A current examine by Agilysys, a number one world supplier of hospitality software program options and providers, has revealed a shocking development within the APAC hospitality business: excessive visitor satisfaction doesn’t essentially translate into repeat enterprise.
Regardless of optimistic experiences, many travellers usually are not returning to lodges they’ve loved. This “rebooking paradox” presents a big problem for hoteliers within the area. To delve deeper into this concern, we spoke with Tony Marshall, VP Managing Director APAC at Agilysys.
In our unique interview, Marshall discusses the elements contributing to this paradox, the significance of personalisation, and the ever-growing function of know-how in driving visitor loyalty.
Readers can obtain the complete examine right here.
Your examine highlights a “rebooking paradox” the place solely 37% of APAC travellers rebook regardless of 86% expressing excessive satisfaction. May you delve deeper into the important thing findings and the explanations for this discrepancy?
Marshall: The ‘rebooking paradox’ we recognized actually underscores the complexity of loyalty in hospitality. The disparity means that satisfaction alone isn’t sufficient to drive rebooking. The rise of OTAs and the benefit of comparability procuring have considerably impacted visitor behaviour. Having a conventional loyalty program that simply provide you with factors in all probability isn’t sufficient anymore.
To deal with this, hoteliers ought to prioritise personalised experiences and supply tangible worth inside their loyalty applications. By leveraging deep knowledge evaluation and a single visitor profile, lodges can acquire invaluable insights into visitor preferences and tailor their choices accordingly. As an illustration, spa workers can coordinate remedies with restaurant bookings, entrance desk brokers can recommend focused, personalised, upgrades, and restaurant managers can advocate particular wines based mostly on previous preferences.
This stage of granular personalisation, past simply figuring out your identify and what number of factors you might have amassed, is essential for constructing robust visitor relationships and fostering long-term loyalty.
To that finish, 73% of APAC travellers spotlight personalisation and loyalty applications as vital drivers of rebooking. Do you assume there’s maybe a false impression within the business concerning the depth of personalisation required?
Marshall: Sure, I imagine there’s a typical false impression that fundamental personalisation, similar to figuring out a visitor’s identify and loyalty factors, is sufficient. Whereas it is a good place to begin, it’s clear from our examine {that a} deeper stage of personalisation is important to really drive rebooking and loyalty.
A major instance is Raffles. They excel at creating luxurious experiences, however their strategy to personalisation usually seems to depend on guide efforts. By leveraging know-how, they may assist streamline their processes and elevate their visitor experiences to even better heights.
It’s not simply luxurious manufacturers that may profit from superior personalisation. Midscale lodges also can differentiate themselves in a aggressive market by harnessing the facility of know-how to ship tailor-made experiences.
Do you assume driving loyalty is more difficult for unbiased lodges than it maybe is for the bigger teams?
Marshall: Not likely, no. We’ve developed software program that may work with each. We work with the big chains, Hilton and Marriott for instance, however our software program is versatile in order that we are able to work with smaller boutique properties too. It could work simply as properly for the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, with practically 2,000 rooms as it will for 50 room property. We are able to both deploy on premise, or within the cloud, so it’s rather a lot simpler for smaller, boutique and unbiased lodges to make use of this sort of know-how that it ever has been earlier than.
“The secret is to strike a stability between automation and human interplay and leverage know-how to enhance, not change, the human contact”
Back to your examine, it was attention-grabbing to learn that 30% of APAC travellers admire workers remembering prior conversations. As AI and automation change into extra prevalent, how can hoteliers stability doubtlessly decreasing human-to-guest interplay whereas sustaining rebooking charges?
Marshall: Effectively, automation can streamline many repetitive duties, similar to evening audits, predictive ordering, and yield administration, but it surely’s important to keep up a powerful human contact. By automating these duties, workers can concentrate on offering these memorable personalised experiences and constructing relationships with visitors.
AI can play a big function in enhancing personalisation. By analysing visitor knowledge, AI can predict preferences and tailor choices accordingly. This permits your group to supply extra related and priceless upsells. I feel the bottom line is to strike a stability between automation and human interplay and leverage know-how to enhance, not change, the human contact.
Whereas the examine might not have particular age demographics, traditionally, loyalty has been more difficult amongst youthful generations who’re much less brand-loyal and extra price-driven. Is it affordable to count on you could obtain the identical ranges of loyalty from a youthful demographic?
Marshall: The youthful generations, they’re so worth delicate. However in addition they need the luxurious contact, the personalisation, the experiences. They need all of it they usually need it yesterday.
However I feel you may nonetheless count on loyalty, you simply have to talk to the person. Personalisation is that individual. It’s not about slicing and pasting each supply to everybody, it’s about figuring out the person. That’s what actually helps to achieve Gen Z and Millennials, to fulfill their expectations of on the spot gratification. I feel it’s attainable to get an additional 10% spend from a youthful visitor, if you happen to’re hitting the proper buttons with them. So, the proper messaging and the proper platforms too.
And while you get them on-property, that’s the place you may hit them with the personalisation that may actually influence the possibilities of them rebooking.
“All of it comes again to the know-how and that single visitor profile; figuring out and actually deep-diving into the info that you’ve got, to really perceive your visitor”
The examine emphasises the significance of shifting from RevPAR to RevPAG to achieve a extra holistic view of visitor spending. How can hoteliers undertake this strategy and what advantages can they count on from specializing in income per out there visitor?
Marshall: Basic Supervisor’s have at all times been measured on RevPAR. By transferring to a RevPAG (Income Per Obtainable Visitor) strategy, even simply throughout golf and spa, you may develop the income per visitor by 10%, per go to. All of it comes again to the know-how and that single visitor profile; figuring out and actually deep-diving into the info that you’ve got, to really perceive your visitor.
All groups, advertising and marketing, F&B, golf groups and so on. have to work collaboratively to make use of the know-how and higher perceive upcoming visitor preferences and behaviours. You possibly can then begin to tailor and personalise your packages accordingly and drive that further incremental income from a way more focused strategy.
In fact, you may section by spend too. You possibly can even begin tailoring packages on your high-net-worth visitors, the highest tier of your loyalty programmes.
Lastly, what’s subsequent for Agilysys in 2025?
Marshall: Effectively, we’re going to be out and about at a number of commerce exhibits, holding our personal seminars and making an attempt to teach and assist the business higher perceive how they will use a RevPAG strategy with our merchandise to achieve a minimum of an additional 10% of income.
And when it comes to Agilysys, there’s a number of issues taking place and much more to come back! We’ve been spending $40m a 12 months on our R&D, with a group of 1,500 staff, to proceed enhancing our merchandise over the past 5 or 6 years. The distinction between us and a few of the others is that we’ve actually gone again and tweaked our product, by a consultative course of with hoteliers, in order that it’s not simply one other off-the-shelf product.
We’ve accomplished the rewrites to make sure that our merchandise are business main. Now it’s an ongoing course of to make sure we preserve reinventing and preserve innovating, with a concentrate on RevPAG and serving to hoteliers to extend their income.
About Agilysys
Agilysys completely delivers state-of-the-art software program options and providers that assist organizations obtain Excessive Return Hospitality™ by maximizing Return on Expertise (ROE) by interactions that make ‘private’ worthwhile. Prospects around the globe use Agilysys Property Administration Programs (PMS), Level-of-Sale (POS) options and Stock and Procurement (I&P) techniques to persistently delight visitors, retain workers and develop margins. Agilysys’ 100% hospitality buyer base contains branded and unbiased lodges; multi-amenity resorts; casinos; property, resort and resort administration corporations; cruise traces; company eating suppliers; larger schooling campus eating suppliers; meals service administration corporations; hospitals; life-style communities; senior residing amenities; stadiums; and theme parks. www.agilysys.com
