This is a true story. “Fifteen years ago, we came to Bali and fell in love with the island. Komang, our guide and driver introduced us to a lovely piece of land on the beach in Ahmed, which was for sale. We didn’t hesitate long and started to build our own hotel: 11 rooms, a restaurant, a swimming pool and a Spa under palm trees and with views of Mt. Rinjani in Lombok. Heaven!

The start was not easy though. Working with local staff with little formal education and no clue of service culture turned into a permanent training exercise. Luckily, we got featured in a Swiss TV series about emigrants, which made us a bit famous in our home country and bookings started coming in. Business was good. However, as the effect of the TV show started to vane and the advent of OTAs made travel agents almost obsolete, bookings dropped dramatically. We had been managing the hotel ourselves for almost 10 years and felt it was time for a change: either sell it or get it managed by a professional company.

We chose Exotiq Holidays as our management and marketing partner and got exposed to the brave new world of digital marketing. Bookings came back quickly and we enjoyed our newly found freedom with family and grandchildren back home in the Swiss mountains.

Then Mount Agung erupted only to be followed by Covid-19 and we had to close the hotel for two years.

Now that tourism is coming back we decided to reopen the hotel and give it another try. Again, the paradigm of hotel marketing seems to have shifted and we now have to think about how to present our hotel through reels, stories, posts and videos on social media.”

In the past 10 years, hotel marketing has gone through two revolutions. The digital revolution saw the emergence of OTAs (Online Travel Agents) that almost completely replaced the traditional travel agents. New, specialized skills were required, from dynamic pricing, to the configuration of channel managers and website optimization. In the last few years, social media became the new flavor of the day, which calls for engagement with a growing audience and constant production of interesting new content.

For most owner operated boutique hotels in Bali, this has become too complex and expensive to address. That’s why we created Exotiq Holidays: to assist smaller, owner-operated hotels with customized and professional marketing and management services at an affordable price.

Contact us to learn how we can help you to relax and enjoy life via [email protected]