Enhance The Guest Hotel Experience With Extra Services
When you’ve got guests booking with you, you want to fully understand the demand for extra-services, ensuring that their time with you feels well spent. While it’s essential to cover basic requirements such as offering a nice hotel room, interestingly, recent studies suggest that Hotels can further sweeten guests’ experiences by implementing extra services. Small additions to your services can make a big difference and make your guests smile. It’s all about letting them know you want them to have the most convenient and comfortable experience possible.
Proving you care about customers is simple! Follow a clear strategy and always focus on making them stay happy with your business in the long run.
Additional services also allow partners to build more profit, and that’s always a nice benefit, right?
What Guests want
Wouldn’t it be better to offer travellers an all-inclusive vacation package instead? Well... not really, and this is the interesting part.
It’s essential to identify the specific needs of the people choosing your services. They might be searching for either an all-inclusive experience or on the hunt for a self-organised holiday, choosing one or the other is often a tricky decision.
In recent years, self-catering has overpowered all-inclusive holidays for simple reasons. Self-organised travel offers a tremendous opportunity to fulfil aspects that a package holiday might not — take practicality, customised experiences, and freedom of choice as great examples.
Although our point here isn’t to pit self-catering against all-inclusive travel choices, we’ll review each concept in detail to understand the current trends in the hospitality industry. This information will be super useful to enhance the guests’ hotel experience.
All-inclusive vs. Self-organised holidays
The latter option, a self-organised holiday, happens when the customers are looking to organise their travel experience at their own time, while already spending time at their destination. In a few words, it’s more of a simple, calm but exciting, and even spontaneous type of experience.
For instance, they might want to explore nature and learn about the local culture, perhaps dine at a new restaurant, and then maybe take a look at the sights or enjoy a museum. The point with this kind of hotel guest experience is that they are looking to self-manage their time.
The former option, an all-inclusive (or prepaid) holiday, is where travellers simply want to sign on the dotted line and enjoy a planned experience. The hotel, in this case, would offer a variety of activities to choose from and, everything is included in the initial price.For example, endless buffets, spa packages, vouchers for a water park or zoo, etc.
In these specific cases, the guests don’t feel like managing their own time, so they’ll pay extra to have a plan designed for them. This way, they just show up where they’re supposed to when they’re supposed to and only need to care about enjoying themselves.
In present times, all-inclusive package holidays are already doing pretty well.
Although it used to be seen as one of the least sustainable types of package holidays, sustainable tourism experts agree that it has the potential of becoming a highly sustainable way to accommodate mass tourism.
Empower customers through knowledge
Let’s set something straight, prepaid and self-organised holidays are great options, both could result in happy customers at your establishment. For this reason, it’s a great idea to give consumers the freedom of choosing what they want!
But, something to bear in mind about self-organised holidays is that, very often, visitors are booking from afar and can’t plan for unexpected things. For example, crowded places or renovations, and any bad experience masqueraded as a good one.
At this point, you can take the lead to benefit your customers.
There’s a big advantage for your local business. The simple reason for that is, chances are, you may be able to forecast any challenges that tourists could face in the destination, you might also understand the actual value in a supposed adventure.
The power move? To help guests curb any bad experiences by offering extra services that will surely provide the satisfaction they’re seeking for.
Understand what guests need
Let’s be honest, sometimes the hotel guest experience requires more than just offering them a safe place to stay. Apart from covering the basic needs of guests, you’ll be able to add more worth and enjoyment to their time with you.
To start, brainstorm any extra (little or big) details to offer guests, and that would help them enjoy the right things in your location.
Note that this doesn't mean that the only way to wow guests is with big things, like free tours or activities. They could be something like 10% off at local eateries (that you know are delicious and well-reviewed), or even something as simple as pick-up or drop-off services (Psst… There is a wide range of low-impact transportation trial, get creative!).
Celebrate traditional clothing! Give guidance to travellers, so they dress appropriately for the local weather. After all, you never know how some people pack, so it could be quite fruitful.
In most cases, these details that guests could overlook. Of course, providing a few excellent options will make visitors appreciate the tiny little details, you’ll also be able to help them get more out of their time.
Improve the hotel guest experience
There are so many ways that you can improve the experience of your guests by offering small kinds of perks. It’ll also mean a lot of positive change for you and your business as well. Some highlights you can expect from understanding the guest demand for extra-services.
High ratings and recommendations:
It’s 2020, chances are that ratings and recommendations from friends and loved ones have influenced your shopping decisions. These can bring business your way. Certainly, you want to capitalise on customer reviews as much as possible.
Guests, who can see and appreciate how you want to cater to all of their needs, will be impressed. Odds are, they’ll leave you a glowing review and tell all of their friends, and you can even take a chance and simply ask them to share about their experience online. With the ripple effect and online presence, the chances of generating business are quite high.
Positive press is always great in the world of complainers and trolls.
Repeat visits and useful feedback
Not only is a satisfied customer much more likely to return (and bring a friend!), they’ll be able to also suggest helpful ideas for the future, too. Take the initiative and reach out to them to discuss any gaps that are not getting covered or talk about any services that should be improved for a better experience.
Remember that you can’t make everyone happy as all ideas won’t come to life, but always remain open to suggestions.
Customers will be flattered, and, most importantly, will feel heard! Thanks to that, they’ll give you realistic advice and tips that you can use to better the future list of additional services that you provide. Talk about a positive cycle!
Guests will enjoy themselves more
Sure, it may not impact you directly as the business owner. Still, knowing that your customers are happy and enjoying themselves means that you are doing something right to help make it that way. This will allow you to see that any small services or needs you decided to take on are making a difference for your customers.
This a fast-growing industry, so trends pretty much come and go.
Smoking rooms are not considered an advantage anymore, instead, free and fast Wi-Fi is on the top of the basic things your guests expect your establishment to cover. The flip side is, hotel industry trends can be updated and shifted to help make a guest’s stay significantly better.
Extra services can be tiny and will depend on the specific needs of your ideal customers. Consider personalised emails, discounted or free “additional” touches, or even something as simple as mobile check-in and check-out.
Just choosing to employ those extra services is an advantage. Your guests will appreciate them in all the ways that you want them to. Since hospitality is all about pleasing the customer, you can’t get much better than that! The changes for you will be minimal as far as your convenience.
Can you think of one extra service that a small hotel should NOT overlook?
