MARKETING STRATEGIES DURING COVID-19 ATTACK HOSPITALITY

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic is the first identified coronavirus pandemic in 
December 2019 in Wuhan, China (WHO, 2020). And Indonesia for the first time 
confirmed a case of COVID-19 on 2 March 2020 with Mr President Joko Widodo 
announced that two Indonesians had tested positive for the corona virus.

The Tourism Office is divided into four fields, namely the Tourism Industry, 
Tourism Destinations, Tourism Resources, and Marketing. Each field has a different task in the Tourism Office. The current program is not yet fully operational because during the current pandemic and can't participate in many large eventssuch as Travel Fairs, distribution of brochures to several Travel Agents and Hotels, and participating in Sports Tourism held by several institutions. 

As a result of this pandemic, the tourism industry has experienced a disaster regarding hotel occupancy which has decreased over time, therefore hotel employees are forced to be laid of.

Marketing Strategy

Marketing strategy is a method used by an entrepreneur to satisfy consumers, with the aim of making a profit. In the business world, of course we cannot be separated from a marketing or promotion process to increase sales and income.

It is also undeniable that this rapid growth has also caused the level of competition between tourism entrepreneurs to become increasingly fierce, especially those who have businesses in the hospitality sector.

The following is a marketing system in tourism :

1. Offer Your Potential Guests a Unique Experience

Hotels are now too often marketed with frills of features and advantages that seem "mainstream or ordinary", for example, strategic location, facilities, and luxury.

2. Never Price War

Don't make your hotel the cheapest hotel, but make it the best hotel according to the target market and where your hotel is established. Some tourists are willing to pay a premium price for a unique and interesting experience.

3. Active On Social Media

Social media is a very effective marketing tool for travel and tourism businesses. Good relations with guests through social media can increase guest loyalty to continue staying at your hotel.

4. Collaborate with Travel Aggregators

Usually tourists use the services of this travel aggregator to make hotel reservation, accommodation and even tour packages.

Because of the various conveniences and facilities offered, it's only natural that now many people prefer to book various travel needs (hotel rooms and airplanes) through websites from these travel aggregators.

5. Use the Power of Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing tools to increase your hotel occupancy. According to campaignmonitor.com, the ROI level for email marketing has a value of 3800% and IDR 380,000 for every IDR 10,000 you spend doing email marketing.This pattern can be used to attract guests who have stayed at your hotel with promos via email at the right times, for example when facing Chinese New Year celebrations.

Strategy Implementer

From the research results, the strategy used is the 7P marketing strategy (Price, Product, Place, Promotion, People, Physical Evidence, and Process). During the pandemic, the sales marketing team issued prepaid voucher products, for guests, promotions within the city and also outside the city (sales calls, telemarketing and sales trips), updated meeting room capacity, provided special prices for several meeting packages, the role of each department, there was hygiene kit and also the process for implementing this strategy. The 7P Marketing Mix has proven to work well, because during its implementation the hotel received many events from guests. However, of course there were also obstacles encountered during the implementation of the 7P strategy, especially when conducting sales calls and sales trips, several  offices and areas were in the red zone so they could not be visited, several events were not held because the hotel was fully booked, there was the corona virus, and also postponed until further notice (postpone until further notice).

• Price 

Work closely with the reservation team to determine the price as attractive as possible, of course with the permission of the corporate hotel and approval by the General Manager.

• Product

Offers quest products such as facilities, spa, stay packages

• Place

Make pick-up and drop-off forms for guests who want to travel to the airport via beldesk so that it's easy for guests to travel without picking up outside the hotel.

• Promotion

Promote digital stay packages on various social media to attract customers at affordable prices

• People

All departments must work together as a team, compact in maintaining guest 

harmony. services performed to guests must follow the SOP of the hotel

• Physical Evidence

Maintain good relations with Tour and Travel, event organizers, and voucher 

agents such as Traveloka, Agoda, Tiket.com and others. Make changes or what is 

commonly called massive discounts for long stays and long term meetings, in order to 

attract a lot of domestic customers

• Process

If you have implemented the 7P strategy for the front office department, you must 

monitor hotel occupancy statistics every week and make a report addressed to the 

general manager and forwarded to the corporate department. besides that this step can also help hotels to reach their occupancy rate on the tourism service board so that 

they will more easily appear on various social media.

Provider Treatment

Providing a place in the hotel lobby for treatment, for example opening a stand for vaccines, blood tests, PCR tests, getting a health certificate, and getting advice on how to prevent Covid 19 properly and correctly.