SWOT Analysis Overview Hotel Level SWOT Analysis Template Account Level “Reverse” SWOT Analysis Template Tip Sheet

SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This exercise enables you to think of your business against these four areas to develop a comprehensive strategy to win in your market. You can use a Hotel SWOT analysis to examine your hotel’s position in the marketplace or you can do an Account SWOT analysis to think about how, from a reverse perspective, a specific account might view your position in their set of vendors. Strengths Key attributes and/or competencies that your hotel can offer your customers. The positive aspects of your hotel. Any strategy you design should capitalize on these strengths so that you can leverage them to win business. Weaknesses Limitations of your hotel that may be impacting your competitive position. These are potentially areas where you may be losing to the competition. In some cases you may not be executing a particular competency well or you might not have the products or services. You may be able to resolve some weaknesses, but you may also need to accept the current state and design a strategy to minimize their impact to your customers. Opportunities External factors that are presenting opportunities to win new business or otherwise improve your competitive advantage. These can be events that are happening in the marketplace , with a competitor, or with a specific account. Your strategy should include tactics to both identify these opportunities and take advantage of them. Threats External factors that may threaten your ability to win new business or threaten your competitive advantage in the market. These events may be out of your control, but you need a plan to minimize their impact. You should consider how you are going to monitor potential threats moving forward so that you can respond quickly before they impact your business.

Hotel SWOT Use this grid to analyze your hotel and it’s current position in the marketplace. Use the questions in each quadrant to guide your thinking. Strengths Weaknesses What are your hotel’s key assets? What makes your hotel unique? What do customers value about your hotel? What makes your hotel vulnerable to your competition? (e.g., in need of renovation, lack of meeting space, etc.) What do customers see as weaknesses of your hotel? Do you have customer satisfaction feedback that could be an input to this? Internal Think about your hotel and what you have to offer Opportunities Threats External Think about the dynamics of your market (customers, competitors) Where is the new business for your hotel? (e.g., new companies, reduced number of competitors, etc.) Where do you have opportunities for your hotel within your existing accounts? Any changes to existing accounts that are creating new opportunities? (e.g., expanding operations in your location, etc.) What could (or already does) impact your hotel’s current business? What could impact your hotel’s ability to pursue future business? (e.g., new competitor in the marketplace, increased tourism tax, new road that bypasses your property, etc.) Strengths & Opportunities: Use these to your advantage! Weaknesses & Threats: Address /Minimize the impact of these!

What does this account think are your strengths and weaknesses? Account SWOT: A Specific Account’s View The purpose of this exercise is think about your hotel from the “reverse” perspective: how an account would view your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. . Strengths Weaknesses What does your customer value about your hotel? Why does this customer value your hotel above others? What does this customer not like about your hotel? What are the key objections that you hear from this customer about utilizing your hotel? Internal What does this account think are your strengths and weaknesses? Opportunities Threats External Think about the dynamics of your market as it relates to this customer and your competitors. What is happening within this customer’s business that could drive opportunity for your hotel (e.g., hyper growth, new training offering, new project utilizing outside resources)? Where is the untapped business inside this account? (e.g., additional meeting planners, no current LNR with your hotel, etc.) What is happening inside this customer’s organization that could threaten your opportunities for business (e.g., budget cuts, new meeting planner, new travel policy favoring a competitor, move to another location)? What else is happening in the marketplace that could impact opportunities with this account? (e.g., new competitor hotel with close proximity, account closing offices or conducting layoffs, etc.) Strengths & Opportunities: Use these to your advantage! Weaknesses & Threats: Address /Minimize the impact of these!

SWOT Analysis: Tip Sheet A SWOT analysis can be a powerful exercise to develop a strategy for your hotel’s sales efforts or to help penetrate a specific account. Here are a few tips to make this exercise useful… How to Use the SWOT Analysis Tools Print out the SWOT grids and begin filling in high-level data on the grid. Do you need to add more detail? Work with the template electronically or create your own matrix. For each item that you list as a strength or opportunity, develop a tactic for how you are going to leverage that strength or opportunity to win new business. For each item that you list as a weakness or threat, develop a tactic for how you are going to mitigate the threat or address the weakness. Use customer satisfaction data as an input to your strengths and weaknesses. This will help you to be more objective in your analysis and fully understand your hotel’s situation from a customer perspective. Think about the decision criteria that your accounts use when selecting your hotel. Base strengths and weaknesses off of these criteria – these are the criteria that are important to your customers! Be realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of your organization. Distinguish between where your organization is today, and where it could be in the future. Keep your SWOT short and simple. Avoid complexity and over analysis. Other Ways to Use SWOT Analyses Use the Hotel SWOT template and develop an analysis for each of your top competitors. This will help you to think about where they are leveraging their strengths and weaknesses in the marketplace and how you can address this. Use the Account SWOT template for prospects, as well as established accounts. You may not be able to be as comprehensive with a prospective account as you could with a developed account, but thinking through and locating the information will help you to better prepare for meetings or proposals.