Lecture Notes: Digital Transformation in Hospitality Industry

Introduction

• Company launched a Digital Plan
  • 5-year plan initiated two years ago
  • Budget: over 200 million euros
  • Aim: Digitalising the company’s processes at various touchpoints

Enhancing Customer Experience

• Client Card Improvements
  • Currently: Basic info (smoking preference, floor preference)
  • Future: Enriched data including reviews from TripAdvisor, internal questionnaires
  • Goal: Customize and improve overall guest experience

Challenges

• Diversity of Sources and Languages
  • Need to cover majority of sources and languages
  • Tools must be user-friendly for hotel staff
• Simplicity in Tools
  • Tools should be straightforward, delivering clear KPIs

Training and Cultural Change

• Importance of Online Reputation
  • Correlation: More reviews = Higher ranking = More bookings
  • Business cases used to illustrate benefits
• Cultural Shift
  • Emphasis on obtaining reviews
  • New objectives focusing on guest experience targets linked to online reputation

Leveraging User-Generated Content

• Abundance of Available Content
  • Utilization and repurposing of existing content
  • Emphasis on storytelling through guests’ perspectives
• Picture Crawling Tool
  • Crawls pictures based on GPS location (not hashtags)
  • Creation of a repository for decision-making on content use
  • Example: Use guest-taken pictures on websites instead of stock photos

Future Directions

• Use of Authentic Imagery
  • Displaying real, unedited guest photos to portray genuine experiences
• Emerging Trends
  • Current status: More gimmicky
  • Future impact: Significant role in travel industry

Conclusion

• The ongoing digital transformation is aimed at enhancing guest experiences through technology by utilizing digital tools, improving data use, and leveraging user-generated content.