The greatest opportunity to maximise personalisation for hotel guests is during the stay itself. Credit: ClassicVector via Shutterstock.

Software company Medallia has researched personalisation efforts in the hotel industry.

Surveying 1,749 hotel guests in the US, the findings reveal that hoteliers have significant opportunities to improve and capture more revenue, as 61% of guests are willing to spend more if they receive a customised experience.

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However, only 23% of consumers report experiencing high levels of personalisation after recent hotel stays.

Customers who rate the level of personalisation they received as a 9 or 10 on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the most personalised, are far more likely to rate their overall satisfaction as very high. Those who do not perceive their experience as being personalised report lower satisfaction ratings.

How can hotels incorporate personalisation?

According to the research, the greatest opportunity to maximise personalisation for hotel guests is during the stay itself.

Guests are less likely to find personalised experiences at this stage of the customer journey — features of personalisation possible during the hotel stay averaged only a 46% recall rate.

However, other parts of the guest journey such as interaction with customer service, during the booking, post-stay and during the check-in and check-out processes all averaged higher.

Hotels can offer greater personalisation when rewarding guests based on their status by allowing guests to make customised selections during the booking process.

This gives guests more opportunities to provide feedback and allows them to choose the support channels they prefer when they need customer service.

Medallia head of insights Andrew Custage commented: “The challenge for companies — especially in hospitality, where consumers frequently engage across multiple digital, contact centre and in-person touchpoints — has always been capturing and understanding customer data fast enough to act on it.

“But generative AI [artificial intelligence] technology is now making it possible for brands to automate insights and actions at scale to deliver more personalised experiences.”