2022 was a year of learning and recovery for the hotel industry. But times are changing.
NB: This is an article from Revinate
There are emerging trends that we can already expect to have implications for the coming years. Now, it’s time for hoteliers to start planning what they can do to ensure the best hotel guest experience possible should be the center of everything they do.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and stay up to date
Let’s look into some of the factors that are revealing why hoteliers need to provide the best hotel guest experience now more than ever.
1. Direct bookings have the potential to overtake OTA bookings
In 2023, direct bookings are expected to surpass OTA bookings — they’re projected to account for 51% of all bookings. This is highly favorable for you, because OTAs often limit how you’re able to communicate with your guests. OTAs also only store their data for a certain amount of time. So if a guest books a stay at your property using a masked OTA email address, you’ll lose their contact information once that email address expires.
By encouraging your guests to book directly, you’ll be able to collect their data and leverage it to create personalized offers before, during, and after their stays. This matters because personalized communications will help to ensure the best hotel guest experience possible.
If you haven’t already started encouraging your guests to book their stays directly, now’s the time to do so. It allows you to collect their data, and you can easily start doing this today. Once you have their data, you can segment your database and send personalized offers.
Do you need help figuring out how to begin collecting data? Read our new guide, “Getting started with hotel data collection and email capture.”
2. Higher demand is coming
All regions started the year quite strong in January of 2022. Research from the World Tourism Organization shows that Europe had the strongest results with a 199% increase in tourist arrivals.
Most of the rise in demand came from leisure travel. But business travel is expected to make a comeback due to professionals’ preferences for in-person meetings and conferences.
On top of that, the rise of working nomads and wellness tourism will also give hotels plenty of opportunities to tailor their offers accordingly.
