3 Ways to Attract Millennials to Your Hotel

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When it comes to marketing your business, we can’t stress the importance of targeting millennials enough. These thirty-something-year-olds make up a powerful audience of tech-savvy individuals with disposable incomes, a love of travel, and a thirst for life.

This group is also completely unlike the travelers who came before them. Millennials have a different set of values and expectations, which means that the traditional outbound marketing techniques and advertising channels that enticed their predecessors to buy aren’t going to work on this generation of consumers.

Millennials are all about experiencing everything life has to offer and differentiating themselves by flouting conventions and taking part in something special.

To help you understand how to market your hotel to millennials so that you can better connect with this burgeoning demographic, we’ve got three quick tips for you. You may already be doing one or two of these things without even realizing it, which is great. But don’t stop there. Find ways to fine tune those marketing actions while exploring our ideas below.

Go mobile

This group of travelers is tech savvy. Millennials grew up with the Internet and navigate it like pros. They’re their own travel agents and they’re always on the go. Almost half of them research their travel plans via mobile devices. And 85% of them own a smartphone. They use it to stay in touch, connect on social media, take photos, and make purchases.

To grab their attention, you need to ensure that your website and online profiles look good on mobile devices. List your hotel on metasearch and booking platforms with mobile-responsive websites and apps. When you do, potential guests will be able to check out your hotel on whatever device it is they’re using to search for and book accommodations. If you want to update your own website with a responsive, clean, and modern layout as well, look into intuitive DIY website-building tools such as Squarespace.

Get social

It’s amazing the number of businesses that don’t use social media to their advantage. Social media is absolutely an indispensable marketing channel. People are sharing their thoughts, ideas, and photos with the world on sites like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. To be successful as a brand, you need to be #listening to these conversations. And responding.

Sign up for Google Alerts or Mention to get filtered results right to your email daily. Want to see if people are talking about your hotel or travel company right now? Head over to Twitter or Facebook and search for the name of your property or business on these sites. If people have talked about it, you’ll see it come up in the results within seconds.

Head over to our article “Social Media for Hotels: 5 trivago Awards Winners That Are Nailing It” for more ideas on how to use social media to boost your brand awareness, better your online reputation, and boost your bookings.

Market the lifestyle, not the product

Millennials live for memorable experiences, not products. They want to feel that they’re a part of something unique, and they’re constantly on the lookout for matchless opportunities.

Instead of trying to sell them your hotel room, tell them about the history, culture, and unique surroundings that define your property. Illustrate and promote a lifestyle on social media by uploading eye-catching photos or videos of the food, sights, and sounds of your locale. Once you’ve caught their attention, they’ll quickly see that you provide accommodations as well.


Readers can find more insights into millennial-focused hotel marketing in “Attract Millennials Like a Peer-to-Peer Accommodation” and “Why You Should Market Your Hotel to Millennials This Summer.”

Looking for a way to send millennial travelers to your website to book direct?  We can help.

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