Briefing: Hotels struggle to follow trend for personalisation

Companies using personalised marketing have experienced an average uplift in sales of 19% according to research. Personal customer service has always been key in hospitality; ‘A warm and sincere greeting using the guest’s name’ is step one of the Ritz Carlton’s three steps to service. With the increase in data that is being collected from guests, hotels should be able to recognise guests from previous stays and personalise service towards them, but it is not easy. Figures from UNWTO show that there were 1087 million international tourists in 2013 and 6 billion domestic tourists worldwide. With so many different faces passing through the doors it is hard for hoteliers to distinguish individual customer profiles as our experts discuss in this week’s briefing:

Many hotel brands have loyalty programs, which can help them keep a profile of each guest but even within this there are many people to keep track of. Hilton HHonors is Hilton Worldwide’s loyalty programme, which has 42 million members. IHG has 161 million guests nights per annum and its reward club has 82.4 million members globally.

Research shows that 78% of consumers feel that personalised marketing content leads to a deeper relationship with a brand. Personalisation is also used in online retail. 60% of consumers prefer it when online store remembers their contact details and purchase information. In a survey by Oracle 54% of retail consumers said personalisation was important. With customer service becoming more personalised across the board this will continue to be a challenge for hospitality to figure out.

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