Why do I need professional hotel photography?
Photographs and visual content allow you to sell an experience to guests before they even set foot on your property. Stunning imagery can help to establish the brand of your hotel and create a unique story that guests will want to experience for themselves.
Really capturing the essence of your property can be difficult, so hiring professional photography is worth the investment. An expert will know how to get the best lighting and angels to reflect your brand, plus their professional equipment will ensure you get high-quality content.
What are the most important considerations for hotels in regard to hotel photography?
Having a clear idea of your goals and reasons for investing in professional photography can help to guide the experience and ensure you achieve the desired results.
Photography for your property website is incredibly important to showcase the unique spaces of your hotel. For this purpose where spaces are the central focus of the images, it’s best to have minimal inclusion of faces and people, if at all. Clean parallel lines, natural lighting and neatness can produce beautiful, fresh images and an inviting atmosphere for guests.
If you’re investing in photography for social media or PR purposes, the tone of the images can be different. Experimentation with people, faces, hands, props, lighting and movement can help to create a more immersive experience for guests.
Think about how you want to use the photographs and communicate this clearly with your photographer to help guide the process.
Can a budget property still achieve visually pleasing photographs?
Neatness can play a huge role in the ability to achieve visually stunning photographs, regardless of the type, style or budget of your property. Having furniture and decor neatly placed or perfectly aligned and creating an illusion of symmetry helps to produce attractive photographs. Again, natural lighting and open windows are important considerations.
“We have been able to shoot some brilliant content for highway motel clients for example, because of their intention and determination to neatness”
Small details such as smoothing out bedding and decluttering the space can help to capture the space in an appealing way.
How often should a hotel update property photography?
The frequency in which you update your photography depends on your property and the way you want guests to perceive your brand.
It’s not uncommon for large well-known hotel brands to have monthly retainers, allowing them to capture new and fresh experiences relating to the hotel frequently. This could be a showcase of a new dining offering, relevant imagery for a specific holiday or package, photography of the surrounding area to reflect seasonality or creating updated content to reflect a shift in the room offering.
For smaller properties, updating your imagery six monthly to yearly is likely enough to keep your content fresh. Just remember your motivation to get new photography can be as simple as a desire to refresh your content, as dated images can create a dull, uninviting perception of the property.
Are videography and drone imagery important? How can a hotel determine if this is right for them?
Properties with close proximity to landscapes or locations of interest should consider investing in drone photography to capture the uniqueness of their property in a way that engages guests. This type of imagery is becoming quite popular as a way to captivate guests and distinguish your brand.
Properties close to beaches, rivers or edging on native bushland, for example, may benefit from this type of imagery. Think about the aerial view of your property and the surrounding area and how this could appeal to guests in relation to the perception of your brand you have established.
This blog has been produced in collaboration with Jacob Ritchie, Digital Content Manager at Two Birds Social.
All images have been kindly supplied by Jacob. Visit the website below for more stunning photographs.
web: www.twobirdssocial.com.au/
email: info@twobirdssocial.com.au
