Neha Singh is an avid reader and loves to travel extensively. She writes here on behalf of Dubai-based Rayna Tours.
Personalisation has become a key aspect of hotels. Every hotel guest has their own individual preferences and tastes with regards to their stay. The key to satisfying a guest and being part of their individual universe is to offer a customized and personalized experience. If your hotel can go beyond just delighting and surprising the guest and truly put in efforts to elevate the customer’s experience to the next level, it will have a huge impact on the hotel’s brand identity, customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Ensuring a seamless guest experience
When guests arrive to check in, they are often tired and want to rest. Therefore, the last thing they want to do is spend a long time filling out forms. Luckily, hotels are now taking ownership of this process. They are focusing on creating a seamless guest experience that travellers will soon begin to expect on a regular basis. Large hotel brands are implementing technology to ensure there is no break between the booking and checking-in process, creating an easy and streamlined process.
[quote]Every hotel guest has their own individual preferences and tastes with regards to their stay.[/quote]
- Guest experience personalisation
Each guest is an individual and the same template won’t satisfy everyone. Hotels have realised you have to treat every guest like a VIP and see them as unique. Today’s savvy hotel technology providers are looking into ways and solutions to meet the guest’s expectations in every aspect, including the customisation of food, music, sheets and more. A guest’s preferences are logged carefully and added to after every visit.
- Supporting traveller transformation
Many people travel to seek inner transformation. This has sparked a new trend that plays on experiential travel, called transformational travel. Experiential and transformational travellers want to return home changed after visiting different parts of the globe seeking reflection, connection with humanity and the natural kingdom. Such travellers seek a deeper understanding of our world, and today’s hotels are supporting them in this mission.
Hotels are designing unique guest experiences to help experiential travellers to take part in local conservation efforts and to engage with the local community. Hotels are experimenting with a number of ways to offer personalised guest experience to transformational travellers, such as facilitating volunteer work, introductions to non-profit organisations, offering details of retreats and more.
[quote]The key to satisfying a guest and being part of their individual universe is to offer a customized and personalized experience.[/quote]
- The cuisine-based guest experience
Hotels are now incorporating food into the guest experience, including offering cooking classes in the hotel restaurant. Another is taking the guest’s food preferences upon arrival and serving only those dishes. The use of fresh, organic ingredients from nearby local farms and sumptuous breakfast buffets to up the decadence ante are some of the food-based guest personalisation efforts that hotels are taking up. This trend has come up since most travellers choose hotels based solely on the food-focussed guest experiences they offer. Food finds response in most hearts, and this trend has definitely found buyers worldwide.
- The environmentally-friendly guest experience
Today’s environmentally-conscious travellers are very aware of their carbon footprint. They recycle at home, and are watchful of wasting water and other natural resources. They look to minimise their carbon footprint wherever they go. Furthermore, they expect hotels to be equally environmentally-savvy and adapt the same values into their guest experiences.
In response, hotels are now incorporating environmentally-friendly processes, including:
- Light dimmers and air conditioners that turn off when no one is around
- Extensive recycling and a towel reuse policy
- Going paperless and adopting cloud-based technologies
Conclusion
Hotels have always been considered a home away from home, but now they are truly embracing it –Every hotel guest has their own individual preferences and tastes with regards to their stay. The key to satisfying a guest and being part of their individual universe is to offer a customized and personalized experience. As the various personalisation trends continue and evolve, we will see a brand new away-from-home thinking – one where the individual finds himself or herself more comfortable in their chosen hotel than in their own home!
