Why Must Hotels Focus On Personalization?

Personalization in hospitality is much more than just a stylish trend for hipster lifestyle brands. Websites and social media platforms use data to display relevant content, offers or ads to maximize engagement or sales. This creates a unique experience for each user and ensures that they can quickly find what interests them.

Today, the guests expect this personalized experience. In fact, a generic and boring service is no longer enough and can even give them a negative impression of your hotel.

Personalization is the key to delivering guests the personalized travel and guest experience they want and the value they expect. Ordinary stays are no longer enough when you want loyal guests and rave reviews. Instead, it’s time to take personalization to the next level.

Before discussing the hows and whats of personalization, let’s understand the term.

Personalizing a hotel stay means using what you know about your guest to tailor your service to their preferences. However, be careful not to confuse personalization with personalization. Both concepts share the same goal of providing a personalized experience, personalization allows guests to do it themselves.

Guests select their preferred service option from a selection provided by you. Knowing this distinction shows that personalization works well for both new and returning guests. Personalization, on the other hand, is easier when you already know the travelers and their preferences.

Now that you know what personalization is, let’s talk about its use in the hospitality industry. Check out these five steps to create the personalized and memorable travel experience your hotel guests expect.

1. Knowing Your Audience

Knowing what motivates your guests is not only good for creating a personalized stay. It’s also a way to generate interest and earn a guest’s booking in the first place. When you show that you have what they want, you increase your chances of winning them over. with relevant offers. Once you’ve chosen your hotel, find out as much as you can about each guest. Your employees and innovative technological solutions play a key role in this.

2. Building Your Online Presence

Today, online travel agencies and metasearch sites offer personalized offers and search results based on past activities. This creates a seamless user experience and makes it easy to find the right hotel. Give your distributors the information your ideal guests want to see.

This increases your chances of appearing in search results and attracting more guests. The same goes for your website and social media channels. The more you tailor your online presence to your target audience, the more likely they are to book directly.

Create relevant offers for your different guest segments and highlight the unique experiences that only you provide. For an extra boost, make your website available in the languages ​​and currencies of your key target markets. Finally, ask guests to provide additional information and personal preferences so you can better meet their expectations.

3. Room Upgrades

Offer only relevant room upgrades in front of your guests. This increases the opportunity to convince your guests to upgrade and show that you have their needs in mind.

Do you know that your guests are a honeymooning couple? Suggest they upgrade to a room with a cozy balcony and sunset view! Or is your guest a business traveler staying at your hotel during the week? Suggest a quieter room at the back of the building or on the top floor if your hotel is on a busy street.

4. Special Add-Ons

To absolutely wow your guests with a truly personalized approach, create cross-sell/cross-sell offers that appeal to each guest segment you serve. For example, suggest a romantic package for couples and fun activities for solo travelers.

Additional grab-and-go breakfast sales might attract the interest of business travelers, while families with children will appreciate the ability to opt for kid-friendly meals. Use the time leading up to your stay to send your guest a pre-arrival email telling them what your hotel has to offer.

This way your team knows your guests’ expectations in advance and has enough time to prepare before they arrive.