More and more, we hear people talking about “guest relations,” “following the customer journey,” “Big Data,” “CRM,” and so on. But what do all of these concepts mean and how should you respond? Do independent hoteliers necessarily need to address these subjects specifically? Is there a risk, however remote, for those who don’t do so? Today, it appears obvious that we are at the dawning of a new age in the hotel industry. We have…
For the past two years, I’ve heard hoteliers complaining about Airbnb, calling it “unfair competition” and “a disaster for the hotel industry”. But yesterday,…
A long time ago, when I was still a teenager, I learned to play a number of different musical instruments. At the time, one…
Here’s a question that crops up very regularly: what do your guests really expect? If we could read their minds, what the heck would we find? Do you think that, if you were more able to anticipate your guests’ needs, you would be able to improve your revenue? Even though it’s impossible to answer this question perfectly, I nevertheless had a little fun by analyzing the answers that we receive from pre-stay questionnaires. The rather…
My article on the different aspects that can leave guests dissatisfied triggered some lively responses. Many hotels called me to ask a variety of questions…
The world of hotels and their communications systems continues to evolve. It is becoming extremely difficult to overlook new trends and tools while, in…
Let’s discuss the dream of hoteliers everywhere: to make their guests loyal to the property directly, and to free themselves from the yoke of the OTAs. Is this a readily achievable goal, or is it a pipe dream? At present, I don’t see any way to remove the OTAs from the equation entirely and only take direct bookings. Nevertheless, this does not mean that you can’t achieve significant improvements in terms of your guests’ loyalty…