Marketing tricks and treats to try at your hotel this Halloween

We bet you’ve lost count of how many times guests have told you how much they appreciate the care and consideration you have toward your decorations and personal touches at your property, and we’re sure this is only amplified during the holiday season.

But as you lovingly put up your Halloween or fall-themed decorations, are you thinking about your website? It’s important to remember that your website is an extension of your property, so anything happening at the property should be represented on the site as well. We thought it’d be fun to round up some of our favorite Halloween decorations, recipes, and website updates from hotels around the country to give you some ideas for the upcoming holiday season.

Decorations:

This one is a little bit closer to home for us, but the Oxford Hotel in Denver, CO goes to great lengths to celebrate the spooky holiday with its decorations and homage to its haunted history. With several ghost stories to tell, they decorate appropriately for this selling point and aren’t afraid to play it up for the guests.

We also appreciate the outdoor decorations at Town & Country Inn and Resort in New Hampshire. You could even turn your Halloween decorations into an activity for your guests, schedule a few sessions where guests can gather outside and carve pumpkins that’ll stay on your property. It’s a fun experience for your guests and you’ll have quite the variety of decorations to showcase for the holiday.

Website content

Eden Vale Inn added fall-themed content to its website to promote autumn activities and updated the homepage with in-season photographs showing what the current season looks like in their region. If the leaves change colors in your region, you should have those photos appearing first on your site in your rotating banner. If it’s already snowing, you should have snow or winter time images on your site instead of showing how beautiful and sunny it is in the summer as it gives guests the wrong expectations. Guests expect to get what they see on your site, so make sure what’s showing on your website is an accurate representation of what’s happening at the property now.

You can also invest time in creating blogs about seasonal events or activities or promoting certain pages of your website dedicated to popular attractions in fall, such as Inn at Lake Joseph's fall foliage page:

Social media

Hotel Valley Ho shows off their Halloween spirit on social media with an engaging post asking fans to vote on the hotel staff’s Halloween decorations. It’s an easy and creative way to drive engagement on their social channels.

We also like what The Queen Victoria did on their Facebook page:

They’re playing up the holiday and directing people back to their website all at the same time! The social media post and the website content are themed for the season and once you get the online visitor to your site, you never know what pages they’ll visit next.

PPC ads

As you’re working through your website, you’ll also want to think about how some visitors get to your website. If you’re using Pay Per Click (PPC) ads to drive traffic to your site, it may be time to revisit those ads and refresh the copy to make it more seasonal. Promote fall colors, fireplaces, Jacuzzi tubs, fall festivals, or anything that would entice travelers to stay at your property during the holiday season.

Recipes

Another fun way to spice up your website, blog, or social media content is to share recipes! Recipes are easy and popular ways to drive traffic to your site or networks and can be a fun addition to your content marketing strategy. During the fall, share some favorite recipes for treats and hot drinks.

We love this baked pesto eggs recipe shared by the California Association of Boutique and Breakfast Inns:

Want to help us out for our next blogs in our holiday series? We’d love to showcase photos of your property dressed up for the holidays, your website updates, or your favorite winter recipes! Send us a photo or the recipe information to stephanie.johnson@rezstream.com to be included in our Thanksgiving and Christmas posts!