Skift Take
It's no longer enough to provide a bed and shower in upscale urban markets, hotels have to create a brand that ties into the local culture and positions itself as gateway to discovering it.
Hotels, Airbnb hosts, and even publishers are all looking for new ways to make travel content more useful and engaging for their customers.
Jauntful, a platform for creating personalized city guides, this week launched a B2B product aimed at the hospitality and publishing industries.
“We found significant business demand primarily from the publishing and hospitality industries, as well as local businesses,” said Jauntful CEO Raphael Grignani in a statement.
Businesses using Jauntful’s new B2B product will be able to easily brand guides with a logo, brand color and on the back of printed guides.
They will also be able to embed guides on their website, order printed guides, and access analytics on the popularity of their online guides.
Hyatt’s lifestyle brand Andaz has signed up to use the B2B product and has already created custom maps for ten of its 12 properties. The maps are curated by Andaz’s “hosts,” which act as the check-in staff and concierge.
“Hosts currently share local information with guests when they check in, but we wanted to highlight the insider knowledge that they have before a guests’ arrival, explains Megan Eakins, senior brand manager for Andaz.
“This is a great tool for us to give customers during the preplanning process so they really fell like they know the area before they arrive.”
This is an extension of Andaz’s current digital strategy Andaz Salon, which shares content that tries to capture the atmosphere and local influence surrounding each property.
An example of Andaz’s map for Amsterdam is shown below:
Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn has also created maps on the site using the free consumer version.
In addition to hotels, Jauntful is working with media corporation Bonnier, which will use the platform to share its travel-related content into new forms with readers and create new native ad products for clients.
An example from Saveur is embedded below:
6 Things You Can Only Get in Philadelphia
Regular travelers can also use the platform to create map guides for friends or Airbnb guests.
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Tags: andaz, content marketing, maps
Photo credit: A women looks at a curate Jauntful map. Jauntful