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Image Credit Tripleseat
A deep understanding of your hotel compset is crucial for the continued success of your property. Your comp set identifies who your competitors are, and what they offer. By discovering all this valuable data, you understand how consumers are comparing hotel operations and choosing where to stay based on this information.
Consumers want to find the best value and guest experience for their money. They are already analyzing room rates, special packages, services, amenities, and more. Knowing this information can significantly impact how you position your property, attract more business, and ultimately, drive revenue. Here's a closer look at how to define your competitor set and leverage this knowledge to strategize to become the top hotel choice.
What is the Definition of Hotel Compset?
If you are new to the term, hotel compset, short for competitor set. It refers to a group of hotels that are considered direct competitors to each other because they target the same customer base and offer similar products or services. This group of competitors typically includes hotels in the same geographic area and share similar attributes such as price range, hotel class (like luxury or budget), amenities, and guest experiences. Different than your hotel’s SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), your hotel compset can be used alongside your SWOT. It will allow you to take away what makes your hotel unique and to strategize marketing initiatives and business strategies.
How to Use a Hotel Compset
Hoteliers like you can use a compset to benchmark performance metrics such as room rates, occupancy rates, and revenue per available room (RevPAR). By comparing these metrics, you can identify strengths and weaknesses relative to your competition and adjust your marketing strategies, pricing, and service offerings to improve your market position. This concept is crucial for strategic planning and operational adjustments in the hospitality industry. Don’t feel you have to copy your competitors but rather use the information on your compset to improve your value proposition.
Regularly research your competitors’ offerings, including their packages, amenities, and marketing approaches. A practical method to keep informed is by subscribing to their email newsletters. Additionally, setting up Google alerts for hotel names and relevant keywords like “property renovations” or “sponsorship” can help you stay abreast of industry changes. Analyze what your compset provides to guests and strive to enhance these offerings to distinguish your hotel from the competition.
Periodically review your compset, ideally every six months. This ensures you’re not benchmarking against hotels that may have closed, relocated, renovated, or rebranded.
Top Factors to Include in Your Hotel Compset
When identifying your competitors in the hotel industry, several key factors should be considered to ensure you’re making accurate and useful comparisons:
Location
Proximity is a primary factor. Hotels geographically close to yours, especially those in the same city or region, typically cater to similar markets and guest demographics.
Reviews/Number of Stars
The level of service and quality your hotel offers compared to similarly ranked properties helps align expectations and market positioning.
Property Size
Comparing your hotel with others of a similar size or guest capacity can provide insights into operational scale and potential market share.
Property Type
Whether your property is a boutique hotel, a resort, or a business hotel influences the type of guests you attract and directly competes with similar types.
Event Space Offerings
The size, variety, and quality of event spaces are crucial for hotels focusing on group sales and events. Comparing these can help you understand your competitive edge or identify areas for improvement.
What are the Benefits of Understanding Your Hotel Compset?
There are lots of benefits to your business. Recognizing who your competitors are and what they offer equips you with the necessary data to:
Effectively Market Your Property
By understanding your strengths and unique offerings, you can craft marketing messages that highlight what sets your property apart from others. This tailored approach helps in attracting potential clients who are looking for what you uniquely provide.
Offer Competitive Packages and Rates
Knowing competitors’ pricing and packages allows you to adjust your rates or create compelling packages that provide better value, enticing prospects to choose your property over others.
Set Benchmarks
Knowing the amenities, services, and extras offered by competitors helps you set benchmarks for your own hotel. This ensures you are not just keeping up but are a step ahead in what you offer, enhancing your marketability and appeal.
Capitalize on This Knowledge
With a thorough understanding of your competitor landscape, you can strategically use this information to enhance your business operations and revenue:
Drive More Business
You can attract more groups and event bookings by aligning your marketing strategies and offerings with what the market demands and competitors lack. This focused approach helps in capturing a larger share of the market.
Enhance Guest Experience
Leveraging competitive insights can help refine your guest experience, ensuring that you meet or exceed the industry standards and guest expectations.
Utilize the Right System for Group Sales – Tripleseat for Hotels
To efficiently manage the increased business and maintain high standards of guest satisfaction, it’s essential to have robust systems and technology in place. An all-in-one platform like Tripleseat for Hotels enables your team to manage bookings, events, and customer relationships seamlessly, ensuring every guest has the best experience possible.
Understanding your competitors in the hotel group sales market is not about imitating what others are doing but rather about finding and leveraging your unique position. By carefully analyzing your hotel compset and using strategic insights to refine your offerings and operations, you can not only stay competitive but also excel in a crowded market. Ensuring that your hotel uses top-notch systems like Tripleseat will help maintain this competitive edge by enabling impeccable service delivery and operational efficiency. Request a demo to learn more today!
Elizabeth Smith
Elizabeth is the Hotel Marketing Manager at Tripleseat. Connect with Elizabeth on LinkedIn.