InspireStay
InspireStaty helps hotels drive more bookings through email marketing by embedding travel inspirations into outreach campaigns.
Inspiration
The hospitality industry has been hit hard by COVID-19 with travel coming to a complete standstill.
Since the public health crisis began escalating in mid-February in the U.S., hotels have already lost more than $33 billion in room revenue. Individual hotels and major operators are projecting occupancies below 20%. At an occupancy rate of 35% or lower, hotels may simply close their doors, putting 33,000 small businesses at immediate risk.
Travel needs to resume, but it must happen safely! InspireStay was created to help the hospitality industry increase occupancies and generate more revenue by helping hotels inspire safe & unique travel experiences in their city.
What it does
InspireStay will be a SAAS platform for hotel marketers that integrates easily with their existing PMS, CRM, and newsletter platforms. Leverage existing lists or create your own and start sending compelling marketing campaigns via email to former guests to inspire them to travel to your destination and stay with you.
So how does this platform inspire travel? We put the guest first and think about their view of a world still inflicted with the spread of COVID-19.
Here are some of the important thoughts & questions travelers are grappling with before deciding to travel that must be addressed to reassure the guest before their stay:
- We’re really wanting to get out of the house and travel locally, but if we travel to your destination, will we be safe?
- What if a sick traveler stayed in the room before us, has the hotel done enough to clean the room so we are safe?
- When we get there, how can we safely buy food & drink without the worry of infection?
- Where can we go around town that will be a fun, enjoyable experience, but still safe?
How the InspireStay platform helps to address these questions
Former guests that opted into the hotel’s marketing program will receive an email and will look through the travel inspirations, kindling that urge to travel.
When they click the link, they will be taken to a marketing landing page which includes more information about the destination, complete with travel ideas to inspire their visit.
Additionally, to address their safety concerns, there will be a page that showcases the hotel’s current cleaning and safety measures as well as local statistics on COVID-19 cases in the area. All this information should help embolden the guest to feel confident that they are making a smart travel decision, encouraging more guests to book with your hotel.
Hotels using InspireStay can differentiate their brand from other competitors by leveraging the platform to give guests an increased sense of trust and deliver a higher standard of hospitality by playing an active role in their health & well being during their stay.
Guests simply want to know they are being cared for throughout their stay and InspireStay can help hoteliers exceed their expectations.
As hotels know, word of mouth is a powerful tool for driving business and guests will tell their friends and family about their experience, inspiring more guests to stay.
Proud of
The entire landing page can be scrolled horizontally for a smooth and user-friendly experience. It's also mobile-ready and will render flawlessly on the phone.
Next Steps
There are a few features that need completing, mainly the catalog of POIs, Events, and Itineraries. Search capabilities will be added to make it easy to find thematically relevant places for your guest to visit.
Looking to target families? Search for parks, playgrounds, easy walking trails, or places families can picnic. Pick your demographic and get as creative as you want. The power is at your fingertips!
Our parent company, Funtastic PBC, has an existing SAAS product that was created to make your hotel the guests' travel partner, by sending them SMS messages throughout their stay with timely and helpful quarter, half & full-day itineraries, thematically organized, to ensure that the guests experience on and off the property is enjoyable.
We will integrate InpireStay into that platform, allowing your hotel to give your guest a truly high-touch and white glove hospitality experience on their travels.
Built With
I leveraged MongoDB, Loopback (Node.js), VueJS & Vuetify as our tech stack for this hackathon.
APIs & Data
- Eventful API to power Events shown in the app
- Funtastic, PBC home-grown data for powering POI information
Links
I did not have the time to publish this to the web. If you'd like to see more I'm happy to do a live demo. 2 minutes really didn't do all the work I did justice. :)
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