Covid19 lockdowns in Malaysia has badly hit the domestic hotel and tourism industry. One company which seems to have grown stronger during this time is Sovotel Boutique Hotel.
If you are living in the Klang Valley, the bright orange black motive of Sovotel Hotel is hard to miss. They have branches at Damansara Uptown, Kota Damansara and most recently at Conezion Putrajaya near IOI Mall Putrajaya. Sovotel Boutique Hotels is part of the Gintell Group of Companies while the Gintell name is synonymous with the popular health massage chairs (like Singapore’s Osim).
Previously I found Sovotel to be quite innovative already way before Covid19. Sovotel differentiates itself by putting Gintel massage chairs/massage equipment into their hotel rooms and use it as their signature feature in the rooms. The fact that Sovotel considers itself a boutique hotel and not a budget hotel already sets itself apart from other hotel operators in their price range. Gintel was also one of the 1st to allow their massage chairs to accept ewallets like Boostpay, TouchNGo.
How Sovotel manage to innovate past this Covid19 lockdown period was to raise cash by selling their RM499 hotel coupon (called annual pass) which is valid for 10 stays limited to 1 year. This makes the cost of a stay of 1 night only costing RM 50. This is a brilliant win win situation for both the company and also the consumer. Sovotel gets to raise funds during the Covid19 period while consumers get a great deal out of the prepaid coupon. As I recall, Airasia and Myburgerlab also implemented similar promotions with mixed success.
Sovotel management also took it 1 step further by promoting this promotional hotel coupon via Facebook live and got their front desk employees involved. Previously there was no marketing done via Facebook live. While the number of viewers on the channel is still small, I feel there is a lot of space for their Faceblook live channel to grow as not many people have seen hotels doing Facebook Live. For the front desk staff also, instead of just sitting idle "swatting flies" they can improve on their presentation and speaking skills via Facebook Live.
This fund raising promotion technique by Sovotel Boutique Hotels illustrates how we can stay innovative and resilient during tough times.
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