The hotel itself is the attraction

There are four different types of hotel guests:

While every hotel may attract a large share of one type of customer, every hotel needs ALL four types of customers to achieve the highest potential occupancy.

Many hotels have been built with little or no meeting space. They run full on the weekends with families, but they run a low occupancy during the week. If you lack a business clientele, the only thing left are groups, such as meetings, conferences, expositions and sporting events. If you have no space for groups, you are trying to operate with one hand tied behind your back.

As a result, more and more hotels are looking like resorts, and more and more resorts are looking like theme parks. And now we are seeing another major trend in resort development: adventure sports.

Adventure sports are going mainstream, and it seems that every natural setting has a man-made artificial version (indoor golf, indoor rock-climbing, indoor skiing, indoor surfboarding). For the pure sporting enthusiast, it is often inconvenient and expensive to be in the right place at the right time, when the ocean wave breaks perfectly or the mountain river is cresting. While the purist may love the real thing, he or she can spend more time mastering their sport at man-made facilities, using artificial materials and simulators. For the novice, typically a teen or 20-something who wants to learn the sport, it requires a safe facility that is close to home.

Years ago, hotel developers were satisfied to build a hotel near a major attraction such as a theme park, a shopping centre, a beach or a golf course. But not any longer. It’s not good enough to be near an attraction, the hotel has to be the attraction, an attraction that as many guests as possible should experience.