Selling techniques in Hotels & Hospitality Industry

Welcome to a
new learning
session!
Knowledge is Money.

Marketing & Sales in Hospitality

What is the use of this chapter?
You learnt in the chapter on guest cycle that
every interaction between hotel and guest
always has two aspects:
1. Service
2. Finances
This chapter will give you a better understanding
of the financial aspects of your future work, as
hospitality professionals, managers and
leaders.

What is Marketing?
• It means to reach the buyers in the market,
real and online. The purpose is to inform the
possible buyer so as to promote our brand.
• Why would anyone buy from us,
if they don’t even know us?!!!!

What is Selling?
• It is the final step when a possible buyer,
actually decides to buy and agrees to pay.
• All people that we approach will not agree to
buy from us.
• This is the hardest part: to convince someone
to take money out from their pockets…
€…… £…… ¥.
• …and give it to us! 

Is doing sales difficult?
• If you don’t learn how to sell, it is a matter of
luck!
• If you know how to sell, you command your
career and professional progress.
• You can actually demand a salary, in
proportion to your sales volumes!
• Some of the best paid professionals are from
sales.

Is Marketing difficult, then?!
• Yes.
• You have to do a lot of research and analysis to
even begin to understand the marketing
process.
• No two products are same and therefore,
marketing has to be a continuous cycle of
learning and unlearning.
• Market themselves are in a constant state of
change.
• However, if marketing is done well, then selling
becomes much easier.

Is Marketing the Same as Selling?
Marketing is an overall Organisational activity
that includes, the planning, pricing, promotion,
packaging, advertising and selling, of any
Product/Service/Idea, which offers value to an
end-user .
Selling is therefore only a part of the
overall Marketing of any Product and there lies
the difference.

Value in Marketing?
• Value is a customer’s thinking or perception.
The value is the simple equation;
Benefits of purchase – Price of purchase =
Value of the product/service/idea ( in the mind
of the customer).
• Greater the value of a product in the
customer’s mind, higher will be the demand
for that product.

Need
Want
Value
Satisfaction
Demand Quality
Concepts Related To Marketing

Need, Want & Demand
All living things have needs. E.g. (Food)
Physiological, Social & Self-Respect
Want is an expression of a need. “I want
sugar-free sweets”.
A demand is created when the want is
backed by willingness and ability to pay.

Product satisfies a stated (said) as well as
hidden
needs/wants/demands of a customer..
Value is the customer’s thoughts about the
product being a good bargain or not.
Satisfaction is the mental judgement of a
purchase. E.g. Not as expected, just as
expected, better than expected.

The ISO 9000:2015 and ISO 9001:2015
standards are based on seven quality
management principles that senior
management can apply for
organizational improvement:
Quality is a
product’s
ability to
satisfy a
customer’s
needs.

Flow of information
about products
SellerBuyer Market
Flow
Of
Money
Flow
Of
Products
Feedback to
Seller/ Producer
• Product
• Price
• Promotion
• Place
• People
• Process
• Physical
Evidence
Marketing
Process
Overview

The Marketing Mix
It is a combination of factors in the marketing plan,
which can be controlled by a company to influence
consumers to purchase its products.

7 Ps of Service Marketing Mix
1. Product- what to sell, to whom, why?
2. Price- great value for buyer, profitable for seller
3. Place- where to sell, how to sell?
4. Promotion- publicity, ads, schemes to attract
5. People- Those giving service are important
6. Process- time, steps to serve (easy or irritating?)
7. Physical Evidence- intangible service backed by
photo, sample, familiarization tour etc. to
convince a new buyer.

The Marketing Mix:
Every marketing activity is aimed to satisfy the
customer. The buying and selling is helped by
the 7 P’s of marketing mix. These are under the
control of organizations.
But, there are other factors that affect all
marketing and sales activity, and organizations
are not able to control them. Coronavirus, for
example!
They are shown on a diagram in the next slide.

Product
PlacePrice
Promotion
People Process
Physical
Evidence
Physical
Environment
Social &
Cultural
Environment
Political
Condition
General
Law &
Order Situation

What Are Market Segments?
• All customers are not same. But, it is possible
to have a broad classification on the basis of
one or more common characteristic, such as,
disposable income, age, gender, city, religion
etc. so that marketing team can adjust the 7
p’s of hotel to make the offer attractive to a
particular segment.
• Hotel guests are broadly classified into two
segments;
Group (GIT) & Transient (FIT)

8%
3%
41%
17%
10%
21%
Sales
FIT- Business
FIT-Leisure
Corporate
MICE
Travel Agent
Tour Operator

Market Segments
Group
Market
Corporate
MICE
Travel Agent
Tour operator
Long Stay Guests
Transient
market
Business
Traveller
Leisure
Traveller

Sales Technique
• Personal Sales: The sales person personally
visits the prospective buyer to make a sale.
• Telephone Sales: The sales person makes calls
to prospective buyer, by taking an
appointment with the prospective buyer.

Seven Steps to Successful Personal
Selling
• Step 1: Prospecting and Qualifying.
• Step 2: Pre-approach.
• Step 3: Approach.
• Step 4: Presentation.
• Step 5: Handling Objections.
• Step 6: Closing the Sale.
• Step 7: Following Up.

Step
No.
Step Name Activities
1. Prospecting &
Qualifying
Making a list of people/Companies/ agencies that might
be interested in hotel products & services.
2. Pre-Approach Learning about the product, researching the client and
competing brands.
3. Approach Asking the client for the time of an appointment, to
present.
4. Presentation To deliver the presentation in front of the decision-making
authority, to convince.
5. Handling
Objections
Clients are always reluctant to make a big investment and
may have many doubts & objections.
6. Closing the
Sale
This is to ask the client to finally decide, in favour of the
company.
7. Following-Up Follow- up is to check for guest satisfaction. If guests are
happy, company may expect repeat business.

Sales Technique For Front Office Staff
Most of the sale of hotel rooms come from
Marketing & Sales department of a hotel. Hotel
only generates sale from direct calls, fax, e-mail
etc.
Front office staff , however, can learn the
following sales technique to be able to generate
more revenue at local level.

In-House Sales Techniques
• Overbooking
• Relationship Selling
• Upselling
• Suggestive Selling
• Cross Selling

Overbooking: A Necessary Risk
• Practice of accepting more reservations than the
number of available rooms is overbooking.
• Hotel reservations also get cancelled or
amended. If the cancellation is made near the
date of expected check-in, it may be difficult to
again sell that room.
• Some guests do not come (No Show) without
informing hotel.
• Hotel suffers financial loss due to that.
• To minimize this risk, hotels overbook rooms,
after studying the past data on % of cancellation
& No Show.

Handling Overbooking
• It is possible that sometimes, more guests arrive
for check-in than the number of rooms available.
• Simply, apologize and offer to accommodate
them for 1 night in a nearby comparable
property. Ask them if they would like to return.
• Arrange transport & provide luggage assistance.
• All hotels & airlines overbook.
• Don’t feel guilty.
• Safe or sorry?!!!

Relationship Selling
• Hotels maintain guest history, take regular
feedback through Guest relations Executive
and try to please the guest through highly
personalized services.
• Marketing team keeps sending regular
greetings and new offers to these guests.
• This is selling through a relationship based on
mutual understanding, trust and respect.

Upselling
• Upselling is a sales technique where a seller
induces (motivates) the customer to purchase
more expensive items, upgrades or other add-
ons in an attempt to make a more profitable
sale. ... In practice, large businesses usually
combine upselling and cross-selling to
maximize profit.
• The suggestion is made after a careful analysis
that the original product may not satisfy the
guest needs fully.
• There are three techniques of Upselling.

Top-Down or Door-in-the-Face method
• Start with highest rate.
• Used with customers asking for ‘best 'product.
Bottom-Up or Foot-in-the-Door Method
• Start with lowest rate.
• Used with guest asking for discount and cheapest
options (best rates).
Mid-Rate Shift or Choice-of-Doors Method
• Start with medium rates.
• Used with guests who give no indication or
preference. Decide the next rate after guest response.

Cross-Sell & Upsell Comparison

Suggestive Selling
• Suggestive selling is a sales technique where
the employee asks the customer if they would
like to include an additional purchase, or
recommends a product which might suit the
client. E.g. Salad before meal, dessert after the
meal.
• Suggestive selling is used to increase the
purchase amount of the client and revenues
of the business.

Cross Selling or Link Selling
• Encouraging a customer who buys a product
(petrol, for example) to buy a related or
complementary product (engine oil,
for example).
• E.g. Telling about the hotel points-of-sale, such
as restaurant, bar & spa at Check-in.
• Cross-selling is generally illegal if there is a tie-
in between the two products; where the
customer must buy one in order to buy the
other.

Discount & Down Selling
• Discount is a deduction from the normal price of
something.
• Discount could be genuine (during off season or for
wholesale).
• Discount could be artificial, where the price is first
increased, and then a discount is offered.
• An effective technique to increasing sales is to offer
certain products at a steep discount, which are called
loss leaders. The importance of loss leaders is the
ability to draw new customers into your hotel.
• Once inside a hotel, they may buy many new things
on an impulse (strong, sudden desire).

Down Selling
• A concept in internet marketing, where the
company offers an alternative product, at a
lower price, after the customer had said no to
the first product.

I hope I could be of some help?

Compilation & Presentation
Praveen Jha
Senior Faculty
IHM Hajipur
Vaishali, Bihar

Selling techniques in Hotels & Hospitality Industry

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