As today’s travelers can easily obtain luxury at a very reasonable price, the hospitality industry has unknowingly affected the level of significance that luxury has on influencing the customer’s preference towards a hospitality brand.
I can go online, and in less than five minutes, I can book a four to five star-rated oceanfront hotel stay with a high end hotel brand for a very reasonable price with major discounts off normal rates. I can do the same with luxury cruise liners, as well as all-inclusive Caribbean resorts, etc. So luxury in this sense has become much easier in the 21st century to gain access to in the travel industries. With this being the case, then the impact that luxury has on influencing travelers is going to have to be achieved in a more meaningful way by the hospitality industry.
I have been in this inquiry around what luxury is. I live in a resort beach town, which affords me the luxury of having pristine beaches readily at my disposal. I have also decided to drop my baseball package on DirecTV this year, and so it is a real luxury for me when I can watch a Red Sox baseball game on TV.
This really got me thinking about the positioning of luxury and the perspective by the hotel industry that every guest has a different perception of what luxury is to them. Yes and no? I’d like to challenge that thinking for a minute. Is it something we possess, or is it something that makes us feel good about ourselves? Is it something we’re trying to obtain in the tangible sense, or is it more how it makes us feel about ourselves? Is it more about a want or need for acknowledgment, or to be validated by our peers, or to be seen as unique and interesting?
Through my work around Hospitality Intelligence, I think luxury is anything that makes someone feel good about themselves from that experience. I also feel confident in stating that it’s a need that has to be fulfilled from something to do with the customer’s past, for example, the need for certainty, variety or connection, etc. The want aspect, is wanting to satisfy an aspect in their life for growth, abundance, and happiness.
If you buy into this assertion, then luxury is more about the emotions it generates, rather than the tangible entity of its existence. It’s an intrinsic value. So for a hotel enterprise, luxury could be achieved in making your guests feel good about themselves from your ability to create an emotional bond during their stay. Elevating the experiential value of the guest stay would generate a sense of luxury and happiness in the personal experience of the guest.
The non-tangibles that will elevate the tangible luxuries of a hotel
I have stayed at some really nice four and five-star luxury hotels and resorts brands and have received a one-star personal experience. Sometimes having a four and five-star luxury rated hotel can create a situation where the organization is resting on their laurels of the brand ratings, reputation and all the high-end tangible luxuries of the property, to some degree.
Here are some non-tangible customer experience design luxury items that your business could consider adding to your hotel for making it a five-star luxury personal experience. I believe by elevating the non-tangibles of your business, you will inherently impact the hotel’s tangible luxury value, effectiveness and ability to connect in a more meaningful way with the guest.
- Let’s start with caring about the experience the guest is receiving from the business. One could say that over-the-top luxuries may lack the empathetic design and caring touch in making a truly impactful connection with the guest that has the ability to make them feel good about themselves. Focus on anticipating the needs of your guests coming into your business versus internally focusing on your product offering going out to them.
- Create more of a theme to your hotel experience, in which you’re instilling the emotions that you want your guest to experience, i.e. the elusive luxury of experiencing happiness and feeling good about one’s life.
- Create a business culture that is very empathetic to the guest journey. Look at all the touching points throughout the guest stay, before, during, and after their engagement with your business. Look to see where the opportunities are to touch the guest’s heart to generate connection.
- Create a culture where everyone understands the role and expectations of their position, for impacting the guest’s stay in a very positive and emotionally engaging way. This is a performance that you’re orchestrating within your business. Like a conductor orchestrating a symphony .
- Create a level of intuition that allows your business to manage the expectations of the guest in a very organic and natural way for creating a seamless guest experience.
- Create a high level of hospitality intelligence in your organization with stronger listening to the guest on a more intuitive level. Do this with a sense of genuineness, as well as an attitude of gratitude for the customer identity in your hospitality enterprise.
The trick for achieving successful implementation of these non-tangibles is indexing your level of Hospitality Intelligence throughout your entire hospitality enterprise. It is also critical to have an understanding of your Hospitality Climate. If your hospitality business is not generating experiential value in making the guest feel good about themselves, then all the high-end tangible luxuries and services of your business will not generate the type of results you would expect to see from those investments. Having a luxury hotel and being a luxury hotel experience are sometimes two totally different worlds of hospitality.
About the author
Brett Patten is approaching 35 years in the hospitality industry where he has spent those years accumulating invaluable experience in a variety of leadership positions, and business enterprises. Brett has becoming known as one of the top executive leadership and organizational engagement coach on the subject hospitality intelligence, and customer experience design. Brett is also a feature writer for global hospitality, a national and international publication on the subject customer experience design.
Brett’s unique management and business approach consistently transformed hospitality enterprises with sustainable growth results from his days with the prestigious four and five-star hotel brands, such as the Stouffer’s hotels, Pan Pacific Hotels, and Le Meridien hotels, as well as working with prestigious five-star club resort enterprises like the very prestigious Longboat Key, to the launching of a nationally award-winning hospitality brand in 2007.
Brett then turned this business processes into a company called “Five-Star Customer Experience Design.” Today, after spending the last 15 years researching, studying and developing customer experience design strategies for the hospitality and tourism industries, he has become an industry pioneer and the foremost authority on the subject of Hospitality Intelligence. Brett’s company engages with some of the top hotel brands and hospitality groups both nationally and internationally in the industry.
