A Complete Step-by-Step Process to Create a Brand Guide For Hotels

What is a Brand Guide?

A one-page document highlighting the creative assets of a brand, like a logo, design, colour, typography, and brand philosophy to make customers aware and educated about the brand and at the same time, a branding guide for hotels strikes an emotional connection with them. It serves as a manual of guidelines a hotel brand is based on to ensure that it creates a brand perception of the business, in this case, a hotel in the eyes of the customers.

Why do you need a brand guide for hotels and restaurants?

Each business is different, but each requires a brand identity and image so that people can identify it across all channels, both physically and digitally. When we speak of the hotel industry, a brand guide plays a quintessential role in making your hotel different and appealing to tourists, visitors, and potential customers than others. If you don’t follow certain brand guidelines you will never be able to make a lasting impression in the market, nobody will recognize you, and nobody will remember it.

Let us understand the components of a brand guide with examples:

Brand voice

Brand voice is the message that the brand wants to deliver and establish in the market, especially in the eyes of the customers. A good example of a changing brand voice came from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company in 2015 when they revealed a new logo and brand voice and promoted it across all channels to meet their guests. They made this change after 32 years.

Typography

Take the example of any brand that you come across, you will find that there is a certain font, a type of structure they are following that not only makes them stand out from others but, at the same time, it offers them a new identity so much so that people instantly relate to a certain brand. You won’t believe it, but that’s how much the typography of a brand has ingrained into our minds.
For example, to understand the logo and typography, let’s consider Park Hyatt, a sub-brand of the Hyatt Hotel Group. The typography is sleek and at the same time, it restores elegance in it. They use the serif font and the use of lines replicates strength.

Colour palette

When I say red you can immediately think of Zomato, when I say Swiggy you have an orange colour logo forming in your head, but it’s not even a typical orange but somewhere between red and yellow. Have you ever come across a brand that has multiple colour usage in its design, symbols, and logos? Go on, take a minute, think about it –
You may not be able to think of any brand after I gave you the example of single-color brands, but actually, there are many, do you know what separates them? They are following a colour palette.
Let alone if we Take the example of hotels, let’s talk about the Plaza Hotel in New York City, It has been a prominent location for many film shoots, The Plaza uses pink and its shades to add a touch of sweetness, and the hotel is known to use every shade of pink to replicate a feeling and spark a vibe for their guests.

Imagery

Pay attention, here we are not talking about a single picture that speaks for the brand, but all the visuals that come together to create brand imagery in a variety of ways. Now, these images can be used in multiple channels, from billboards to Instagram, in print ads on websites as well.
When you are a hotel brand, such pictures can trigger your customers or a tourist to remember you and make a mental note of it, so the next time they are booking a hotel they will remember you. Remember, these are not random pictures but convey an emotion, most importantly the brand values. Many hotels use single-colour imagery because it retains sophistication and directly speaks to the eyes of potential customers.

Tonality

Every hotel has a distinctive personality, for example, if you have to describe your hotel to a stranger for the first time, how will you do it? It is often suggested in hotel branding, that the owners must avoid using jargon and buzzwords.
Your hotel’s persona should bring a specific image to mind. Having clarity can help you create good marketing creatives and copies, but not only that, it resembles one of the main brand guidelines.
A subtle example of this would be the Aman – Luxury hotel, The hotel brand maximize the use of graphic images and only uses simple snippets but on-point information text, and again it is beautiful in its own way. The design sets the tone of the entire hotel chain.

Brand Philosophy

Like every individual has their way of doing things, this same formula applies to hotels and most importantly brands. So why certain brands do something and why they do it in a certain way replicates the brand philosophy, and that’s a pivotal part of the brand guide. People visiting your hotel must believe in its philosophy of doing things and how it caters to its customers.
Another good example comes from the Ritz-Carlton hotels making an art form of guest service. They stated that a great service philosophy always empowers employees to demonstrate a higher degree of trust and work toward guest satisfaction.
At last, we can easily conclude that a brand guide is a significant tool in marketing. If you are a hotel owner and also struggling to set brand guidelines to create an identity. Fielmente as a digital marketing agency specializing in the hotel industry will help you formulate your entire brand identity and create the most amazing brand guide which will not only appeal to your target audience and customers but will have all the components from typography, imagery, brand voice, colour palette and philosophy catered. Get in touch with us to get a quote for your brand guide.

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