Inflation has been inescapable during the past 12 months, and the hotel industry has been one of the worst affected sectors in the UK. Recent data has shown that the average price of a night in a hotel has gone up by as much as 12.1% in the past year, with further price rises predicted. Against the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis, which is already squeezing consumers on all fronts, right now hotel managers are faced with the challenge of convincing people to book a stay at their hotel at an increased cost.

The future isn’t looking too bright either, with PwC predicting that 2023 will see stunted growth for the industry across the UK. Understandably, cost optimisation will remain high on the agenda for many hoteliers for the rest of the year. Exceptional service and a tight budget are difficult to balance in this industry, and to keep guests returning to their venue, hotels will need to ensure that any investment will secure a high return on experience for their customers.

Low-cost, high-impact: elevating the guest experience

You can never underestimate the impact of a personalised experience. If you’ve ever returned to a restaurant and the waiter remembers your order, then you know that it can make you feel special and valued as a customer. It may seem obvious but making guests feel special should be at the heart of your hotel.

At the same time, this can be a difficult task, especially in a guest-facing role like front of house. A luxury hotel with more than 100 rooms during peak season can mean front of house staff will speak to a variety of different guests continuously throughout the day, about all manner of different things and queries. It would be nigh on impossible for them to remember everything about every individual.

So, how do they do it?

The key is to have a reliable place to store and source data at hand to do the heavy lifting for you. Property management systems (PMS) play a crucial role in helping hotels create personalised experiences for their guests by centralising guest data. Hotel staff can elevate the level of service they can offer each guest through things like personalised greetings, preferences on aspects like food and drink, or possibly even a favourite seat in the restaurant. By using this system to build guest profiles, it all becomes more manageable and easier to deliver that extra-special experience.

Crucially, small moments such as these cost nothing but can have a big impact on a guest’s experience; they have a high return on experience. The key to success for hoteliers is ensuring that these high return-on-experience moments are scattered across the entirety of the guest journey. A high-quality guest journey is dependent on every one of the guests’
touchpoints also being high quality, and this is where technology comes into play.

Link it all together

These touchpoints are linked by a series of processes that are reliably executed by staff to produce a quality service or experience throughout the length of stay. Having a reliable PMS integrated across a property to underpin all these processes can go a long way to ensuring they are executed to the highest standard.

Maintaining a high-quality guest journey is pivotal to ensuring they have a positive experience that will make them more likely to either rebook themselves, leave a positive review or recommend a property to a friend – all of which are invaluable right now and helps to build a stellar reputation for the hotel.

To succeed in the current economic climate, hotels will be reliant on guests rebooking, leaving positive reviews and recommending a venue to their friends, and that means maximising the guest experience, for minimal cost, across every touchpoint in the guest’s journey. Investing in technology that underpins every stage of the guest journey is the best way to ensure that high return-on-experience moments are consistently delivered.

Reprinted from Hotel Management International with permission from www.hmi-online.com.

About Agilysys

Agilysys exclusively delivers state-of-the-art hospitality software solutions and services that help organizations go beyond what they can accomplish with traditional property management systems (PMS), point-of-sale (POS) solutions and food and beverage inventory and procurement systems. Modern, state-of-the-art solutions work standalone to provide best-in-class capabilities, or together in a coordinated ecosystem that unifies data and workflows across a property, to equip staff members to delight guests, improve efficiency and grow margins. www.agilysys.com

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