered with these bizarre or almost completely unknown celebrations. Search and scrutinize – you need only discover one or two that are the right match.
• Find Your Food. Many of these pseudo-holidays are in fact food related, and so they present an opportunity for your chefs to excel. For instance, what if on National Ice Cream Day, your culinary team decided to hand out free samples of house-made gelato in the lobby in a trio of exciting flavors (please, anything but the perfunctory chocolate, vanilla or strawberry). Likewise, there are days to honor coffee, beer, vegetarianism and, as any good Canuck will attest to, bacon.

Engineer The Fun. The key to any such holiday celebration is to put your full support behind it and get your team involved. Employees should be on the ground as any participating guests. Let them take a few minutes out of their shift to come see all the excitement, sample what your chefs have crafted and socialize with one another over in a relaxed environment. This will not only increase morale, but it will heighten the sense of joy that all others experience.

(Article published by Larry Mogelonsky in HOTELSmag on October 31, 2014)