When hotels were non-operational during the lockdown, the onus rested on PR professionals to become the voice that repeatedly reminded guests about the brand.
Srishti Mehra, Manager–PR and Marketing Communications at The Leela Palace New Delhi highlighted how she and her peers played a crucial role in ensuring qualitative visibility and support for their individual properties across all verticals.
“During the business revival phase, we were reopening the hotel with a lot of uncertainty. It was important to enhance media and influencer engagement, whilst changing the face of marketing and social media strategy,” she stated.
This was also the time to undertake strategic collaborations. While The Leela Palace New Delhi had aligned with Eazydiner for some years, Mehra extended partnerships with other platforms, including Dineout Passport and GourmetPlanet. These alliances were aimed at boosting footfalls to the restaurants and augmenting sales, in addition to positioning the hotel as the go-to gourmet destination in the city.
Exploring media partnerships, Mehra collaborated with India Today to strengthen the hotel’s brand presence via various promotional activities. It successfully worked together with Cosmopolitan for the launch of its ‘Saturday Night Awards’.
While the hotel’s team faced its share of challenges in managing cash flows, Mehra decided to pursue paid social media ad campaigns to generate revenues. “These lead generation campaigns with lucrative offers ensured better visibility, and generated leads, which resulted in the hotel earning three times the money spent,” Mehra added.
Following the success of the campaign which resulted in increased footfalls, other Leela hotels too adopted this strategy.
Moreover, Mehra launched a monthly newsletter to give a glimpse of all activities and special offers at the property. Disseminated across its database as a CRM activity, this outreach programme was well received by guests, generating revenue as well as engagement.
Mehra also took charge of the media campaign when the hotel forayed into the home delivery segment with the ‘Signatures by The Leela’ initiative. Similarly, the hotel chain’s Diwali campaign was debuted and led at The Leela Palace New Delhi in 2020.
Here, Mehra was involved from the word go – from development, driving media amplification to successful execution.
