The return of the leisurely days - Ed's letter

As summer and a possible global recession both approach, the sector is looking increasingly to the leisure traveller to bail it out of what is likely to be a period of pressure for the corporate market.

This is never a happy prospect, because the leisure traveller, though generally a happier and more uplifting guest, is felt to suffer from two perplexing character traits: not paying as much as a corporate guest and not coming back again.

This issue has been worsened by the ever-climbing price of acquiring the leisure guest, a guest the large global operators admitted finding so hard to reach during the pandemic that they had to resort to the OTAs. The favoured method for the same companies of finding guests is now the loyalty programme, but without the prospect of accruing meaningful points in one leisure stay, is that enough of a lure for the guests themselves?

Leisure guests - and we’ve all been them - have some redeeming features, one of which is that the potential for loyalty is so much higher than with a corporate guest, unless you have a world-beating trouser press.

For single hotels, achieving loyalty looks as it always has done - delivering a memorable stay - but for the larger groups, including the global players, loyalty, where the guest is locked into your portfolio for life, can be achieved by making hotels more leisure friendly. This doesn’t need to be a pool on every rooftop, but more flexible room layouts would be a start. Decades into Airbnb, the lesson either hasn’t been learned, or has been ignored. No one will use your loyalty programme and its cheaper booking model if you have nowhere for their family, friends and dogs to stay.

The other redeeming feature of the leisure guest is that, while it may feel as though they only live on the OTAs, they’re actually all over the internet, not to mention available in real life too. The leisure trip is one area where the guest allocates as much time if not more to planning than to any other part of their lives - and certainly much more than for any business trip.

This gives the hotel plentiful opportunity to get their property in front of those eager eyes and it doesn’t have to be done expensively. Social media, even targeted advertising can seek out who you want, at less than 30% of a night’s stay.

So this holiday season, don’t fret. Take your leisure.