Travel and Hospitality Personalization Is Not a Destination, It's a Journey
Skift Take
"One of the recurring pitfalls in personalization deployments is attacking the problem in silos and not through an integrated marketing team that includes the data analyst, IT expert, creative professional, sales, and marketing in one cohesive and coordinated group."
Effectively executed, personalization is an integral part of the journey to guest loyalty and advocacy.
Over the years the travel and hospitality (T&H) industry has known how important personalization is to guests, but hasn’t always been consistent in delivering.
Three things hang in the balance:
New guest acquisition in a time of large-scale demographic changes
Existing guest retention in an atmosphere of greater competition
Staying competitive in a market impacted by disruptive entrants
Being personal is no easy task. There isn’t a single simple approach to cover all the use cases. The sheer velocity of change in the T&H context, data and guest sentiment creates an engagement challenge of immense and complex proportions. A multifaceted approach is needed to take advantage of the industry’s wealth of data and content.
Personalization for the Masses
Delivering personalized digital and physical experiences in the travel and hospitality industry is not a new tactic. It’s always been pursued to a limited extent, and has traditionally focused on luxury and high-end segments. Delivering personalization at scale was hampered by affordability. However, the disruptive innovation of increasing data availability has changed the nature of the game, enabling us to know much more about the guest. This, along with the burgeoning omnichannel digital environment with touch points never before considered, allows us to continually
