In today’s world, travelers have become more technologically sophisticated. It is becoming increasingly difficult to measure guest behavior through a standalone system. The modern hotel marketer is encouraged to be data savvy to better understand their guests and take actionable insights that can drive greater business growth.
When it comes to hotels analyzing guest data, there are often pain points that need to be addressed, in order to get the best insights to drive daily businesses and operations.
Hotels may be connected to an abundance of systems and intelligent tools used to measure performance yet without good analytical skills, the simple process of understanding the customer through data can be a complex undertaking.
With useful insights hotels and marketers stand a better chance of engaging with guests and more importantly to drive engagement, guest loyalty, direct booking, and ancillary revenues.
Here are 5 great insights beyond the pain points of accessing behavioral insights via hotel property platforms or CRM systems.
1. Accessing Pre-Trip Booking Data to Further Increase Direct Bookings
Pre-trip booking behavior provides valuable information related to the type of hotel deals on your website, such as booking periods and preferred room types. Using website tools such as Google Analytics can provide additional information such as traveler ‘interests’ that contribute to an aggregated understanding of your guests’ preferences.
Going beyond, guest browsing data can be linked to actual direct bookings to provide you with the most relevant insight, from browsing to purchasing. Booking confirmation reference IDs in connection with bookings from the IBE (Internet Booking Engine) can show more purchasing details.
With relevant data to understand what types of customers make direct bookings, hotels can start to create more targeted and segmented campaigns to reach more like-minded travelers and fuel a greater number of bookings.
In some instances, additional tools such as Google Signals allow marketers to understand the customer journey better across multiple devices as they interact with hotel websites. A complete overview of the journey can impact hotel marketing strategies and lead smarter campaigns that target more segmented customers, such as mobile-only booking travelers.
To assess the success of booking funnels and the need for re-marketing campaigns, measuring the number of drop-offs plays a vital role in learning how to bring customers back to complete their bookings. Booking abandonment can be approached with a more personalized strategy that encourages return from a dropped-off customer. Several re-marketing companies do provide such services for a small commission fee.
There are many sophisticated proprietary tools on the market on top of Google Analytics. Should the platform be incompatible, exploring other support tools is a long-term investment that will sustain the growth and stability of your hotel. Get the best out of the data already made available to you and use insights to inform marketing campaigns and booking experiences that can be taken into action and make a difference.
