‘A leader in the use of digital platforms’
No doubt, COVID-19 has led to unprecedented measures that are highly affecting our industry. With government restrictions and reduced airline capacity, it is obvious that we could not continue marketing as usual. At Kempinski we put four strategic topics to the heart of our marketing actions:
Focus on health and safety, where we communicate all actions taken with the Kempinski White Glove Services program to ensure our guests are having a healthy and safe stay with us.
Empathy for those who were affected by the regulations and could not travel as planned. We introduced highly flexible cancellation procedures and added additional resources to assist our guests to amend their itineraries if needed.
Support for the local communities and health care workers. With initiatives such as supplying lunch boxes to local communities or ‘a heart for heroes’ we show our support and connection to the community.
Focus on the domestic market: With the current travel restrictions in place, we focus on the domestic and nearby markets. A range of great new offers from ‘Make a travel promise’ to staycation packages, ‘Escape in style’ and recently ‘Your 5-star road trip’ were created and found overwhelming acceptance.
Kempinski has always been a leader in the use of digital platforms, which has helped us to adapt fast. New formats like ‘virtual site inspections’ through which you are taken on a tour of the house while sitting at your desk at home were made available within a very short time. Our sales teams around the world were in constant exchange and participated in numerous online meetings. We increased and strengthened our social media activities and tried out many new initiatives. The ‘virtual escape’ for example follows our concierge in Portoroz in realtime on his bike tours, the online yoga sessions provided by The Apurva Kempinski Bali or the virtual tour to visit the local craftsmen in Mongolia provided by the team of the Kempinski Khan Palace Ulaanbaatar are among our best practices, which we shared on a weekly basis with our global internal audience. With the Kempinski typical culture to support local initiatives, we went above and beyond to motivate employees and received fantastic feedback from stakeholders and guests alike.