Room tours are a perfect subject for videos about your hotel, hostel or bed & breakfast. Show off how soft your mattresses are, how amazing your shower looks or the amount of power plugs. What you feature depends on what you’ve got and what matters to your audience. Room tour videos are ideal to convince those who are still in doubt whether your property is right for them. But, here’s the thing: how are you going to show your rooms? What will be the style of your videos?
Think about your personality
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One of the things this guide is going to help you do is craft the personality of your brand. A well-build personality is very important when it comes to your communication. A carefully crafted personality allows you to send out a consistent message to your audience. A message that they understand and resonate with. You want your audience to identify themselves with your brand. This means you need to think about your tone-of-voice, message and style.
Luxury travel or budget backpackers?
There are two key elements that will define the style of your videos: your brand and your audience. By thoroughly knowing these two, you will be able to decide what style is best for your room tour videos. If your visitors are mainly business travelers your style should be adjusted to that. The way you show your rooms should be completely different than when the majority of your guests are backpackers looking for a buzzing party.
So, let’s say your visitors are mainly business travelers. What do they look for? A place to get some rest after a long day of meetings. A bed that lives up to their standards. A private bathroom providing all necessary amenities. A stocked mini-fridge maybe. Think about the things they are looking for in a room. Make a list of what your video should show them. This works for any type of traveler. No matter your audience: define what they desire and need in a room, note these things down and make sure to feature them in the video.
To inform or to entertain?
Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. When will they see your video? When they are on your website or when they are scrolling through their Facebook timeline? What would keep your potential guest engaged enough to sit through a complete video – even if it’s a short one? There are different ways you can show your room. Let’s look at some examples.
Simple and informative ‘stills’ video
This video by Hilton Inn shows their deluxe room. The music in the background is nothing special, just a typical business-video tune. The video shots are of high quality and show the different facilities and things inside the room. The bed is beautifully made and yes, after watching this video, you know exactly what to expect of your room. But let’s look at the numbers: this video has 78 views. That’s incredible… low.
What if a ‘normal person’ makes the video?
Another video of a Hilton Inn room tour. This time not by the brand itself, but by Robert from the ‘The Aloha Robert Travel Show’. The video itself is nothing special. There’s not even music or a voice-over. But, this video has more movement in it. The shots don’t look like still images. Leading to: 5749 views. See the difference?
Or a YouTuber?
Let’s take it up another notch. Again a Hilton Inn room, this time by ‘Janna Travels’. This girl has “only” 22K followers on YouTube. The video quality is, yet again, nothing to write home about. But she does tell you about the room as she gives you a tour throughout the video. So: a YouTuber, with no significant following or camera gear, walking around and providing you with more information, leads to… almost 536.000 views (at the moment of writing)!
Put an influencer to use
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a really good example of an influencer staying at a Hilton Inn. But this video shows you clearly what can happen when you put an actual influencer to use. This can be someone as famous as Casey Neistat – but a micro-influencer will do a great job, too (as you saw above, the 536K views on the video by Janna Travels). For this video, Fairmont San Francisco invited Casey Neistat to stay in their most luxurious suite. The video received a stunning 11.5+ million views so far.
How much will it cost me?
And… what does it cost you to make use of an influencer, really? Most micro-influencers will be happy to stay at your property and make a video about their stay if this means they are provided with a free stay. If you want to up the quality, give them a little more. Include breakfast, lunch and dinner, free drinks, access to your gym, stuff like that. This will stimulate the influencer to work just that tat harder. Invite them in your low-season and it basically doesn’t cost you anything – yet will deliver you great results.
I want to do it on my own
GREAT! To say an influencer doesn’t fit your budget, is nonsense. But maybe an influencer just doesn’t really fit your style. This might be the case if your main target audience exists out of elderly people. They mind not resonate with an influencer. Whether an influencer fits your style or not, putting yourself – the owner or manager or staff – in front of the camera is a great idea. This will no-doubt increase your authenticity. A perfect example is the video of Siân below, who doesn’t own but manages a B&B. In this video she gives you a tour of the B&B.
The video is very personal and as a viewer you don’t only get an idea of what the B&B looks like, but also a feel of the atmosphere. After watching the video you might feel inspired to visit or at least you’ll know whether this is the kind of property you’d like to stay at. The video has almost 2k views and some very positive comments.
Some examples of hotel tour videos by influencers
The Capsule Hotel
Ceasars Palace
Legoland Hotel Tour
This video is over an hour long, yet it is almost the most-viewed hotel tour video on YouTube!
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