Hi all,
During our class excursion to Expedia and in class, I learnt that each generation approaches their travel experience in unique ways and capitalising on their travel habits would be key in capturing market share from the different generations. Despite hotels’ efforts to know their guests and their preferences, it seems that there is a chasm between the guests and the staff. Guests would rather engage with its mobile device than the staff and they trust the wisdom of the crowd on internet more than they do at the concierge. Personally, I agree that this seems to be the case especially with our generation. From all my experience with staying at hotels, I turn to the internet and word of mouth to get travel information than engaging the hotel staff for help. Also, I almost always have limited opportunities of interaction with the staffs during my stay. I believe this is something that hotel should be taking note of and that they should be thinking of ways to engage with their guests so as to gather more information on their travel habits.
Referring to the article from the link below, David Berger, the CEO of Exa, introduce a solution to engage guests: Voice Automated Engagement Software. It is a frictionless technology controlled by the hotel between the guest and his or her mobile device. It works like SIRI on our Iphone and allow customers to for example schedule a tour, book a lunch at your hotel’s restaurant and answer common questions. To find out more about the different functions, refer to the demonstration link below. As it is easy to use, it can engage the guests in place of hotel staffs and capture data on key travel habits. These data could be used to supercharge a guest experience, optimise services and open new revenue streams for the hotel.
To read the article – Voice Engagement: Filling a Growing Chasm and Gaping Hole for the Hotel Industry:
http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/global/154000320/4078151.html
To see a demonstration on how the Voice Automated Engagement Software works:
https://exa.ai/view-a-demo
The demos sure do bring it to life. Very interesting. As long as there is no glitches on back of house on whatever they may be asking for, it should work. This is probably what will happen before internet of things completely take over. If the hotel room has compatible devices with Amazon Echo, then they could switch off lights and all with it too.
Tying this back to what we will cover in this week’s class on brand positioning and brand elements — if one of your core brand elements is innovative and tech-savvy, then a brand touch point of the ideal guest journey could be this device.
However, I do have to say, I love to hear a real voice and the genuine good evenings and good night’s and good mornings.