Eight ideas to make your hotel content more engaging for 2025

The battle for the modern traveller's attention is fierce. But the rewards for those who conquer it? Immense. 

When it comes to hotel content, it’s not just about writing great copy, you need to be strategic. 

A robust content strategy helps to increase direct bookings, build brand loyalty and enhance the guest experience, ultimately driving your overall venue.

Statista surveys show that the vast majority of travellers (72 per cent) prefer to book their trips online. This makes online travel content hugely important for your brand.

You may feel like you’ve exhausted all those hotel content ideas, you’ve written the blog posts and published them on social media, but now you’re stuck. By thinking outside the box, you can keep your brand fresh and your readers engaged. We're talking about content that breaks the mould, backed by a marketing strategy that's as bold as it is effective. 

Buckle up, because we're about to explore the most dynamic and creative hotel content ideas that will ignite your content marketing campaign and help you reach more travellers with exciting content they want to read. 

Embrace the influencers

Beyond fleeting mentions and generic endorsements, true influencer marketing is about forging strategic partnerships that resonate with your ideal guest. It's not just about reach; it's about relevance.

Begin with the crucial first step – defining your ideal guest persona. A marketing director needs to know who they're trying to reach before they can find the right influencer. Consider the interests, values and favourite social media platforms of your typical audience member to build a strategic foundation.

The global influencer marketing market size has grown threefold since 2020, and experts predict the market will reach a record of about £24.7 billion by the end of 2025.

Forget trying to connect with influencers who boast hundreds of thousands of followers. You want to tap into highly engaged niche communities and build genuine connections. 

Carefully select influencers with a laser focus on your target demographic—think adventurers, culinary explorers, an interest in fashion, luxury seekers who travel with pets—anything that could link in with your brand and showcase your hotel to a slightly different, but relevant, audience. 

There are three different types of influencers. Consider which is right for your brand:

• Nano-influencers (1k-10k followers): Focus on authentic, hyper-local engagement. They're great for showcasing a suite, a local restaurant, or a specific amenity (like a child-friendly feature).

• Micro-influencers (10k-100k followers): Provide a good balance of reach and engagement. They're perfect for targeted campaigns, such as showcasing a wellness package or a city break experience.

• Macro-influencers (100k+ followers): They can be powerful for a specific, high-visibility launch or event, but require a significant budget and a clear ROI plan.

Collaborate closely with your chosen influencers to craft authentic, compelling content that seamlessly integrates your brand narrative. This means co-creating captivating stories and high-quality visuals, and curating personalised recommendations that feel genuine and resonate deeply with their followers.

Maximise your ROI by moving beyond simple shout-outs. Consider long-term collaborations, exclusive content series, or even co-hosted events. This fosters deeper engagement and builds lasting brand loyalty. 

Utilise key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure impact. The likes of click-through rates (CTRs) from the influencer’s link, cost per acquisition (CPA), conversion rates (bookings) and guest feedback from the influencer are all valuable.

Create strategic partnerships

Stop thinking of tourism boards simply as distribution channels. They're strategic partners waiting to be activated. You can maximise these partnerships with a little pre-planning before you approach them.

First, keep it niche. Yes, you can go directly to the tourist board and simply present a partnership idea, but why not start by looking at the areas they’re trying to promote, eco-tourism perhaps, culinary experiences or luxury travel? 

Then, think about how you can create exclusive, high-value content to support them. Tourism boards often lack the resources for in-depth content creation. As a hotel brand, you can fill that gap by providing city guides, insider tips or unique travel itineraries such as luxury spa experiences. This way, you provide them with valuable resources that showcase your brand. 

Why not collaborate on creating premium assets like interactive e-books or data-driven reports? You could even work together on immersive virtual tours or host a press event or a familiarisation trip for travel agents and journalists. Another innovative idea is to co-create a mini-documentary with the tourism board about a local festival, with the hotel serving as the “home base.”

Utilize booking data. Share insights on where guests are coming from and their booking windows. This helps the tourism board understand a specific market.

Also, track guest behaviour, sharing anonymised data on which local attractions guests visit most often. This helps the tourism board identify popular trends and promote specific areas.

Go social, go viral

It’s the marketing dream to hit on an idea that goes viral for all the right reasons. But it isn’t a fluke, virality is a byproduct of strategic content planning and genuine community engagement. 

The “Social Media Funnel” describes how your content guides potential guests through the customer journey. At the top of the funnel, content should focus on Awareness, aiming to capture attention with broad, engaging material that showcases your hotel's unique offerings and inspires travel. 

Next is the Consideration stage. This involves content that is more detailed and focused on answering questions and highlighting specific amenities or experiences.

Decision stage content aims to persuade, with compelling reasons to book, such as promotions, testimonials, or direct calls to action. Finally, the Loyalty stage involves content created to maintain engagement with past guests.

Create a content pillar framework to focus your marketing efforts. Build this around three to five core concepts – for example, these could be sustainability, culinary experiences, boutique design and local adventure. 

Actively track conversations around your brand, competitors and the industry on social media and the wider internet. This is the concept of ‘social listening’, and it’s vital for improving customer experience, developing new offerings and boosting your bottom line. Social listening also helps to quickly identify negativity around your brand. 

Become a travel guide

Elevate that hotel blog from a digital brochure to a dynamic destination hub that drives engagement, boosts SEO, and positions your brand as the local authority.

By harnessing destination storytelling, you’re providing more relevant information for travellers who want to visit. You can immerse them in experiences and offer local insights that help inspire their imagination and book that trip.

Create comprehensive destination guides that go beyond superficial overviews. This can be implemented in the form of a content hub, with the guide as a central resource and various categories and sub-categories linked together. This is an advanced SEO strategy that has a big impact on your online visibility and your audience’s user experience.

For example, “How to Spend 48 Hours in Berlin” These in-depth guides are highly searchable, high-value pieces of content that can position your hotel as an expert on the local area. Also, create more niche content. A “Guide to Wedding Venues in Santorini”, for example, targets a very specific and valuable audience, showcasing the hotel as a potential venue.

Build partnerships with local businesses and create content to showcase these links to the community. Promote local events and festivals, and encourage guests to share their experiences on social media, which you can repackage and feature on your blog.

Remember, it’s not just about words. You need high-quality imagery and you can create interactive elements like maps and quizzes to increase engagement. Track what content does well and invest in keeping it fresh and up-to-date. 

Don’t forget those SEO keywords, either. You want to include more niche, longtail keywords that improve your chances of ranking in search engine results for specific interests and experiences.  For example, instead of just “restaurants in Miami”, suggest a more specific keyword cluster like “best rooftop bars with a view of the Miami skyline”.

Harness interactive content

Imagine transporting potential guests directly to your hotel, no matter where they are. That's the power of virtual reality (VR). 

According to a report by Market.us, the global virtual reality (VR) in tourism market is predicted to reach a staggering USD 59.9 billion by 2033. Forward-thinking hotels are harnessing this revolutionary technology to create an experience for guests before they even arrive.

Go beyond 30-degree tours and create VR experiences that allow people to explore your hotel and even “meet” staff members. Showcase your destination and let people immerse themselves in the local culture and sights. 

Partner with tourist boards and travel agencies to showcase VR experiences at events, and use VR experiences to create shareable content online. 

Create a travel podcast

The popularity of podcasts is partly owed to the fact that they can be easily consumed anytime and anywhere. So why not create a travel podcast? It’s a convenient form of engagement for guests and is easily shareable.

When creating a podcast, don’t be afraid to get specific. You can narrow down your target audience to a very niche subject if needed, and tailor your content towards them.

Consider how the podcast drives bookings. Are you addressing your potential guests? Does it build brand awareness? Is the aim to inspire audiences to travel? Perhaps it’s a B2B focused podcast, with an intention to create collaborations with other brands? Your intended audience will shape the overall style of your podcast.

You can choose to do a monologue podcast, which features only you, recording at any time you find convenient. You might opt for a conversational podcast that involves a co-host and maybe even guests in an interview format. 

Alternatively, you could commit to the interview format even more wholeheartedly with an interview podcast where you speak to an expert. A travel podcast could incorporate travel stories or travelogues. And remember, you can repurpose this content for use on your blog and on social media.

Become a star of the small screen

Video is the ultimate storytelling medium, capable of transporting viewers directly into the heart of your hotel experience. And it’s more popular than ever – a recent Hubspot study found that people spend an average of 17 hours a week watching videos.

Go beyond promotional videos. Create a diverse content strategy that harnesses the power of storytelling, showcases your destination, features guest stories and goes behind the scenes. 

You can offer virtual 360-degree tours of hotel rooms and amenities, but you can also embrace livestreaming events and incorporate interactive elements such as polls and clickable hotspots to encourage exploration.

Remember to optimise for YouTube with compelling titles, engaging descriptions and keywords. If you’re on a limited budget, consider high-quality short-form videos on social media.

Build a strong email database

Don’t underestimate the enduring power of email. If your email marketing strategy has been abandoned, it’s time to pick it back up. 

Start with segmentation. Don’t blast everyone with generic content. Segment based on demographics and booking patterns, interest and engagement levels. Consider separating out business travellers, families and leisure travellers. Then craft content that will really engage them.

The guest lifecycle is an excellent guide for email marketing campaigns. Think of it like this:

• Pre-booking: A sequence of emails for potential guests who abandon a booking.

• Pre-arrival: A helpful email series that includes a welcome message, key information about their stay and offers like dinner reservations, spa bookings. Share exclusive destination guides, insider tips and curated itineraries. Provide personalised recommendations based on guest preferences.

• Post-stay: An email to encourage a review, a thank you note and a personalised offer for a future stay.

Remember, your subject lines need to sing and you should engage A/B testing to see what works best for open rates. Use metrics to optimise your efforts. These should involve:

• Click-Through Rate (CTR): What percentage of people clicked a link in the email?

• Conversion Rate: How many bookings or add-on purchases resulted directly from the email?

• List Growth Rate: How quickly is the email list expanding and where are the new subscribers coming from?

• Return on Investment (ROI): Email marketing as a high-ROI activity, with low costs compared to paid advertising. The returns can be significant.

Final thoughts

In the competitive travel landscape, captivating hotel content is your ultimate weapon. Travellers are hungry for inspiration and eager to discover their next escape.  

So make the most of the opportunity and craft compelling content for different platforms. It’s a chance to showcase your hotel's unique personality and the allure of your destination. 

When you position your brand as an expert and inspire wanderlust, it can convert into increased bookings. Looking to nail down your content strategy? We can help you reach your KPIs. Contact Peregryn for more information.

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