The Invitation

Why Repeat Business Starts Before They Walk Through the Door!

Most hospitality and tourism businesses think repeat business starts after the customer has visited. After the meal, the stay, the tour.

After the guest has walked out the door, hopefully smiling, full, relaxed or mildly emotional because your sticky date pudding changed their life (random, but this actually happened to me, you can read about it in this weeks Newsletter)

But here’s the plot twist. Repeat business starts before they arrive.

Before they sit down or check in. Before they even book. It starts before they decide whether you are their kind of place. 

It starts the moment someone first discovers you.

In that moment when they are making the decision: Is this for me? That is the Invitation!!

The Invitation is not just your booking button or your Instagram bio and it’s definitely not the email list you set up once and now pretend not to see. It’s much bigger than that. It’s the feeling someone gets when they first come across your business. It is the messaging, the vibe and the promise.

People are not just booking a table, room or tour.

They are booking a feeling. A good night. A smooth weekend. A night where nobody asks them what’s for dinner. Honestly, that last one alone could sell a thousand restaurant bookings!

This is why The Invitation is such an important part of any hospitality repeat business strategy. It sets the tone before the guest ever walks through the door. It tells them who you are, what kind of experience they can expect and whether they belong in your world.

It’s where repeat business begins.

'Big mistake! Huge!'

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is trying to invite everyone. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is our customer. Lovely idea. Terrible strategy!

When you speak to everyone, you usually connect with no one. Your message becomes too broad, too beige. And beige may be fine for walls in a rental property, but it is not a hospitality marketing strategy. We are building loyalty around the people who get you. Not throwing discounts around like confetti at a wedding you can’t afford.

Create a clear invitation for the right people.

The aim is to attract more of the right people. The ones who come back, bring friends and talk about you without being bribed by a discount. That is the start of real customer loyalty in hospitality. Your job is to make it easy for them to remember you.

A good invitation might be a seasonal email about what’s coming up, a reminder to book early for Mother’s Day or a warm follow up after a first visit. This is also where AI can become a very handy backstage bestie.  AI is the organised assistant with the clipboard, the strong coffee and the suspiciously neat calendar, not the main event!

So, before you discount your profit away, launch a loyalty program or spend three hours choosing the perfect font for your next social post, audit what already exists.

• Look at your social media bios. Do they tell people who you are and are they consistent?
• Look at your booking flow. Is it simple?
• Look at your follow up. Does it exist?

If your invitation needs a little glow up, this is your moment. Grab the 7 Wow Moments Playbook as your first step to creating experiences that your ideal customers remember.