Many industries are already automating personalisation to improve their customer experience and boost revenue.
As with other areas in technology, the hospitality industry is somewhat lagging. Let’s look at how hoteliers can catch up and reap the rewards for it.
In this piece, we’ll go over why personalising your offer is so important for your hotel and how you can maximise your results by automating this process.
Importance of personalisation in hospitality
The demand for personalisation has been growing steadily. Today, travellers expect more than cookie-cutter experiences. They want the ability to customise their trip from every angle.
The revenge travel trend we saw in the summer of 2020 and will likely appear again as travel picks up in 2021, was proof for this. Guests splurged on their stays and spent more money in-house than ever before.
This is great news for you as a hotelier. It means that guests are happy to pay for add-ons to improve their stay. This will lead to happy travellers that leave good reviews and will be more likely to return. The added revenue is the cherry on top!
However, letting people ‘personalise their stay’ doesn’t mean bombarding them with loads of irrelevant deals or adding countless options to your booking engine. Instead, hoteliers should be sending the right offer to the right guest at the right time. But how are you supposed to know which deals your guests will want and deliver these things in a scalable way? That’s where both segmentation and automation come in.
Using segmentation to best effect
The more targeted your offers are, the higher your conversion rates and the happier your guests will be. Use information from your PMS to learn about your guests and segment them. Then send them offers they’re most likely to be interested in based on their booking type, stay dates and other details.
If guests are travelling with two children, offer them a kids’ activity package or connecting rooms, for example. If you see someone travelling solo on a company account, suggest a grab-and-go breakfast or pressing for their suits. Sending these relevant deals will increase your conversion rate and show guests you’re aware of their unique needs.
If your property is small enough, you can do this manually. It’ll still cost you a lot of time though. Streamline this process with a digital upselling solution. It automates the personalisation process and ensures all your guests get the most targeted deals. You’ll also be able to automatically send offers at the optimal time when guests are planning their trip and are keen to add extras.
Empowering guests to personalise their hotel stay
Now, it’s time to look at some add-ons you can offer to allow guests to tailor their trip to their needs and desires.
Upselling room categories
Upselling guests to a higher room category is one of the most widely used strategies to generate ancillary revenue for hotels. It offers many advantages like boosting guest spend and freeing up basic category rooms so you can resell them. There’s also the option of adjusting the price closer to the arrival date or depending on demand. You can even offer loyalty members better rates.
However, if you’re only upselling rooms by category, your guests don’t get a lot of opportunities to customise their overall experience.
Cross-selling ancillary services
Cross-selling ancillary services is the ultimate way to give guests an unforgettable, immersive experience at your property. This can start with a good deal on the breakfast buffet or a set menu at your fine dining restaurant. A romantic set-up in the room is another favourite. Classic services like early check-in, late check-out, or airport transfers also work well because they add convenience.
But what about really leaving a mark? At Oaky, we’ve seen our partners come up with many offers that delight their guests. This can be something simple and funny like offering a goldfish as company for lonely business travellers or hosting a free morning jog around town with your concierge. Of course, you can get more extravagant as well. Let your creativity roam free and create deals your guests simply have to book.
Personalisation at its best
Offering your guests customisation options is great, but too much choice can cause analysis paralysis. Our data shows that a total of 15-20 deals split into 3-5 upgrade options and 8-12 service offers works best. Digital upselling lets you avoid overwhelming guests by sending the right number of targeted offers to specific guest segments.
What do you think? Now that you know of the different ways you can start experimenting and see what works for you. To know more, head to our blog.
