Videos are a potent and necessary marketing tool in the modern age. They’re essential for every industry, and hospitality and travel are no exception. We live in the entertainment age, so it’s critical to capture the attention of your target audience as quickly as possible. There are many ways to utilize video in your hotel marketing, but have you ever used drone technology? Read how the Alida Hotel utilized hotel drone tours for their sales and marketing.

What Are Hotel Drone Tours?

A hotel drone tour is essentially a video marketing piece filmed primarily with a drone. These drone tours might utilize indoor and outdoor drones and even incorporate ground camera footage. Drones are especially advantageous because of the versatility of the marketing pieces they can create. For example, custom-built FPV drones can make precise movements perfect for navigating indoors and in tight spaces. Additionally, outdoor drones can provide both aerial photography and video footage. By combining the different footage, you can create an entire virtual tour experience that shows an entire building, inside and out.

Case Study: The Alida Hotel

The Alida Hotel, a boutique hotel located in downtown Savannah, Georgia, recently worked with Indoor Drone Tours to create hotel drone videos for their sales and marketing.

“We honestly use them in every proposal,” Ryan said. “Some companies can’t fly out in advance to look at the rooms in person; drone tours are a smooth introduction and true visual of what they’ll experience of when they’re here and helps with decision making.”

Before using drone tour videos in their marketing, The Alida leaned on photography and lifestyle videos. They looked at virtual tours as well. “There are some good features for virtual tours, but it’s much easier when someone just clicks and watches the drone tour,” Ryan said. “You also get the aerial views in drone tours, which you can’t get in a traditional virtual tour.”

In October of 2018, The Alida was in the middle of a construction zone. Now, the area is not only photograph ready, it’s booming. The area is becoming a new entertainment district, and it’s a readied change for the hospitality industry after the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The new drone tours helped capture beautiful aerial views, showing off The Alida Hotel with different angles that hadn’t been seen before. Aerial views also show where they’re located in Savannah: the revitalized Plant Riverside District.

The Alida now uses drone tours as a part of their marketing and sales. While the main highlight video showcases a little bit of everything at the Alida, there’s also 15 additional drone videos. These individual drone tours show off multiple amenities: different room options, the Rhett restaurant on the premises, meeting rooms, event venues, exterior views, and more. Each video gives the viewer a first-person perspective on the space. 

“We use them all over the place; it gives people a good visual,” Ryan Thompson, Director of Sales and Marketing at The Alida Hotel, said. “The drone videos don’t leave a question on what people are going to experience.”

Their sister property, the Adolphus, also began using drone tours in their marketing efforts. On their website, they created a virtual tour page that showcases different amenities and spaces using drone tour footage.

Learn more about our FPV drone services and photography!

How to Use Hotel Drone Tours

Drones can help tell the full story of your hotel, showcasing rooms, conference spaces, wedding venues, amenities, and more. In short, investing in FPV technology for hotels and resorts can have a huge payoff.

#1 Increase Occupancy Rates

A hotel drone tour video is perfect for your marketing team! Arm your team with multiple new marketing pieces. Provide them with highlight videos, full drone tours, individual room exports, aerial photography, indoor HDR photography, and everything they need to secure more bookings.

Additionally, drone videos can become long-lasting, premium marketing pieces for your team to use for years to come. Easily share videos via social media, post on the homepage of your website, distribute via email marketing, etc. 

#2 Drive Corporate Bookings

If your hotel has corporate event spaces or wedding venue spaces, you know how important it is to keep those spaces booked. With hotel drone tours, you can show your conference rooms and wedding venues in their entirety with just one click.

For example, The Alida used drone tours for every type of booking. “Business travel, corporate bookings, associations, Christmas parties, weddings, and even just seeing the different restaurants on-site,” Ryan said. “Anybody who’s interested in the different outlets we have, we really use them for everything.”

Provide your sales staff with individual drone videos of your wedding spaces, meeting rooms, corporate spaces, and everything they need to secure more bookings.

#3 Stand Out From The Competition – Build Your Brand!

Hotel drone tours are new to the industry; take advantage! Adopt a drone-tour strategy for your sales and marketing. Be one of the first hotels to leverage this new technology and have marketing assets that stand out from the competition.

“On mobile, it’s much easier to share that link compared to viewing a traditional virtual tour,” Ryan said. 

Drone tour videos have a huge benefit on accessibility; it’s easy to view on any device. A video file can be easily viewed and shared on mobile devices, and it only takes one click to start the tour. On the other hand, traditional virtual tours may have limitations when viewing on mobile devices.

Learn More About Hotel Drone Tours

If you’re interested in creating a drone tour for your hotel, it’s easy to schedule a flight with Indoor Drone Tours. Having the right drone equipment is one thing, but having a professional team behind the scenes can make all the difference. Indoor Drone Tours has an entire team that makes the process fluid from start to finish with pre-shoot calls, goal discussions for the shoot, and ensuring everything runs smoothly the day of the flight. 

Take a look at our hotel page to see some fantastic examples and applications of hotel drone tours. Want to see other applications for drone tours outside of the hospitality industry? Head over to our flight portfolio and see examples for offices, multifamily listings, and more!

If you have any questions or want to contact someone at Indoor Drone Tours, don’t hesitate to reach out! Visit our website to contact someone at Indoor Drone Tours or to schedule a tour. We service all 50 states, so no matter where you’re located, we look forward to flying with you!