Opportunity: Christmas In Orlando

ksalwoski
Aug 27, 2017
2 min read

Opportunity: As a convention hotel, Gaylord Palms could sit empty for the month of December, the softest month of the year for meetings. Strategically, it made sense to “own” the Christmas season from a resort perspective. In response, we created ICE! and Best of Florida Christmas, putting the resort on the agenda for holiday getaways, alongside Orlando's famed theme parks. How could we translate this into room night production?

Solution: In the first few years, I would sit in the Reservations office to monitor guest calls. I found that many guests asked multiple questions about the activities at Disney and Universal during the holiday season. If our employee was unable to satisfactorily answer the question, the guest almost always decided not to book. It was clear that we had to fight the perception that guests will be at some sort of disadvantage by staying at the hotel. They needed to believe that we were the "headquarters" for the holiday season. Further, the hotel needed a way to engage potential guests (“lookers”), by offering meaningful and helpful content about the Orlando destination during the Christmas season.

We created ChristmasInOrlando.com, the ultimate guide to the holiday season in Orlando. This guide – powered by Gaylord Palms – set the hotel up as the “headquarters for the holidays in Orlando” and it offered extensive details about the activities in Orlando, including theme parks and even other hotels. It was a resource for our employees… and our guests. The site saw triple digit traffic growth every year, for five years. After two years, the ChristmasInOrlando.com entry for specific off-property events was often the number 2 or 3 listed by Google, opening the floodgates for traffic… and potential holiday visitors.