Hospitality industry is highly competitive, and the challenge is even tougher for luxury hotel properties. With the homestays and budget hotels flooding the lower end and the premium hotel chains fighting each other for the upper end, the individual luxury properties have to work overtime to attract the right audience.
Operated by DS Group, a conglomerate with presence in multiple domains, Namah is a beautiful luxury resort situated near Jim Corbett National Park in India. The group operates multiple hotel properties in different regions across India. To promote the destination among different segments of travellers, Namah Resorts recently carried out a blogger engagement campaign on the occasion of International Yoga Day. The event was called #TheRoyalRejuvenation, highlighting the blend of luxury and wellness that the resort offers.
The activity started with a group of over 20 bloggers and media people heading to Jim Corbett in a bus from Delhi. The bloggers were a good mix of people with different areas of expertise. Having experts from different domains is very important as it not only gives the brand different perspectives about itself but also ensures that the communities don’t overlap, effectively increasing the reach. Apart from the travel bloggers, there were photography enthusiasts, food bloggers, lifestyle bloggers and some marketing experts too.
The beautifully built resort sits at an amazing location with mountains in sight and a river flowing right behind. Being situated at a popular tourist destination, it is frequented by leisure travellers looking to unwind in luxury. However, it has also started to gain popularity for conferences and meetings and has recently played host to various MICE event. ‘Bleisure’ travel is a trend catching up fast, especially with the 45-54 year old age group followed closely by 25 to 35 year olds. This offers a huge opportunity for premium properties like Namah to tap into and that is why, they are offering the products and services to cater to the blurred lifestyles of modern business travellers. They have got flexible events and meeting spaces for business travellers along with a wide array of leisure options for the other part.
Yoga is indeed all about #theroyalrejuvenation @namah_resorts where I took my first plunge into… https://t.co/GBTCyN1sGe
— Arvind Passey (@arvindpassey) June 25, 2016
Celebrated International Yoga Day at @Namah_Resorts . Splendid experience with an overcast sky #TheRoyalRejuvenation pic.twitter.com/s3YNyeAerP
— Gaurav Bhatnagar (@dspunkytraveler) June 24, 2016
The getaway was themed around the International Yoga Day and featured a line-up of activities, both around the Yoga day and otherwise. The Asia-Pacific region offers huge room for growth in wellness tourism, especially with travellers becoming more health conscious. That is why, Namah is rooting in Yoga as a part of the standard guest experience in addition to the spa and gym. As they are building the character of the brand around this theme, coupling Yoga with the blogger engagement initiative would help them drive the initial push.
Speaking about the three day event, Manish Kumar, GM-Sales at Namah Resorts shared, “#TheRoyalRejuvenation was an exciting event for us as, not only did it help us boost our online visibility, but also allowed us to connect with renowned experts from different domains and receive constructive feedback about our services. We constantly strive to offer the best experience to our guests and the inputs that we have received during the three day event will help us take a step further in the same direction.”
Among the activities that were a part of the itinerary, there were some that leveraged the social media reach of the participants, giving the brand more visibility, while also engaging people offline. The contests that were held during the campaign fused together a social element by using Twitter as a medium of communication. The hashtag #TheRoyalRejuvenation was used for the course of four days across all social media platforms.
Our next activityof QR Code hunt begins. Share the screenshot of your scan and win free goodies. Let's get started!! #TheRoyalRejuvenation
— Namah Resorts (@Namah_JimCorbet) June 21, 2016
Won Special Dessert #TheRoyalRejuvenation @Namah_Resorts pic.twitter.com/r7EwXvT1QQ
— Nidhi Rohit (@coinsandmaps) June 21, 2016
Got my #MondayMojito. Thanks @Namah_Resorts
Just tried some photography on it. #TheRoyalRejuvenation pic.twitter.com/AJUKS9GEPK
— Gaurav Bhatnagar (@dspunkytraveler) June 20, 2016
During such blogger engagement initiatives, apart from offering quality experience, it is crucial for the brand to drive conversations, invite feedback & criticism and feed the input into the loop to enhance guest experience. That is why, the key management was closely involved with the bloggers to absorb the inputs. This can go a long way in forging new partnerships and making the most out of the activity.
#TheRoyalRejuvenation at Namah
I was invited to be a part of the blogger engagement activity at Namah Resort as TravHQ was one of the media partners. It was great to see how they are understanding guest preferences and trying their best to deliver an experience that ticks all the boxes. The hospitality exceeded the expectations and was possibly even better than what I have experienced staying with some of the biggest names in hotel industry.
There are some takeaways too for others hospitality brands on how they can execute a blogger engagement campaign. For instance, brands should look at working with influencers from different domains to reach wider audience. Another takeaway is that the key people from the brand should be involved closely to ensure the efforts invested yield the maximum results. The offline activities during the three days also presented an example of how an online element can be induced into the equation to multiply the conversations on social media.
You can follow the hashtag #TheRoyalRejuvenation on Twitter and Instagram to browse through some of the amazing photographs and stories shared by all the bloggers. You can find more details about Namah Resorts at www.namah.in.
