What is the meaning / definition of Business Mix in the hospitality industry?
The term business mix refers to the overall mix of guest types that make up the clientele staying at a hotel. The business mix varies from hotel to hotel, the most common is a business mix is found in central city hotels and is a mix of both leisure and business guests. While a conference hotels business mix will mostly consist of business clientele, a beach resorts business mix predominantly is made up by leisure travellers.
Knowing the business mix of a hotel is important. By knowing and purposely establishing a varied business mix, consisting of several traveller types, a hotel is able to stay profitable even when one traveller type falls out due to external reasons. For example if the weather at a summer city destination turns out badly, business travellers will still visit the hotel as their purpose of travel differs from the leisure traveller. Through purposely creating variety in the business mix of a hotel, a hotel manager is able to stay profitable even when sudden changes in the surrounding end up reducing the amount of one type of traveller.
A business mix is usually obtained by different marketing strategies, platforms and specific marketing practices. For example, a country boutique hotel may want a business mix of family travellers and environmental conscious travellers. On their website they may put two separate tabs for the services and amenities that cater to these two niche travellers. They may even offer specific services and amenities that cater to these two separate groups, such as childcare or eco tours.
On the other hand, a hotel should be mindful of the types of business mixes that work well with one another and the ones that do not. For example, a hotel may not want to cater to a business clientele if they mainly cater to families with young children and have a day-care and children facility on-site. A hotel should also be mindful that not every type of traveller would find the hotel favourable to their needs. For example, a Caribbean resort should want to cater to couples, families and leisure guests, rather than business, active outdoor adventure and boutique-wanting guests.
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