Everything in hoteliering is dynamic. The practices of yesterday are no longer relevant today.
NB: This is an article from eZee Absolute
Back in the past, accommodation businesses wouldn’t bother to dig deeper and gain insights into their potential guests’ preferences. But not anymore. Over the last decade, hotels are inclining toward data-driven and psychological approaches.
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One such aspect of hoteliering is “understanding the guest journey”. And in this piece of article, I am getting down to the brass tacks and help you have clarity around this subject.
What Is Guest Journey?
A guest journey can be defined as a collection of events that starts and goes beyond the physical walls of the hotel.
Typically, these events are considered only when there’s an interaction between the guest and the hotel. However, that is not true anymore. A guest’s journey starts way before someone tries to reach out to the hotel.
Understanding the Different Stages of Hotel Guest Journey
Understanding guests is vital for your hotel. It will help you provide them with a great experience at your property, and in turn maintain or even increase guest retention, thereby boosting your bottom line revenue.
While there are various ways to learn about your guests’ likes and dislikes, I would suggest you start by understanding the various stages.
Here are the prominent hotel guest journey touchpoints:
1. Thought
Emily, a 23 old microbiologist is thinking of taking her first solo trip. And this particular moment is stage one of a guest’s journey.
In this phase, she is reading various vacation articles on the internet, binge-watching solo travel videos, scrolling through her Instagram feed, and whatnot.
Even though you know or at least have an idea of what your Emily is up to, you can’t really get into her mind and manipulate her thoughts.
Then, what’s the point of knowing about this stage, you ask?
Here’s the interesting part.
Instead of trying to become a mentalist, you could try to become a part of Emily’s dream or thought.
What if she could read all the travel articles you have published? What if she could watch solo travel videos on your YouTube channel?
You see where I am going with this, right?
