Company insight
A high return on experience
Hotel managers face heightened challenges with increased guest expectations, higher prices, and staffing shortages. Matthew Prosser, senior sales director EMEA at Agilysys, explores the pivotal role of technology, particularly advanced property management systems, in navigating these complexities and ensuring a seamless and memorable holiday experience.
otel managers know that the festive period is especially magical for hotel guests and employees. The gala events, unique menus, gifts for guests and decorations can transform a hotel stay into a memorable occasion that can lead to repeat bookings as families and friends establish traditions of visiting a special location each year. As this happens, the connections that guests make with each other can add to the loyalty they feel, leading to ritualistic annual pilgrimages to favourite destinations. But let’s face it, guest expectations are higher and more complex during the festive season. For some, the holidays are a religious and sacred occasion, while the people in the rooms next door might have parties and celebrations on the agenda. This year the stakes are even higher with research from Tesco finding that more
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Get it right, and you can have return bookings year after year. Get it wrong, and another hotel across the road might. Return on experience (RoE) opportunities are never higher, more valuable or harder to capitalise on. If you are lucky, good permanent staff might remember repeat guests, but many employees will be unfamiliar with loyal customers and have no idea about their preferences. At this time of year, loyal customers don’t just need to be valued and understood, they need to feel loved. Like they belong. Like they are at home.
The complexity of staffing over this year’s festive period will be worse than ever. This is reflected in a recent survey by trade association UK Hospitality that found 61% of its members were experiencing staff shortages. Many hotel managers will have to turn to temporary staff.
“Building guest profiles and having tailored suggestions, offering recommendations and even conversations make it easier for your staff to make guests feel loved.”
people are planning to stay at home this Christmas than previously. Regardless, the higher prices and sense of occasion mean that guests typically anticipate ultra-high levels of personal experience at a time when hotel staff are trying to squeeze in or having to sacrifice their own celebrations, the hotel is at maximum capacity with premium paying guests and the margin of error is smaller than ever.
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
Reliable technology can make or break the holiday experience The situation needs a robust, easy- to-use, detailed and accurate property management system. Because, in addition to using it to deliver information about festive guests, it is a golden opportunity to harvest data for the years ahead. Starting now means making an investment that will not only make this season’s greetings easier for the team to deliver but
also will ensure hotel’s are able to compete with those deploying this technology, this generation of which is so advanced that you can still catch up with competitors, in most cases. Building guest profiles and having tailored suggestions, offering recommendations and even conversations make it easier for staff to make guests feel loved. This can lead to upselling opportunities such as room upgrades, premium holiday meals, festive amenities and more.
Delivering a tailored hyper- personalised experience – which can mean anything from ‘the guest doesn’t like shaking hands’ to ‘guest loved the sea view suite last time’ – will help to make a profitable season even more profitable. Perhaps, more importantly, we all know how a happy hotel feels, where guests are delighted, and staff enjoy being great at their jobs. That buzz and energy are what guests will remember most about your hotel. This technological approach to guest experiences is not new. Many hotels have multiple systems in place, often with rich data locked away within them. The problem is often one of usability. The beauty of modern PMS systems is the user experience. First, not all staff are computer-savvy and many speak different languages. Staff must be able to discretely input and access the right information at the right time and in the right place. After all, a guest lounging by the pool expects any team to know their name just as much as they do when they are at reception. ●
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