Technology-Enabled Personalization: From Hotel Marketing to the Guest Experience
TLDR: We all love a personal touch when checking in: remembering your favorite room or asking if you need reservations to your go-to restaurant. It’s the concierge experience, prized at many luxury and boutique hotels. And today, technology enables this level of personalization from anyone behind the check-in desk, not just the 30-year veteran. Guests increasingly expect hotels to remember their preferences, and after years of data collection, hotels are finding innovative ways to do so.
How Technology Enables On-Site Personalization
Today’s hotel customer record management (CRM) software gathers information from a dizzying range of sources. Booking records show room preferences and seasonal patterns. Amenity usage data reveals which services guests value. On-property behavior such as thermostat settings or room service orders provides insight into habits. Communication logs show whether guests prefer emails or texts. Loyalty program records show stay frequency and spending trends.
As services become more connected—and as AI sorts through massive troves of information—we learn even more about the small preferences and habits that add up to their ideal stay. The hotels who adopt a consistent, organized system for managing guest preferences can enable a powerful new level of personalization, especially for valuable returning customers.
How Hotels Use Personalization Today
A favorite drink. Down or down alternative? Hot stone massage before dinner. One simple request, or a consistent pattern, logged into the CRM, can yield opportunities for experiences that meet a guest’s preferences. Many of the big players, like Hilton, Carnival, and Marriott, have invested in data platforms and connected rooms that enable new levels of personalization. Their properties, and others, are quietly changing the guest experience.
Some properties adjust room temperature or lighting based on settings used in past visits. Guests may receive pre-arrival emails recommending meals. Many use predictive analytics in their PMS or CRM systems to adjust pricing and package offers. Some offer in-room entertainment or local event alerts on smart TVs or guest tablets, tailored to profiles. Mobile apps let guests skip the front desk and offer service suggestions based on previous stays and behaviors. Staff mobile devices can display guest preferences in real-time, allowing them to tailor service during check-in or housekeeping.
Are these powerful selling tools? Absolutely. Plus, they offer potential to seamlessly improve the guest experience. Do they cross the line to be intrusive or creepy? Potentially. Not to mention, some of these technologies replace face-to-face interaction. Hotels introducing technology-enabled personalization tools must find a balance between what guests prefer, and what goes too far. Above all else, collect and use data transparently.
Where to Start? Consider Your Marketing
Personalized marketing has been shown to increase conversion rate and revenue, making it the ideal place to apply your hotel’s CRM data. If you’re following privacy best practices, and connecting data effectively to platforms, it can become a powerful tool for revenue growth. Talk to your agency about taking these key steps.
Why is it so effective? Consider what’s possible. Your hotel could update email campaigns with variable fields, sending previous guests a reminder of the activities they enjoyed. Then, offer a discount to come back and do it again.
Email campaigns can trigger based on certain dates or behaviors — birthdays and anniversaries for example. Ads targeted at previous guests can use different creative angles or feature special offers.
After booking, emails and notifications can include details from previous visits, letting guests book services on the spot.
These strategies both appeal to returning guests and offer revenue-boosting potential. All of them use tried-and-true tactics that marketers have relied on for some time. Interested in testing some? Here are next steps to consider:
- Audit your guest data: Understand what you collect and where it is stored
- Identify opportunities: Find emails or website pages that would benefit from a personalized callout or message
- Agree on the details that matter: Host a meeting across teams, identifying which guest preferences should go on record and which CRM fields hold them
- Review your tech stack: Make sure your PMS, CRM, and email platform integrate smoothly
- Plan a campaign: Identify a high-value guest segment and design outreach addressing them. Use a light application of personalized assets for this experiment.
Looking to grow revenue from personalization? Just getting started, or interested in advanced integrations? Reach out to the hotel marketers at O’Rourke. We’d love to help you find your next revenue growth opportunity.