From Zero to Iconic: Building a Lasting Hotel Brand Identity

What’s hotel Branding?

     Hotel branding encompasses more than just the name, logo, trademarks, mode, and tone of your hotels. It represents everything your hotel branding embodies and how your guests perceive your establishment.

     A brand encompasses a collection of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that are intertwined. These factors play a significant role in guests’ decision-making process when selecting one service over another.

     Effective hotel brand building ensures that guests can easily recall your image and logo while also capturing the value proposition of your hotel. Therefore, it is crucial for a hotel brand to establish authenticity, trust, and value.

     Best example of successful hotel branding is Marriott. The mention of Marriott evokes thoughts of luxurious, premium, and high-quality destination hotels. This is precisely how they portray their brand, and it is also the perspective their clients have towards their brand.

What’s Brand Identity?

 

     Brand Identity is a distinct brand image, such as Color, Design, Logo and trademark. These are all about cultivating a certain image in consumers’ minds.

     So hotels should have created a brand identity that clearly communicates what the hotel is all about. A clear brand identity tells customers what to expect without actually telling them verbally. 

     The keys element to build the brand identity are: 

Brand Name

      The name of your brand is often the very first thing that customers will encounter and reflect on our brand. Choosing the right name for your brand is a crucial problem which we all commonly face because it is a very critical part of determining your brand reputation. 

      Not only should we name our brand to be authentic, distinctive, unique from your competing hotel, but it should be easy and memorable which also reflects our target audience and branding.

Design Style

     What colors, image or font will you use on your brand? The style a hotel uses can say a lot about the type of property it is, mode and tone, target audience and what to expect. from the brand. 

     There is no right or wrong to design or choose your style, it’s free and varies depending on your hotel character. 

Logo

     If we talk about logos, it’s a symbol to represent your brand. Commontly, they use views, beaches, leaf, three as symbols to represent the eco-friendly hotel and sustainability brand. 

     The simple and minimal are speaking more volume. As we know the apple logo, it is just an apple with a small bite. It’s very simple and easy to memorize. We know what it’s just at our first glance. 

     So do not over think about the logo, make it simple and reflect your brand. 

Typography 

     Your font choice speaks volumes about your business. It evokes emotions, triggers memories, and forges connections. Choose wisely to convey the desired image and connect with your audience.

     It specially has to align with the logo, design style and name of your brand. For instance, in luxury and boutique hotels, you may choose fonts which are elegant and fancy. 

Why is hotel branding important

 

     Hotel branding is so much more than just design, choosing logo, style and font to represent your brand. Creating a powerful brand image give brand hotelier opportunity to:

• It helps to manage your hotel’s reputation due to the impact of how customers view your business.
• Build trust with your customer base. Hotel branding delivers a consistent guest experience from every beginning of the customer journey.
• Add value to your business, if you have strong branding it will help to add value to your hotel where people are willing to pay to get the best service as they want.

Strategies to build the Hotel Branding 

     Every hotelier goal of developing your brand is that your hotels will receive more recognition, with more general awareness from customers about what your brand means.

     This also should help to lower your cost of marketing over time and enable you to steadily increase revenue and profits. 

      Here are strategies to build a stronger hotel branding:

Develop a marketing strategy:

     Successful hotel branding starts with creating a team-wide brand marketing strategy. So throughout the whole branding process so ensure that everyone is on the same, providing consistent content and working toward the same goal. 

     Also every campaign and marketing, you have to reflect on your brand so that’s how people start to remember your brand.

Be Unique

     While the technology is growing fast, so do the guest expectations. You have to find uniqueness in your brand. It does have to be something new, but you might have to make simple things to be good so there is a reason to choose you over your competitor.

Develop a brand Philosophy

      Brand philosophy encompasses the brand’s approach, beliefs, and methodology. It revolves around answering the fundamental question of why the brand operates the way it does. Once a hotel can articulate a clear response to this question, it establishes its unique brand philosophy.

     This brand philosophy serves as a powerful tool for branding, enabling existing and potential customers to recognize and associate the hotel with distinctive qualities and values.

Develop an Emotional connection with your audience

     Creating an emotional connection with your audience is vital. Research indicates that consumers often make decisions driven by emotions rather than purely logical reasoning. By providing your customers with compelling narratives that resonate with them, you offer them a reason to care about your hotel and how it can benefit them.

Target a specific market

      Targeting the right audience is crucial when it comes to reflecting your brand effectively. While it may seem logical to target anyone interested in staying at our hotel, the reality is that not everyone can be the target audience.

     If your hotel aims to attract high-end customers, it is essential that your brand exudes luxury and sophistication. Consequently, budget-conscious travelers or backpackers may not be able to afford the prices or find the accessibility suitable for their needs. Backpackers primarily seek to minimize their expenses, whereas high-end customers have distinct preferences and requirements.

     Therefore, it is vital to carefully select your target audience and ensure that your brand caters to their specific needs.

Summary

    Hotel branding encompasses more than just names, logos, and designs. It represents the overall perception and experience guests have of a hotel. A successful brand establishes authenticity, trust, and value, making it easily recognizable and memorable for guests. 

    Brand identity, including elements like colors, logos, and typography, plays a crucial role in communicating the hotel’s essence without relying on words. Hotel branding is essential for managing reputation, building trust, and adding value to the business. 

    If you are looking for an agency to consult on branding to build a stronger brand identity or effective marketing, The KPI Plus is happy to provide you with a free consultation.