Is there room for creativity in the hospitality industry? Whatever the answer was before 2020, it has drastically changed now. In the post-pandemic world, creativity in the hotel industry is a necessity.
As the saying goes- Necessity is the mother of invention. The pandemic was the push to the hotel industry to speed up innovation and increase the use of technology. This helped hotels get creative and make sure they are still providing a great guest experience.
The inclusion of creativity in the hospitality industry has majorly changed how we look at travel in general. Guests are planning to stay at hotels that offer an experience. Depending on your surroundings, you can help create a local experience that is one of a kind.
Do you know how the Ritz Carlton at Geneva, Switzerland coped with the immense losses that they incurred during the pandemic? They tried to understand the main concerns that people had with hotel stays. One of the problems that they pinpointed was that people, justifiably, did not want to dine with hundreds of others at the hotel restaurant. The creative solution that the hotel authorities came up with will be discussed in the next point. Here, I want to focus on how Ritz Carlton identified the burning problem that was in everyone’s mind.
You need to know the concerns that your guests have to address them. Sending out questionnaires or surveys to your previous guests to get an idea of what they like and how you can improve is always a good option. There should be an open line of communication between yourself and your guests.
Having a Property Management System, like StayFlexi, helps with this. Not only does Stayflexi help the communication between your guests and yourself. But Stayflexi also provides you with detailed data on customer behavior and also analytics and audit reports.
Stayflexi’s reports help you narrow down the areas which could do with some creative input and improvement. With the reporting and your guests feedback, you can no make sure you have all your bases covered.
The solution that you come up with either needs to be innovative or unique to your hotel. Offering packages to help promote your amenities or a hyper local experience can really help improve your guests’ stay.
Here’s what Ritz Carlton did to solve the problem of people avoiding hotel restaurants: They started offering premium dining service within the rooms itself. They completely changed the existing model of room service and made sure that the guests could enjoy their stay from this heightened state of privacy.
Sanitation has never been more important than it is now. The Contactless Check-In and Check-Out option has been gaining traction ever since 2015. Stayflexi allows you to offer this contactless check-in and check-out feature where guests no longer have to come in contact with hoteliers. In fact, this is what led to the advent of completely staff-free hotels in the US. The Airbnb model has been all the rage for a reason. You don’t need to needlessly interact with the staff for every one of your little needs.
Through which channels did the Ritz-Carlton advertise their new room dining service feature? Through every medium there is- old school and modern. They took to the national television, radio and even social media.
Social media marketing for the hospitality industry took an entirely different form once travel bloggers entered the scene. The entire trajectory of looking for good hotels has taken a turn.
No longer do people settle upon a destination first and then choose ahotel in the area using a common OTA. Instead, they stumble across a beautiful hotel while browsing through Pinterest or Instagram and decide to see where this is located. Accordingly, they plan their next vacation. Long story short, people don’t choose their hotels based on their destinations anymore, they choose their destinations based on their hotels.
This gives you a stellar opportunity to highlight the individuality of your hotel. Instead of paying influencers, start using User-Generated Content. Encourage your guests to photograph your hotel or your restaurant food. Just clicking on the location tag takes a new user to a whole inventory of User-Generated Content. Your potential guests will trust this User-Generated Content more than advertisements as well.
The pandemic reduced the labor capacity of hotels to almost a third of the original strength. This means people have to wear more hats and be more flexible.
Some of the jobs at a hotel do not need any specialized training. Sometimes you have the options of shuffling from one department to the other. This is one of the most creative ways hotels chose to deal with this labor crisis. Do not engage a fixed crew at any department. This way, you don’t have to hire a new crew every time you have a new requirement. You can simply train a section of the existing staff to do the new job.
Surprisingly enough, Stayflexi can also help with this. Stayflexi makes the act of checking in completely contactless. Therefore, no one needs to man the front desk of the lobby 24×7. Even if the guest wants to check in after they have stepped into the hotel, any staff member can complete this process through their tablets while they are on the move.
When your staff no longer has to worry about mundane and rote tasks that an automation can do better anyway, they can finally focus on improving their hospitality skills and the guest experience.
I know I have already spoken of social media marketing before, but being Instagrammable is a whole other thing.
To be Instagrammable, you need to have something that is unique to your property. It might be your cuisine or your location or even just your interior design. If it’s innovative and creative, the Instagram crowd is bound to start pouring in.
Remember how charcoal ice creams became a rage on Instagram? You can utilize that same strategy to go viral. Also, as I have mentioned before, Instagram allows you to have an entire inventory of User-Generated Content just a click away.
Be it marketing strategy or interior design, you can be creative in all sectors. You can even be creative with how you identify problems or interact with guests. Imagination is something that knows no bounds, and neither does creativity. It’s very hard for another hotel to copy your model exactly and do it right. This is why being creative ensures that your methods in guest management are always innovative and unique.
I have stated the multiple ways in which Stayflexi allows you to implement creativity into the mundane workings of your hotel. If you want to know more about how Stayflexi encourages creativity, leave a comment below!
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