Hotel Advertising Effectiveness During and Post the Coronavirus Pandemic

Hotels revenues have declined significantly during the coronavirus pandemic and are not predicted to fully recover until 2024. Since no research has assessed the efficacy of hotel marketing strategies in the age of Covid-19, this study uses a between-subjects experimental design to explore the effectiveness of different advertising messages (escaping boredom vs. cleanliness) in stimulating participants’ intentions to book a room at the advertised hotel given their travel motivations, risk tolerance levels, their perceived vulnerability to sickness, and their health concerns about hotels.

The results of a pilot test with 42 respondents from Mturk (the final data collection will include 465 participants) indicates that those participants motivated to travel to seek novelty, compared to others motivated to travel for other reasons, report higher purchase intentions for the advertised hotel, regardless of the advertisement message. Novelty-seeking travelers tend to have a higher risk tolerance; thus, if travelers are excited about traveling, the advertising message seems to make little difference in their choice of hotel. Although the hospitality industry is threatened by the coronavirus pandemic, advertising the cleanliness of the hotel did little to stimulate purchase intentions among respondents, regardless of their motivations to travel, risk tolerance levels, perceived vulnerability to sickness, and their health concerns about hotels.