Your guest data is a gold mine – are you using it?

Guest data is one of hospitality's most valuable assets. It’s also one of its most wasted. 

Most hotels have plenty of data. Booking histories sit in the PMS. Guest preferences live somewhere else. Spa visits, restaurant spend, Wi-Fi logins, OTA interactions and website conversations create even more data points. The problem is that these pieces rarely come together in a way that helps a hotelier do anything useful. 

That was the focus of the latest episode of Matt Talks Hospitality, where Mews CEO Matt Welle spoke with three leaders from CRM solutions on the Mews Marketplace: Daan de Bruijn, co-founder of Bookboost, Bryson Koehler, CEO of Revinate and Benjamin Devisme, Senior Problem Solver at Quinta, formerly Quicktext. 

Their products take different approaches, but they all point towards the same opportunity: hotels that understand their guests better can build stronger relationships and convert more of that relationship into direct revenue. 

The problem isn't a lack of data 

The hospitality industry doesn't need more guest data. It needs better access to the data it already has. 

As Bryson explained, guest information is often fragmented across almost every part of the hotel operation. "The property management system has a source of information, the point-of-sale systems, the Wi-Fi login... the spa system, the bike rental station." 

Each system holds a different piece of the picture. A guest may have stayed three times, spent heavily on F&B and always booked a particular room type, yet the hotel still treats them like a stranger the next time they receive a marketing campaign. 

That's where CRM and customer data platforms can change the perspective. 

Bookboost, for example, brings data from different sources into a central master profile before allowing hotels to segment and action that information across marketing, the guest journey, customer service and analytics. Daan's view is simple: "Every hotel should be able to know its guest digitally." 

That richer profile can have an impact across the entire operation. It can help automate repetitive enquiries, improve response times and personalize communication. It can also create opportunities for more relevant upselling and re-engagement. The more complete the guest profile becomes, the more useful it gets. 

Direct bookings start with knowing who you're talking to 

One of the biggest commercial opportunities for any hotelier is turning existing guest relationships into repeat direct business. Hotels spend significant sums acquiring guests through third parties. But once a guest has stayed, the relationship doesn't have to end there. 

The challenge is identifying that guest again, particularly when data arrives through OTAs in incomplete or obscured formats. 

Revinate has focused heavily on solving that problem. They have the ability to connect messy OTA data back to existing guest profiles and create a fuller view of the customer. Once that happens, the hotel can move beyond generic campaigns. 

Instead of emailing every previous guest with the same offer, it can identify the people most likely to return. It can recognize former OTA bookers and give them a reason to book directly next time. It can target guests based on their actual history and behavior. 

One Revinate customer example showed just how significant that opportunity can be. According to Bryson, Brittain Resorts and Hotels generated $54 million over two years through an OTA win-back strategy targeting guests who had booked through third parties with direct-only incentives. The aim was to turn those guests into direct bookers for future stays. 

Using data to help hotels win that direct business and build that direct guest relationship is at the heart of the approach. For hotels under continued pressure to improve margins, that's a powerful argument for treating CRM as more than a marketing tool. 

AI makes data useful – but only if the data is good 

For AI to have any meaningful impact on hotel operations or the guest experience, it needs reliable, structured hotel knowledge. 

"Everyone is obsessed with AI, and we're obsessed with the data that is feeding it," said Benjamin. 

Quinta's approach is to collect, structure, update and distribute hotel data so it can feed different AI use cases. That could mean a reservation assistant, a digital concierge, an AI-powered phone system or visibility in AI-driven search. 

This is where the whole is bigger and more powerful than the sum of its parts.  

Hotels are increasingly surrounded by specialized tools. One handles voice, another handles chat, another supports marketing or content creation. If every one of those tools requires its own manually maintained knowledge base, the result is more fragmentation rather than less. 

The opportunity is to create a reliable source of truth that can feed different technologies. That also means keeping information accurate and consistent across hotel channels. 

This will become increasingly important as guest discovery changes. Search is already becoming more conversational and AI-driven, creating new questions for hoteliers around how their property, content and guest experience are understood by AI platforms. 

The future is less software, more outcomes 

The clearest common thread across all three conversations was automation. Not automation for its own sake, but that reduces the number of manual steps between insight and action. 

Revinate is moving towards what Bryson describes as "less about tools, more about automation". That means systems that don't simply give a hotelier the ability to build a campaign, but help build the campaign based on the outcome they are trying to achieve. 

Bookboost is taking a similar direction with AI agents that can work across different areas of its platform. Rather than treating analytics, segmentation and campaigns as isolated workflows, the longer-term ambition is for AI to help connect them. 

That matters because hotel teams don't need another dashboard to check. They need to know what deserves attention and what action to take next. 

The same principle applies to CRM more broadly. The value isn't in having the most guest profiles or collecting the largest number of data points. The value comes from using that information at the right moment. 

A guest who previously loved a sea-view room might receive a relevant offer before their next stay. Someone who abandoned a booking could receive a timely follow-up. A repeat OTA guest might be encouraged to book directly. A business traveler could automatically receive the information they are most likely to need. 

Those are small interactions individually. At scale, they can transform the economics of guest relationships. 

From data collection to guest connection 

What happens once hotels can centralize their guest data?  

Can that data improve the guest experience? Can it reduce operational workload? Can it drive more direct bookings? Can it make AI genuinely useful rather than just another layer of technology? 

The three solutions featured in this episode answer those questions in different ways. But they share the same starting point. 

Guest data is already a gold mine. The hotels that win won't necessarily be the ones with the most data; they'll be the ones that finally know how to use it. 

To hear more about each solution and to watch the full episode of Matt Talks Hospitality, follow the link below. 

Watch the episode