The hospitality industry focuses more on delivering customer satisfaction through anticipating needs rather than just providing essential services. This multi-billion dollar industry covers an extensive range from fields such as accommodation, food and beverage and travel and tourism. Depending on the size and budget of the business, it can either decide to manage all the varying sectors or hone their strategies catering to a niche market. If you opt for the latter, you are looking to tap into new territory while simultaneously reducing your competition and conserving your resources. You can fine-tune your business’s storyline to a targeted audience while maintaining your brand identity at large.
Where You Stay
When a guest checks into a hotel, they are looking for recreation, relaxation and rejuvenation. What specifics the stay should deliver will differ for each person. Where larger hotel chains can get by with providing luxury which is more of the same across the board, niche hotels need to gain a competitive edge by creating curated experiences. If your hotel is near an amusement park or a cultural heritage site, incorporate that ambiance into your surroundings. Whimsical decor, themed dinners and costumed staff are sure to be a definitive touch in some properties, while for others, emphasizing simple features and services like free airport transportation and complimentary Wi-Fi will work just as well. Over time, it will become easier for hoteliers to adapt their products and services, thereby, offering a higher degree of customer satisfaction and staying a notch above other competitors.
What You Eat
Why get lost in a crowd when you can bask in the spotlight? The key to success for niche food markets is to target your chosen audience when you head out to do business. Build a relationship with the consumer and provide them with the assurance that you are ready to earn their trust by delivering a product according to their needs and wants. Having done that, don’t just sell the product, sell the story behind it as well. Give the reason behind your plant-based food line. Tell your audience the need for a single dish restaurant. Even if you follow all the other guidelines, ensuring the quality of your brand will still remain of the utmost importance. At the end of the day, it has to be the best, simply, a cut above the rest.
What Will You Do There
There are millions of people in the world and just as many different interests. Some people consider climbing K2 as downtime while others consider wine tastings as part of their vacation. Thanks to niche travel and tourism companies, remote destinations are within an arm’s reach and obscure attractions are trending now more than ever. Anyone say Hair Museum?
Unlike mass tourism in which people are looking to “see” an entire city just by checking off popular tourist attractions from a stranger’s compilation, niche tourism involves traveling over less land but taking a lot longer to become one with the locals, the culture, the heritage in its entirety. Then there are the added benefits of tweaking your trip to fit your desire whether it involves bringing your pet along as a travel buddy, choosing the right destination for that long-awaited hair transplant or aiming to connect with global foodies.
Finding a niche is not always easy, but it offers its own set of benefits. Setting a target audience reduces mass competition which enables a business to utilize all their resources on a smaller set of goals. This further encourages customer loyalty because consumers end up getting more bang for their buck.