Diversification was key in hotel recovery: City Express

After two difficult years in economic matters, the hotel sector has had to reinvent its business model to attract more customers, even relying on new tools.

In an interview for El Economista, Santiago Parra, director of finance and administration, and Paulina Mendoza, director of marketing and franchise services at Hoteles City Express They agree that the diversification of their services and products has been a key factor to continue in force and with positive numbers.

“As a result of the pandemic we have diversified, we are a company focused on the business segment, but now we are also strengthening our presence in pleasure trips, magical towns and beaches,” said Paulina Mendoza.

Santiago Parra recalled that when the pandemic began, the complex had to rethink its market strategy and in this way they expanded their market, reaching not only business tourists, which has led them to have a frank recovery, and achieve in this year hotel occupancy above 80 percent.

“During the pandemic they were very difficult years, in 2022 we are seeing good levels of recovery against 2019, which was not the best year either due to the impact of the huachicol, which hit the center of the country, but by March 2022 we closed at 89% in hotel occupancy and also with a historical rate; Unlike other chains, we have not lowered the rate and in April we closed the chain at 54% occupancy, ”he indicated.

The marketing director added that the company is working on creating alliances with other companies, and in this way expand its client portfolio, in addition to continuing to design new technological platforms, which are helping in the matter of reservations.

We developed the City Expressions platform, which are experiences in destinations and several technological tools that we have strengthened with Artificial Intelligence for reservations”, he added.

Trends

Paulina Mendoza pointed out that after the social confinement was relaxed, changes in travel trends have been detected, where the tourist has new needs.

“We have seen different changes in travel trends, the pandemic generated more the journey of the digital nomad who is the person who now has the opportunity to settle in different places and work from there, and our hotels have been key in these changes, since that we have affordable rates and many locations.”

Currently City Express Hotels have a presence in Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Costa Rica and have 152 hotels.

alba.servin@eleconomista.mx