Personalization of the customer experience - from digital marketing and website experience, revenue management and pricing, CRM and loyalty marketing, and on-property guest experience - has become a buzzword at industry conferences, webinars and in the hospitality media. Lately, two schools of thought have emerged in hospitality. Some industry experts, discouraged by privacy acts such as GDPR and CCPA and the complexity of the technology and efforts needed, predict that personalization is dead or dying. Others, encouraged by the advances in next-gen technologies like AI and ML and the increased sophistication of the online travel consumers, firmly believe that personalization is here to stay and the only way to successfully engage, acquire and retain the digitally savvy customers.

So... is personalization dead or alive in hotel digital marketing, website experience, revenue management, CRM and on-property guest experience?

Klaus  Kohlmayr
Klaus Kohlmayr
Chief Evangelist and Development Officer, IDeaS

It is indisputable that consumers, in general, want a more relevant and frictionless experience. Why did close to 600 new Greek Yogurt products get launched between 2014 and 2016 in the US alone? Because consumers want choice. And with a growing abundance of choice, it is easy to get overwhelmed, be it when shopping for Greek Yogurt, streaming a movie or TV show, ordering food delivery – or staying in a hotel. 

The only way for the right product to be matched with the right customer is through some form of personalization (or “relevance matching”). Research has shown over and over that the majority of consumers want tailor-made offers, and “responsible” personalization. But the right balance between privacy and data protection will become more and more critical. This is true for Netflix, Amazon, UberEats/Deliveroo and it is true for hotels. 

I believe that we are only starting to scratch the surface of what is yet to come and proactive, automated personalization and recommendation “engines” will become ubiquitous in the not-so-distant future. 

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