“September days have the warmth of summer in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings a prophetic breath of autumn.” 

Thanks for that Rowland E. Robinson, whoever you are, you certainly have a point. 

As we enter the end of the summer we take a look at how accommodation owners can utilise Inn Style’s booking system revenue-generating & time-saving features to capitalise on the opportunity for increased direct bookings at a time where doing nothing will leave them relying on OTAs for bookings. 

The summer holidays are over! This means that the kids are back in school, the parents are back at work and those who have been patiently waiting to take a break are beginning to book. It is a time as accommodation owners where you may see occupancy often begin to decrease, particularly in the UK, but we believe the opportunity for a change of strategy can alleviate the post-summer blues. The proof was in the autumnal pudding last year where our customers took nearly £6m from just over 25,000 bookings in September, benefiting from the end of summer and the beginning of those cosy autumn stays via your Inn Style booking system. 

“So what’s this magical, golden bullet you’re talking about?”

Sorry folks! If you expected to find something which is guaranteed to work, you’ve come to the wrong place. We’re here to help our customers help themselves with our insights from what we see year on year and with employing Inn Style’s booking system endless feature set to benefit them best. 

“Ok… so what can you tell us?”

We believe the key to success in this period of change is to really understand who your customers are and when they’re likely to book. Longer stays of a week or more will continue through September, that’s for sure, but accommodation owners are likely to see a transition from families with children to groups of adults and smaller parties booking via your Inn Style booking system.

Where the opportunity will begin to gradually shift is towards the 2-4 night stays typically over weekends with the potential for work-related stays increasing during the week. This is supported by Siteminder’s Hotel Booking Trends report which denotes that “Visits to UK properties were among the shortest in the world in 2023. Ninety-six percent were for less than four nights.” 

These points provide accommodation owners with an idea as to who the demographic are which will be likely to book – and therefore who they should be targeting with their marketing efforts. If you’re directly marketing to increase commission-free bookings, accommodations should always consider the message they want to get across and to whom. Who the demographic is will help dictate which marketing channels should be utilised and how. What we haven’t mentioned is what tools they can use to convert this opportunity to bookings using the Inn Style booking system. 

The toolbox full of tools is only as useful as the tools themselves…

Ok you got me, I made that one up. But as with Rowland’s quote about the changing seasons, so too will you find truth in it. There’s no point in having 50 screwdrivers if they don’t fit the screws which is why we want to show our users exactly how to implement our features but more importantly why these features will help them achieve their goals. So far we’ve told you how we believe our users can identify and market to the ideal demographic (as well as who they are).

We’ve selected a few of Inn Style’s booking system features to make that task seem a little easier…

1. Take control and guide bookers to the type of stays you want them to book with Inn Style’s booking system easily-implemented Length of Stay Pricing. Utilising this pricing type will allow our users to better dictate the terms of a stay and simplify their pricing to maximise their occupancy. 
2. Compliment your pricing strategy with Check In & Check Out Rules to simplify your changeover days. With this tool, users can ensure guests arrive and depart optimally for the business, reducing the heavy lift on those running the accommodation week on week. Furthermore this will help reduce overhead for Housekeeping & provide structure to changeover days. Checkout our Housekeeping Dashboard to further reduce accommodation owner admin & make your housekeeping operations more efficient. 
3. Increase your conversion rate when marketing to new guests by incentivising them with Inn Style’s booking system’s Promotions Feature. Everyone loves a special offer and where guests are looking at multiple properties in the same area, or are looking for that last-minute deal, this feature will turn their looking into a booking.
4. What about turning guests into returning guests? It might feel like we’ve thought of everything here and that’s because it’s our job. Where our users have had guests stay before at specific times or for specific lengths of time, these guests can be incentivised to book again with personalised Discount Codes. Easily create discounted rates for returning guests which will only show when the guest enters the discount code to save time and money on marketing to new guests.
   

Whichever approach Inn Style’s booking system users take to increasing their occupancy by taking advantage of a change in booker behaviour, they know that we’re here to help whenever they need it, wherever they are. If you are not yet an Inn Style booking system customer and you would like some more information or would like to chat with one of our sales team members click here.

If you have any further questions, please do reach out to us via the chat facility within Inn Style or email team@innstyle.co.uk.