Hotel activities that make the property the destination, for guests and locals

Hotel activities for guests: the evening problem

A hotel can run strong occupancies and still have outlets that go quiet in the off-season. That is where programming earns its place: food and beverage at the bar, the restaurant and the pool outlet, from locals in the slow months and from guests who stay on property instead of going into town. A guest who leaves the property at seven spends the evening somewhere else. The job of a hotel activity in the evening is to make staying the easier choice: something on the stage, something on the screen, and food and drink where the guest already is.

Resort activities locals come for

Live music on the stage every week, a local act at golden hour that people can talk over. A family night with a movie and a character moment. The big games on the screen, with the food to match. Festival days built in layers across the property: the band on the stage, a market, the kids' activities placed where they belong. The season's moments, the playoffs and the big game, a spring kickoff for the families, booked far enough ahead that your sales team can sell them to the groups coming in. Hotel entertainment is the draw; the outlets are the point. Every calendar we build stands on one architecture: a weekly rhythm people can count on, monthly anchors that spike traffic, and seasonal tentpoles that put a place on the map, drawn from a working catalog of 150-plus formats across twelve categories, tuned to each property, its tenants, and its seasons.

Ideas for events at a hotel, by format

The weekly night: live music at golden hour on the same night every week, so locals plan around it.

Family night: a movie on the lawn with a character moment and the kids' activity before dark.

Watch parties: the big games on the screen with the food to match, in season.

Markets: a weekend market on the lawn that brings locals through the lobby and leaves them at the bar.

Food is programming too: chef and pitmaster moments, seasonal menu events and a brunch series at your own outlets, with no outside food vendors competing with your own.

Holiday tentpoles: the tree lighting, the Fourth of July, the egg hunt, each one a reason for the town to come to the property.

Community engagement: corporations who bring their annual traditions, charities who build their biggest nights with you, and schools, academies and arts organizations whose recitals and showcases need a stage.

Hotel activities by season: lean into the quiet months

Groups come first. When a group owns the property, the calendar steps back, or becomes something the group can buy into. Resort programming follows the property's seasons: the calendar leans into the quiet months and steps back when the groups arrive. So the first question for a hotel's calendar is which months the outlets need locals, and the second is which weeks the groups own.

What hotel activities return on the P&L

For a hotel the measures are non-room revenue, rate support, food and beverage traffic from non-guests, and a property that becomes the destination, not the place people stay while doing something else. The calendar sends people to your outlets alongside everything else it does for the property. We judge a season on the hotel's own numbers: food and beverage at the outlets on programmed days against comparable days, local traffic, and the growth of your own list. Measured, not modeled. How events add non-room revenue, line by line, is its own guide: hotel non-room revenue.

Who runs hotel activities on a lean property team

We do it. Tully Zeitlin, our Chief Experience Officer, leads the program planning and the booking of acts, vendors, and partners, the way we have for eleven years and thousands of events. Every event day has a call sheet: when the vendor arrives and where they set up, water on the stage before the band starts, music on during the band's break so nobody leaves, the right channel on the screen at kickoff, and the operational details that are critical to an event and easy to overlook, or that eat up your staff's time. When you want us on the ground, our experience manager runs it, coordinating with the person or people you name on site, and festival days get the extra staff they need. Your team approves the program and its budget, and keeps the final say on everything that runs. Whether that beats building the role in-house is the question we answer in in-house or outsourced event programming. The whole of our work with hotels and resorts is on its own page, and the five phases are on how event programming works.

Frequently asked questions

KEEP READING