Prepare your hotel for record-breaking holiday travel in 2022

The 2022 hotel winter holiday season is predicted to be one of the busiest on record for the hospitality industry. Between the lockdown-induced appetite for travel and the surge in demand that happens every November and December, we’re on the verge of another Roaring Twenties.

This increase in volume comes with an increase in stress. Delays and other complications in travel add tension to an experience that should be exciting, and after the pandemic, many travelers may come with emotional baggage to boot. Your challenge as a hotelier is to make the winter holiday season as magical as possible for your guests.

It isn’t only your guests’ stress level that you should consider. For many, travel demand has bounced back to prepandemic levels, but staffing hasn’t caught up yet. Your staff also needs tools that can help ease pressure for them—and for your guests.

The good news is there are solutions that are easy to implement, and they’ll help maximize the experience of your guests. The key? Balancing human connection with advancements in hotel management technology.

Delight guests with ease of technology

Start by optimizing the processes that all your guests have to follow: check-in and check-out. The more you can simplify these, the better off your staff will be (and the happier your guests will end up).

One study by Deloitte says that when hotel guests are provided with extensive attention while checking in, they’re 29 percent more likely to leave positive reviews about their experience. They’re also 13 percent more likely to return to your hotel if they’re recognized for their loyalty during check-out. But remember this about adding automation to improve your workflow: it should complement that all-important human connection—not replace it.

For example, two rising trends in hotel automation are fully automated check-in/check-out kiosks and digital room keys. We’d implement the latter, but not the former; one is convenient, the other impersonal.

Here are some other emerging automations that can augment personal attention:

●      Information kiosks to answer basic guest questions (this frees up staff to address more nuanced requests) 

●      Automated guest messaging that can assign a service request to a specific staff member, ensuring quick fulfillment

●      Digital menu boards that send orders straight to the kitchen, allowing restaurant staff to put more focus on guests

Surprise guests with a personal touch

With tech helping optimize some tasks, your staff will be free to provide a more personal touch to guests. Your hotel holiday preparation can include strategies for making your guests’ trips memorable without a large financial or time investment—consider the following ideas:

●      Placing customized notes or cards in each guest’s room before they check in

●      Providing welcome cocktails in the hotel bar

●      Adding a handwritten “thank you” message to each bill or invoice

●      Focusing on human-to-human communication when any issues arise

This element of personal connection is critical in the hospitality industry. It can make the difference between repeat guests and former guests. The more you can surprise and delight your guests, the happier their travel memories will be. In the end, these happy memories will counter the many inconveniences that come with traveling, and more than anything, they are the key to building brand loyalty.

Focusing on the personal touch has knock-on effects as well: happy guests make for happy staff. That hypothetical business traveler whose flight faces a three-hour delay is going to be grumpy no matter what you do. However, letting your staff focus on guest experience can make the difference between the traveler causing a scene in the lobby or booking a quick massage in the spa.

Brand loyalty awaits

As the demand for travel increases, so have guests’ expectations. Even if your staffing levels haven’t yet bounced back from the pandemic, your guests are mentally in a post-pandemic world. Remember that innovation should be used to build connections between people, and it’s those connections between people that build brand trust.

Brand trust leads to brand love, and brand love leads to brand loyalty. Take every possible opportunity to build that trust in your hotel’s brand, and human nature will take care of the rest. Your focus needs to be on allowing your employees to build that trust by creating memorable experiences for every guest.