At Velich Studio we have years of experience in Hospitality, and Lifestyle Photography around the world, from Germany, and France to Denmark, Sweden, and many more desired hospitality destinations across Europe and the Middle East.
“Our marketing partners working hard enough, Our studio provides all-inclusive services that allow them to keep their schedule and let us take care of all the production and hotel photography needs.”
Table of Contents
Defining Hospitality Photography
Hospitality includes a wide range of accommodations from hotels and resorts, boutique and luxury hotels, and short-term like Airbnb through the food and beverage industry.
When it comes to documenting the space this is the job of an architectural photographer who mainly has experience working with small to large companies and brands.
It’s much more than delivering beautiful images, it’s about understanding consumer behavior, how guests are thinking, and how to help our clients create this emotion “I want this”.
In recent years OTA’s (online travel agencies) have evolved parallel to many brands investing in their online booking and websites.
Today you can find in any desired destination both for leisure and business many opportunities to choose from.
Newer, older, bigger, smaller, expensive, and cost-affordable, you name it it’s right beside your property.
It’s crucial to set up your game when it comes to visual representation.
Hotel photographers will know how to create impactful images that sell and get your guest’s attention.
Segmentation
Hotels
Capturing hotels requires proper planning and teamwork both from our side and the clients.
Understanding the goals, timeframe, and resources available to complete the task while minimizing the disturbance to the guest’s experience is crucial and at the top of our minds.
After we understood the scope of work we built the shoot list and timeframe for each space to maximize the performance on location.
On the first day, we scout the space with the client to make sure everything is understood and all locations are accessible and ready for the shoot, if needed we will request operations or housekeeping crew to help us turn over the space.
Things like removing trash bins, and temporary magazines, and making sure all furniture is ready so that we can focus on the bigger picture.
It depends on the hotel size and variety they have to offer but in general, we would start with the restaurants, cafes, and stores in the early morning, moving to rooms, suites, and public spaces, and finish with exterior twilight at the end of the day.
Our goal is to create pictures that tell a story, we all have a space that has 4 walls and a ceiling, we need to bring the hospitality experience and communicate the layout, mood and feel, views, environment, and many more elements in a single image.
Resorts
These are mainly hotels with more self-contained spaces, meaning they offer much more entertainment and facilities for the guests to have everything they need in one space.
This can be more restaurants, shops, private beaches, pools, clubs, bars, casinos, and anything you can imagine.
From our perspective, we will focus also on these elements. Capturing the environments both indoors and outdoors.
In many cases, the additional activities are the main selling point of the property, so it’s important to make sure we have everything shown in the images otherwise the guest would not be able to guess what they can’t see.
Resorts take more time to capture as we are also waiting for great sunsets, sunrises, and the right time of the day so that we can capture those facilities and offerings while minimizing friction with the guests.
Luxury Hotels
When it comes to boutique, luxury, and high-end hotels you might think we need to work even harder. The biggest misconception is that only the higher-end hotels need stunning imagery while the smaller ones don’t is a big missed opportunity.
We talked about it at the beginning of this article, that the offering is out there from every aspect of the industry, and every guest no matter how much they spend needs to be excited about their upcoming vacation or business trip.
With that said, we do focus on higher-end visuals to showcase the use of material, design, and unique features.
We also take in mind that higher-cost rooms can’t be standing the whole day waiting to be photographed so we need to work faster and more efficiently on the field and compensate for that in post-production if needed.
Entertainment Spaces
Many hotels have theaters, cinemas, retail stores, spas, clubs, bars, and many more experiences.
They are part of the entire guest experience and many forget to put focus on that as well.
We want the guest to be excited when they are researching for their next venture, and believe it or not, they won’t be reading 10 pages about what the property has to offer when they are looking at 4 other properties at the same time.
Make sure you work around the clock documenting all the available amenities and offerings.
We usually save those spaces to be photographed during the night or after closing.
Short Term
Many short-term renters understand that they have to compete for both thousands of other short-term rentals and the entire hospitality industry, as opposed to hotels that don’t have other revenue-generating options.
We create the same level of imagery we do for hotels and resorts and also for short-term renters, they understand that it comes to them or the apartment next to them, and they want to reduce this by providing proper and stunning pictures that sell the experience.
Challenges In Hotel Photography
There is no challenge we can’t overcome, but the hospitality industry requires us to master our skills.
There are several challenges you need to overcome in every photoshoot.
Time – working both in an active and opening soon property requires working in a fast-paced environment while minimizing the disturbance to guests or workaround last finishes before the big opening.
This can be solved with proper planning of the shoot in advance, knowing the layout, amount of images, and sun location during the day, and ultimately having the experience to nail it fast, but accurately.
You need to be able to combine artistic, technical, and commercial approaches to create stunning imagery in a short time.
Results – you must master your craft because the goal is not to create beautiful images, it’s about creating stunning images that sell and create separation for our clients.
No one cares about the equipment, technique, or how we do what we do, client, and rightfully only cares that we deliver images that sell.
The right approach is communication, setting up expectations to the minimum required time, planning, and resources.
Costs – No, not our costs, but the costs that the hotel absorbed while their rooms, suites, restaurants, and retail store were closed for a photoshoot.
This, in general, combines the first two topics of time and results, as a hotel photographer you must understand the property business side, minimize friction with guests’ experience, and work on a schedule between guests which may take more time if not planned properly.
The best way to handle this is to understand the schedule when rooms are turned over to guests when check-in and check-out are finished, what time the pool opens and when the restaurants close, and to do the job.
This is where experience and know-how are the best quality for individuals like us, you invest in the overall offering of what we can deliver beyond amazing photography.
Increasing Revenue
Fantastic imagery can impact greatly your revenue, while many think about the direct actions of “booking” to be the only “conversion” that can be measured there are many elements to take into consideration when measuring ROI (return on investment).
TOS – Time on-site, when you have great visuals, and many of them you increase the time your guests spend on your website, this impact directly on their booking potential and also your SEO as now “your website is more interesting than others” there for you will get higher ranking and conversation on your website which also save you a hefty sum of the advertising that would be spent on marketing.
You vs Your Guests – the more high-impact visuals you have the more likely your guests will use your imagery than their own to spread the message.
We don’t want our guests to take control of images to represent our brand and we always strive to control this process.
Excited Vs Meh – I could not find a better way to describe this topic, it does not matter if you are a lavish, or budget property, your guest wants to be excited as they work hard to get their time off, or they prefer to stay home rather than travel to another business trip.
The experience starts well before your guests arrive at your property so make sure you give them the experience ” I want this ” to make sure you make their shortlist.
If you want more ideas about revenue make sure you check it out
Hotel Photography Guidelines
Planning – Planning makes perfect, regardless if this is an active property or prior opening, there are many moving elements, and planning starts with understanding your needs, timeline, and other requirements and logistics needs.
Scouting – Planning is just the start of the process, before we start capturing we must perform a walkthrough on all locations that we are going to capture to make sure they are all ready and no other assistance is needed from the operation team, making sure we are on time and plan the best productive workflow.
Exterior – Exterior can be very challenging, we can’t control traffic, guests, and move buildings and other obstacles, and we can’t change the weather as well. So we need to allow ourselves several photography days to accommodate both day and night shots from different angles and make sure anything we can control should be handled in advance.
Interior – Even the interior can sometimes create a challenging environment, like Casinos, pools, gyms, lobbies, and reception, we usually work around the clock to make sure we minimize the disturbance to our guests.
Photo Delivery – Depending on the complexity and the number of images delivery should take between 1-2 weeks, on large projects that include hundreds of photos you may need 3-5 weeks, make sure you prioritize the visuals you need first that can be planned the post-production to deliver you the important once first.
If you want to learn more about everything you need to capture your property including a full photo list, make sure you check it out here.
Hotel Photography Pricing
Many elements impact the price, the hotel photographer’s experience, knowledge, equipment, license, level, and duration of the project.
Many often look at pricing as just a number, is it within our budget, or is it the best average quote we got?
Equipment – Being an industry leader means you not only provide high-end visuals, including professional and business behavior, but we also carry duplicates of every piece of equipment we bring to a commercial photoshoot including a secondary camera, lens, batteries, memory cards, chargers, studio lighting, and many more to make sure we are ready for 99.9% of equipment failure
No matter how many times we can explain this, some will never acknowledge the fact that pricing reflects the value, and the only question is what you are getting.
So before we jump into the actual number keep those next few points in mind when you look at pricing.
Experience – Like every good doctor, lawyer, surgeon, and accountant, when it comes to the most important things you only go with an experienced individual, the best explanation is ” a penny on a dollar ” everything you invest will get back to you 10 folds during the period of usage.
Photo Licensing – There are 3 main types of licenses,
Usage time – that reflects the time you are going to use the photos, between 1-5 years (we offer 3 years included in all of our pricing).
Use Location – Many limit the usage of the images to a local, national, or international (we believe that you should see value in our work and we offer an international license included in our pricing in the majority of the cases)
Buy-Out – simply says that you get to own the images and transfer them to 3rd party vendors and partners without further compensation to the photographer.
Investment / Cost – As we described in this section pricing reflects the combination of experience, knowledge, license, equipment, time, number of images, and duration of the shoot, but here is a general number.
Full Day – 8 House / 6-10 Images (commercially edited) – €3,000-€6,000 per day.
Price Per Photo – €600-€1,200 that fits for a more complex shoot like an exterior or single image for large spaces when you don’t want to pay per time and get a certain amount of images.
Per Project – This combines the Per Photo or Per day, the benefit is that you book several days or weeks for a photoshoot and have the dynamic of time to create the best images needed and receive a discount for multiple days.
Read more about pricing and licensing.
What do you must know about Hotel Photographers?
Your professional should have the experience, know-how, and expertise to manage in a working environment, at Velich Studio we are happy to consult, produce, and create your imagery to make sure your property and business will be best visually represented.
Photographing for leading Hotels, Resorts, and Luxury Properties worldwide requires the experience and expertise to produce impactful imagery promptly, allowing you to continue operations as smoothly as possible, turning over rooms, suites, villas, and penthouses as soon as possible.
Each space requires a different type of photography capabilities.
From Architectural Exterior visuals to the Interior Design spaces and amenities you offer and also the lifestyle images that incorporate the space and human element to provide ultimate visuals for your marketing and advertising efforts.
A true professional would deliver a stunning exterior visual both day and night to allow your customer to immerse in the experience.
Also capturing the exterior amenities such as pools, outdoor space, convention center and more is important for the overall guest experience.
The interior space that accommodates the guest is crucial for your guest’s overall decision.
Capturing the rooms, suites, lobby, restaurants, entertainment, and retail in eye-capturing pictures will ultimately let your guests focus on value and not only budget.
Our studio also provides full-service production and can manage lifestyle and advertising productions from casting to coordination and production management, saving you valuable time, and agency fees, delivering those lifestyle visuals that showcase the use of space and bring the human element to the images.
Approved Hotel Photographer
Our studio is also a recognized and approved vendor for most brands. Among them, you can find Hilton and Luxury Brands, MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, and more.
We know your images have a significant impact on your operations and finances, we are more than happy to consult before your photoshoot and estimate the scope of work, offer solutions, compiling a shoot list and schedule to make sure we deliver the best experience in the industry.
If you are asking yourself why not rely on your local professional there is a simple answer.
The value experienced professionals with proven results provide will also bring a bigger return and more consistent results.
rest assured our studio is trusted by most of your peers due to our international level of hospitality visuals and customer service.
Recent Projects
MGM Resorts, Aria, Tropicana, Monarch, Atlantis Resort and Casino, Primm Casino, Renaissance Hilton worldwide.
