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Hotels · Newspaper advertising

Print sells the banquet hall, and the booking sites sell the rooms.

Newspaper advertising for a hotel is one insertion in one edition on one morning, bought for a wedding season, a banquet offer, a new property or an event with a date on it. GullySales chooses the edition those families read, and prints a banquet number that reaches a desk which answers it.

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Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

Realistic editorial illustration of hotels at work in India

What newspaper advertising means

Newspaper advertising is space in a named edition of a paper on a named day, priced by the column centimetre. GullySales picks the edition and language your buyers actually read, meets the release deadline, and gives the reader somewhere to go.

Also for hotels

Sales and marketing for hotels, the overview.

Last updated 5 Oct 2026.

For hotels

Where it usually goes wrong, and what we would do.

  • “Rooms go to the booking sites, banquets do not”

    A traveller compares properties inside an app, on photographs and a review score. A wedding family reads the paper at home months before the date and then visits two or three halls.

  • “The season is sold before the season”

    Wedding dates come from a calendar the family follows, and the hall is chosen weeks earlier. An advertisement in the week of the muhurtham is an advertisement for next year.

  • “Dates are what print does best”

    A New Year gala, a Sunday brunch launch, a festival buffet. The reader needs to know on a particular morning, and there is a table to be booked that same week.

  • “The banquet desk is the only report”

    Nothing comes back from an insertion on its own. A number printed nowhere else, answered by someone who writes down the function date and the guest count, is the whole measurement.

What we do

What we deliver for hotels.

Every deliverable, what it covers for you, and the result it is there to produce. Nothing here is an extra.

  1. Edition and language plan for the banquet buyer

    The city or district editions the families who marry at your kind of property read, and the language that reaches the elders who choose the venue.

    Result: Space is bought where the venue decision is actually made.

  2. A calendar built on wedding dates and fixed events

    Insertions placed weeks ahead of the dates families are working towards, and on the mornings before a gala or a brunch launch.

    Result: The advertisement appears while the hall is still free.

  3. Size, section and position brief

    Display or classified display, how many column centimetres, and which page the request goes in for, written on the order rather than assumed.

    Result: The advertisement does not land where nobody is looking.

  4. Artwork carrying the facts a family asks for

    What the hall seats, parking, whether outside caterers are allowed, and a QR code to photographs of functions already held there.

    Result: A family knows whether to call before they call.

  5. A banquet number and a landing page

    A line and a short web address used in that insertion alone, with the sales desk logging the function date and the guest count for every call.

    Result: Enquiries are counted against the insertion that produced them.

  6. Printed page check and reporting

    The page as it ran matched against the booking, then enquiries, venue visits and confirmed functions by insertion, against the baseline.

    Result: You know which morning brought the bookings.

How the result is measured

  • Insertions published as booked
  • Enquiries traced to the print route
  • Cost per traced enquiry

Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.

Read the full newspaper advertising page

How space is bought, and checked

What a banquet manager checks with the paper before a wedding-season advertisement is booked.

Localities of past function hosts
Take the home localities of the families who held functions at your hall from the banquet register. Ask the paper which edition covers each and book those.
Wedding supplement or city page
Ask whether the paper runs a wedding or festival supplement before the season, and how hotel space there is priced against the city page. Pick the one the elders read.
Size that keeps the facts readable
Seating, parking, the caterer policy and the banquet number all need room. Ask for the column centimetres where those lines stay readable and look at the proof at print size.
Position written on the order
Ask for a page or position on the order, such as the right-hand side beside a feature. If the paper cannot give it, ask what it offers instead before the booking, not after.
Gala and brunch dates held
Before a New Year gala or a brunch launch is advertised, have the booking manager hold the tables and the date. Print should never sell a table that is already gone.
Questions the banquet desk asks
Give the desk four questions for every print caller: function date, guest count, vegetarian or non-vegetarian menu, and venue visit day. Write the answers down with the insertion date.

Who it is for

This is written for these hotels.

  • Business and transit hotels
  • Boutique and heritage properties
  • Resort and destination hotels
  • Budget and mid-market chains
  • Banquet and wedding-focused properties
  • Serviced apartments and long-stay properties

Not for

It is not the right fit if.

  • Your banquet hall has no one to take a call on the days a wedding supplement runs, so the readers who ring would hear a busy line
  • You want print to fill weekday rooms, which the booking sites already do and print rarely reaches
  • You cannot ask a caller where they saw the advertisement, so the spend could never be traced to a booking

How it works

How the newspaper advertising work runs

The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.

  1. 1

    Fix the date first

    A launch, an admission window, an opening weekend or a notice. Everything else is planned backwards from that morning.

  2. 2

    Choose edition, language and day

    We match the edition to your catchment and the day to the section your buyer opens.

  3. 3

    Decide size, position and the route back

    Display or classified display, the size in column centimetres, which page we request, and what the reader is told to call or scan.

  4. 4

    Release the artwork early

    The file goes to the publication ahead of its deadline, in the format it takes, with the position request on the order.

  5. 5

    Verify what printed

    We read the printed page against the release order, ask for the tear sheet, and raise it if the ad ran small, late, in the wrong edition or in the wrong section.

  6. 6

    Count what came back

    Calls, scans and form fills on the traced route, reported against what that insertion cost.

Proof

What happened when owners fixed this.

Real clients, the work we did, and the result as it was recorded. Where no number was recorded, none is claimed.

All case studies

  • Hotel Felicity Inn

    Situation
    A traveller compares three hotels on a phone and books one. The website was not built for that.
    What we did
    • The site rebuilt around booking
    • Photography and one look
    • Search work for destination searches
    • Content a traveller reads
    Result
    • Online bookings increased 35%
    • Organic traffic increased 50% within six months
    • Positive reviews on Google and TripAdvisor increased 30%
    Read the case study

Also worked with

Chord Road Hospital · Curtain Label · Difesa Security Services · Hands On CSR · Implevista · Kambar Group · Kalessi · Kerur Pain Clinic · LL Trust · Lucky Deals · Natural Gases · NavaShakthi Souhardha · NewCom Logistics · Proton Technical Services · SB Engineering · Shakthi Foundation · Shakthi Group · Urbanest · Insyde Studio · Venkateshwara Laser Tech · Vivara Studios

Where this fits

Three pieces of sales work, in this order.

This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 1, prospecting and lead generation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.

  1. Step 1

    Sales audit

    Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.

    Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.

  2. Step 2 · you are here

    Sales process design

    One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.

    Start here if every salesperson sells differently.

  3. Step 3

    Sales management

    A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.

    Start here if the team has targets and no routine.

Tell us what you need Your brief is read before we call. Scope, fee and term in writing.

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
Will a newspaper insertion fill rooms?
Rarely, and the money is better spent on your listings and a direct offer to past guests. Print moves banquet and function enquiries, where the decision is made at home by a family. A room night is decided inside an app, against photographs and a score.
How far ahead of the wedding season should it run?
Weeks before the dates themselves, because families see halls long before the function. We work backwards from the dates your own bookings cluster around and buy the mornings before that stretch.
Can you tell us which bookings came from the paper?
Only the ones that arrived on the number or the web address printed in it. The publication knows nothing about your enquiries, and a family who called the main line the same week is a guess. We report the traced ones and label the rest.
Should the advertisement print the rate per plate?
Plate rates move with the menu, the season and the guest count, and a printed figure is quoted back by every caller. If you print one, add what it includes and the dates it holds. Otherwise print what the hall seats and invite a visit.
Can we share the page with a wedding planner or a caterer?
Yes, if you agree in writing who pays, whose number is printed and who answers it. A shared page with two numbers splits the enquiries and makes the count unreadable. Print one line that reaches your banquet desk, and let the partner pass on the leads.
How much does it cost?
There is no price list, because the work differs by business. The fee is scoped after we have read your brief and spoken to you, and put in writing before anything starts, split into our time, your media spend and production.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
How soon will we see results?
It depends on the trade, the channel and what is already in place. After we have read your brief and spoken to you, we say what we would expect to move first and how it will be measured against the baseline. Nothing here is guaranteed.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
Your brief, and a conversation. After that, access to whatever this work touches, such as your website, your accounts or your enquiry record, and time with the people who handle your enquiries.

From the blog

Further reading for hotels.

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More for hotels

Everything else we would do for you.

Closest to this: paid and media

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Or start from the overview: sales and marketing for hotels.

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