Why Hotels Need to Put More Energy Into ICP Strategy

When I ask hotel commercial teams about their ICP, I often get a wide-eyed/glazed-over stare. Not because they have no idea what ICP means , but because they are overwhelmed by how broad they’ve made it.

In all fairness…they believe they need to make it broad. God forbid we “miss out” on potential revenue by excluding any possibilities. Why would we ever narrow our options and risk alienating potential business?

Well…I’ve got news. If you’re adopting this “catch-all” approach you’re likely going to catch nothing. You’re watered-down message to be all things to all audiences is putting the hotel at even greater risk for generating new business.

Let’s break it down.

What is an ICP, Really?

In B2B, an Ideal Customer Profile is a detailed description of the type of account that brings the most value to your hotel – financially, operationally, and culturally. It goes beyond basic demographics like market segment, geographic targets and industry. A strong ICP includes:

• Behavioral insights

• Psychographics

• Profitability metrics

• Fit with your brand promise

Why it Matters More Thank Ever

1. Precision in Sales & Marketing

A well-defined ICP allows your team to focus on the right accounts and personas. Instead of casting a wide net, you can tailor your outreach, messaging and offers to resonate wiht accounts who are most likely to convert – and return.

2. Better Use of Limited Resources

With leaner teams and tighter budgets, hotels can’t afford to waste time chasing leads that don’t fit. An updated ICP helps prioritize high-value opportunities and avoid the “spray and pray” approach.

3. Alignment Across Teams

When sales, marketing and revenue management are aligned around a shared understanding of the ideal customer, everything from campaign planning to pricing strategy becomes more cohesive and effective.

4. Adaptation to Market Shifts

Buying behaviors have changed dramatically in recent years. If your ICP hasn’t evolved since 2021, you’re likely missing out on emerging segments or clinging to outdated assumptions.

Not an uncommon story, we started working with a resort property that “off-the-beaten-path”. They had a loosely identified ICP for groups & meetings when I arrived for our strategy session, but by the end of our time together, we identified the psychographics of an ideal group and used a proprietary AI Tech Stack to prompt and discover which organizations within that target had booked off-site retreats and meetings at similar locations. This exercise has saved months of cold outreach to the wrong organizations.

The Challenge: Poor or Incomplete Data

Despite the clear benefits, many hotels struggle to define or refine their ICPs. The biggest culprit? Data – or lack thereof.

• Fragmented systems. Guest data is often siloed across PMS, CRM, booking engines and third-party platforms.

• Limited analytics capabilities: Many teams lack the tools and expertise to extract actionable insights from raw data.

• Over-reliance on anecdotal evidence: Decisions are made based on gut feel or legacy knowledge rather than current, validated trends.

• Neglected post-stay insights: Valuable feedback and behavioral data from past guests/groups is ignored or worse yet as we see often goes uncollected.

If that list is overwhelming, don’t think you’re alone. 99% of our partners at GitGo come to us when they are faced with all or most of these challenges. I like to take a “let’s meet you where you are” approach. It’s more realistic and agile – especially when faced with pressure to meet big growth goals.

Here’s the questions I like to start with:

What data can we work with today?

What will make the biggest impact if we can start collecting?

How can we document what we’re doing moving forward so we’re not back at this same spot a year from now?

What You Can Do Now

1. Audit Your Current ICP

When was the last time you reviewed it? Who was involved? What data did you use? Start by identifying gaps and assumptions.

2. Invest in Data Hygiene

Clean, consolidate, and enrich your B2B customer data. Even small improvements in data quality can yield big insights. There are several nuances to data hygiene with your B2B data vs. guest data, so make sure you understand this in order to eliminate speed bumps in the process.

3. Collaborate Cross-Functionally

Bring together sales, marketing, revenue and operations to co-create a refreshed ICP. Each team sees a different piece of the puzzle.

4. Test and Iterate

Your ICP isn’t static. Review campaign performance, gather feedback, continuously refine.

Oftentimes our partners at GitGo hire us to run a lead gen campaign, but it becomes so much more. It becomes their kick-off to a refreshed and more strategic ICP + Data Hygiene approach.

One of our most successful recent partnerships was with a partner who collaborated early in the development of their small business program with an assumptive ICP while using our team’s work and insights to develop an even more defined ideal customer and target set. We’ve iterated, adapted and evolved the ICP over the past 14 months all while helping to grow their customer base to over 2,500 new accounts.

Final Thoughts

Your ICP is the foundation of your business development strategy. If it’s off, everything else – messaging, targeting, guest experience – will be too.

Too often I see leaders under-value this foundational step assuming the sales and marketing team “got it under control” yet when we dig in it’s far too general, with no clear direction and looks like just a “hodge-podge” list of every type of group that’s ever booked the hotel over the past 15 years.

I encourage our hospitality partners to get deeper with this. What could be more impactful than a proper strategy to build revenue while also creating a usable system for your data that will also allow for more growth over the long-term?

I love a good “and/also approach”, don’t you?!