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How to choose the right Hotel and Resort Photographer
Hotels and Resorts are around every coroner, major brands, boutique and luxury hotels and even small hotels and motels in different size and pricing points.
Hospitality Photography is a knowledge and experience based photography service that is done by an architectural photographer that specializes in hotel and resort photography.
Choosing the right hospitality photographer
Experience:
First and foremost and experience.
Start by reading the about section at hotel photographer website, see how much time they are in business and what hotels, resorts and casinos they have worked with.
See if they have an existing relationships with major hotel brands that can imply on prior research and approval by experts.
angled photos are the most hard to keep straight.
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Results:
It’s important to review the entire portfolio of the photographer, as a hotel photographer would need experience in photographing the hotel exterior and interior, rooms, amenities, public spaces, retail, entertainment and food and beverage spaces as well.
You are looking for few key elements when reviewing photographers portfolio:
Diversity: Luxury hotels look amazing, see if the photographer has experience also with small hotels or motels and how their photos are looking.
If they nailed a small motel you can be sure they can stun your guests as well.
Check how many different projects they have that will show case the experience working with different hotels and ultimately projects and people.
Photo quality: If you are getting excited from the photos and you think this is the level you expect for your hotel, review the entire portfolio and make sure there is consistency trough the entire portfolio from hotels to architecture and design.
Consultation:
Consult with your hotel photographer about your project, amount of photos, time frame and goals.
Let him create a plan for your hotel photography based on their experience and guide them based on your needs and operation limitations.
Pricing:
Pricing changes between photographers, their experience and knowledge and the amount of work needed.
While most hotels have a budget in mind, it’s important to share this information with the photographer to make sure he can recommend what is the best plan to meet your budget, timeframe and need.
Don’t lean on pricing solely, the price is minor to the result in revenue growth and sustainability as every hotel is proudly provide excellent service, the photographers goal is to make sure your hotel will be the choice among all the others.
Create the requirements based on knowledge and not opinions:
We are often get RFP and request to photograph hotel based on opinion of a hotel personal.
While the hotel professional always knows what’s best for their property its crucial to advise on building the requirements based on the hotel photographer experience.
Opinions are important but knowledge is what makes the difference, and experienced hospitality photographer could guide and recommend about amount of photos needed, best way to execute them and how much time it will take based on reviewing previous hotel work and final result needed.
Ultimately after understanding better what are your options and what you might need to take in consideration then send this RFP and requests to the appropriate applicants.
Finally its important to make sure your photographer understand the scope of the work, limitation, timeframe and result required, they should provide history of hospitality portfolio work from different size and brand of hotels and resorts and build a plan that would work for your hotel while keeping or improving the existing visuals.
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