Tech Talk

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Merging High Tech With High Touch to Create a New Hospitality Paradigm
Posted: 03/23/2023

One of the key challenges facing today’s hoteliers is that of high tech vs high touch. Does technology conflict with personalized service? Is it possible to offer both during the same visit? And can hotels that utilize technology in favor of human interaction achieve guest loyalty?

Business travel is picking back up and families may be taking their first or second real vacations since the pandemic cancelled so many plans just a few years ago. To ensure that guests have the best on-site experience possible, hoteliers are increasingly looking to new technologies to make their stay more comfortable than ever. With an advanced property management systems (PMS) and integration platforms, hoteliers can increase operational and staff efficiency, but also meet changing guest expectations for a high-value but relatively low-touch experience. We looked ahead to see what changes we expect to see sweeping the hospitality industry this year.

Long-term readers of this blog know that I rarely focus on a single company or product. My goal is to help readers understand new and emerging technologies, when and why they might be useful, and what to consider if you are buying them.

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The Future of Hotels
Posted: 02/21/2023

Hotels have always been a high-touch low-tech business. Today, and into the foreseeable future, hotels are moving away from the pure ‘people serving people’ model towards a more high-tech low-touch business, and doubling down on digitalization. In the paragraphs below, I envision ways in which tech can innovate and enhance the guest experience throughout the guests’ 6 stage hotel journey: Imagine-Book-Stay-Report-Recommend-Return.

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Definitely Doug 2/10/23: Planning for June
Posted: 02/10/2023

The question I have heard most often in recent months is “where are you going in the last week of June?”. As most readers are aware, two trade shows featuring hotel technology are scheduled during the same dates that week. Many of you are still undecided which to attend. Knowing that your decision will be based at least in part on where others are going (hoteliers and exhibitors both), I decided to try to get some real data that I could share.

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Guest Arrival: Turning Your Data Into Action

05/25/2016

by Christophe Tayon

For the hospitality and travel industry, guest arrival represents a crucial moment that drives overall guest experience and loyalty. It's a necessary and common interaction yet one where the stakes are high because the guest’s impressions from check-in can set the tone for the entire stay.

Keep in mind that typical arriving guests will have experienced a long journey to the hotel. They will be interested in getting checked in and settled as quickly as possible. Adding to the pressure of the moment is the fact that modern guests not only expect great amenities and service but a personalized experience as well. Hotel and resorts therefore should leverage guest intelligence to create meaningful engagements and emotional connections with arriving guests. By doing so, the hotel and resort cultivates loyalty and nurtures profitable, long-term guest relationships.

Below are the three important steps needed to create a personalized and brand-engaging check-in experience.

Step 1: Leverage your guest history to create a dynamic Arrival Report

A typical report should include, at the minimum, the following notes and information about the prospective guest:

Recency of stay
Frequency of stay
Relative value
Booking or distribution channel
Key reservation information

All of this information can be pulled directly from your existing hotel systems; however, you’ll need to centralize all of that data in a single location within your CRM in order to create a comprehensive guest profile. Once that occurs, these unique data points can be used to create arrival reports that address each guest’s history, value, behavior, desire and intent. We have routinely seen arrival reports that include as many as 40 discreet variables. In addition, the reports are automated and provided on-demand so they may be accessed by key stakeholders at any time. This best practice allows each arriving guest to get the critical and personalized attention they require just when it's needed most. And it’s the type of next-level guest arrival experience that allows operational managers the ability to gather valuable, additional profile information, to successfully upsell, and to begin to cultivate loyalty.

Step 2: Pre-Plan Guest Arrivals for Short, Meaningful Interactions

Every arriving guest approaches the front desk with some level of experience with your brand. Whether a first-time guest or your most loyal one, each should be treated in the context of where they are in that figurative brand journey.

For example, a new guest can be offered a tour or quick explanation of the hotel's amenities at check-in, and asked to provide their email address if you do not already have it on record. A VIP guest on the other hand, should be greeted with a personalized message that addresses their preferences from previous stays, such as ‘Welcome back, Mr. Smith. Your usual room is ready. Would you like us to reserve a tee time this weekend or book an appointment with Julie at the spa?”.

Below are a few fundamental ways to capitalize on guest arrival with short, meaningful interactions:

Make sure you have the guest email address. Guests who book through an OTA may not have their email address in your CRM platform and if this is the case, the front desk should kindly ask for it. From that point, your automated marketing can nurture and re-market to the guest, encouraging them to book through your direct channel for their next stay.
Anticipate desire and intent to upsell the guest. Your data, whether related to guest history (e.g., a guest that is a regular spa user) or marketing channel (e.g., a guest that clicked an upgrade offer but did not convert) or pre-arrival survey (e.g., a guest who prefers fine dining), can help your front desk up sell at check-in with a personalized offer that connects to the arriving guest emotionally.
Cultivate guest loyalty with rewards. Nothing helps turn a regular guest into a loyal brand advocate like a room upgrade, complimentary drinks or massage offer, or other gift that is proportionate to the guest's lifetime value. Again, it is about making a powerful, emotional connection with a guest at the moment they are most receptive to it.

Step 3: Streamline Front Desk Operations by Effectively Integrating CRM

The best way to ensure an ideal guest arrival experience across multiple properties and front desk agents is to utilize business rules fully integrated with CRM. This guest intelligence module instantly provides suggestions to front desk agents, beginning with appropriate greetings, and then moving to possible upsells and ways to improve guest satisfaction using predictive analysis. Our hotel partners select the business rules that drive this automation and fit their property’s goals, making our guest intelligence module an effective and valuable tool to optimize the check-in process, improve guest relations, and relieve the stress on agents to optimally perform during peak activity.

About The Author

Christophe Tayon
Director of Marketing And Demand Generation
Cendyn/ONE

Christophe Tayon is the director of marketing and demand generation for Cendyn/ONE. He has over 15 years of experience in the travel industry working for and with OTAs, GDSs, devising marketing strategies to structure solutions to support and promote retail and channel sales. Christophe is a travel and marketing technology advocate. He joined Cendyn/ONE in 2015.