Hotels can harness data to drive an increase in revenue and embrace guests’ appetite for personalised experiences, was the message of the first HOSPA webinar of the year - The Future of Hospitality: Go beyond for evolving guest needs - hosted by CEO Jane Pendlebury.
Matthew Prosser, senior sales director, Agilysys, told attendees: “Today, more than ever, the guest expects more. For us as consumers we have become conditioned to expect personalisation and it’s here to stay. We all have to have a vision to recognise that this is fundamentally important to this industry. Guests now want ‘my’ experience, rather than a more generic approach.”
Prosser described the sector has having been constrained “for far too long” by thinking about the room, calling for the hotel metrics to be expanded beyond revpar.
He said: “The guest economy is an opportunity to divert our attention from certain metrics that we’ve been using for decades. It’s now time to really think about who’s at the heart of the business.”
Agilysys hoped to be able to have some element of global metrics around guest spend towards the end of this year, with Prosser adding, “the challenge is where we get this this data to CRM systems”.
To learn more, the organisation had conducted a survey between September and October last year of 500 executives and decision makers around the world.
The group found that 82% of those asked recognised the need to move beyond traditional metrics. Seventy two per cent were ready to invest in that technology infrastructure and 64% of executives aimed to leverage data more effectively.
Prosser said: “It remains vitally important that we reduce complexities and increase the efficiencies. If we could have a constant development through a single platform, if we can reduce the integrations and have all the information in one place that’s a better route forward for the next 20 years than we have seen in the past 10.”
Prosser drew attention to the importance of being to act in real time during a guest’s stay. He said: “When we’re emotionally attached and involved in a subject, that’s the best opportunity to part with money. If you’re pushing information to a third-party product that’s going to give you a result in a few week’s time that’s not going to help in the moment.
“Through using AI, you can approach guests on site and we have found that, at one resort, we saw a further 10% of annual revenue as a result of understanding the trends and behaviours of their guest whilst they were staying.”
The pressing need facing the sector, concluded Prosser, was that “we’ve got to ensure that hoteliers have the data at their fingertips that helps them to look after the guests in their establishments”.
For upcoming HOSPA webinars, please visit here.
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