In the hospitality industry several hotel brands have recently moved towards SMS mobile messaging to enable guests to communicate needs during their stay. What is unique about Paramount Hospitality Management’s (PHM) strategy is that the hotels will now send highly personalized messages to their guests to drive engagement and incremental revenue.
Working with property management system provider Maestro to enhance current technological capabilities, PHM is set to begin rolling out personalized Short Message Service or SMS marketing campaigns targeting guests with personalized offers while they are on property.
“Companies like Marriott and Starwood Hotels have been testing SMS platforms for some time allowing customers to confirm room and dining reservations, resolving problems with their booking and contacting staff for assistance. Our focus will be on engaging the customer with personalized promotions, informing them of on property activities, driving awareness of services and increasing incremental revenue for the properties,” said Marco Manzie, PHM President.
The PHM properties were previously using SMS only to communicate with internal departments and to inform guests of room readiness, but with the latest advancements they will now be able to engage the guest in a highly personalized manner and to communicate with many guests at once.
“We listened to Paramount’s needs and set to work on improving our capabilities to allow for personalized bulk SMS, which will allow them to dynamically insert the guests name and other information to enable a 1-to-1 personalized conversation or a personalized mass communication,” said Warren Dehan, Maestro President.
Maestro understands that each hotel and resort is a unique operation that requires robust system tools supported by an experienced, forward-thinking technology partner.
“The customer’s use of mobile and messaging has risen dramatically, and the impact on travel – from the shop, to the book experience, and social sharing will only grow,” says Marco Manzie. “We need to prepare for the future now.”
By taking action the company hopes to position itself favorably immediately as studies show that hotels are seeing tangible benefits — such as improved TripAdvisor rankings and increased ancillary revenue sales which are directly attributable to improving guest communications via mobile devices.
The company is especially interested in the “last mile” —the time between the days before a guest arrives at a property through the guest’s departure date.
“We will move towards building a rapport with our customer base and as we get smarter about communicating with our guests we believe we will realize tangible benefits on many levels, “said Manzie.
SMS is not specific to Millennials according to a recent Global Business Travel Association survey. Corporate traveler managers who were polled said that their customers preferred customizable two-way communication via mobile devices over other types of communication, when available.
“It’s clear that text messaging represents a huge opportunity for companies like Paramount, who are looking to build deeper and richer relationships with their existing customers,” said Dehan. “I believe it will also allow companies to branch out and win the affection of entirely new customers.”
