GuestU Blog

GuestU is a technological platform that enables hotels to increase Guest satisfaction, improve online reviews and drive revenue. Our main solution is the GuestU Phone - a smartphone running an operating system personalised, branded and controlled by any hotel. It comes with free internet, voice calls, a city guide and internal services requests. The GuestU Phone has been rated 5 stars by more than 90% of its users.

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How AI will change the way we make decisions

With the recent explosion in AI, there’s a natural concern about its potential impact on human work and the loss of jobs. Which industries will be most affected, and which skills will be most in demand?

Harvard Business Review provides the answers to these questions and suggests an alternative approach. According to economic theory, people who display good judgment will become more valuable. Here are some tips of Harvard Business Review:

 Why AI does and why it’s useful

Recent advances in AI are best thought of as a drop in the cost of prediction. Prediction is about using data that you have to generate data that you don’t have. We do that translating large amounts of data into small, manageable amounts. A classic prediction problem is using images divided into parts to detect whether or not the image contains a human face.

Prediction is useful because it helps improve decisions. Other important input is judgment. A good example is a credit card network deciding whether or not to approve each attempted transaction. The idea is to allow legitimate transactions and decline fraud and thy use AI to predict whether each attempted transaction is fraudulent.

However, even the best AIs aren’t 100 % reliable and the people who have run the credit card networks know from experience that there is a concession between detecting every case of fraud and inconveniencing the user. This means that to decide whether to approve a transaction, the credit card network has to know the cost of mistakes. It would be worse to decline a legitimate transaction or to allow a fraudulent transaction? No AI can make that judge, just humans. This decision is what we call judgment.

 What judgment entails

Judgment is the process of determining what the reward to a particular action is in a particular environment. It is how we work out the benefits and costs of different decisions in different situations.

Credit card fraud is an easy decision to explain in this regard. Judgment involves determining how much money is lost in a fraudulent transaction, how furious a legitimate customer will be when a transaction is declined, as well as the reward for doing the right thing and allowing good transactions and declining bad ones. Humans learn by experience, observing their mistakes.

They will specialize in judging the costs and benefits of different decisions, and then that judgment will be combined with machine-generated predictions to make decisions.

 Setting the right rewards

It is true that AIs can also learn from experience and a good technique is reinforcement learning whereby a computer is trained to take actions that maximize a certain reward function. For instance, DeepMind’s AlphaGo was trained this way to maximize its chances of winning the game of Go. Games are often easy to apply this method of learning because the reward can be easily described and programmed – shutting out a human from the loop.

In fact, even if an organization is enabling AI to make certain decisions, getting the payoffs right for the organization as a whole requires an understanding of how the machines make those decisions. There are some types of prediction mistakes more likely and a machine can learn the wrong message.

 Overall, it’s too soon to know if machine prediction will decrease or increase the amount of work available for humans in decision-making. It is true that machine prediction will substitute human prediction in decision-making, but machine prediction is a complement to human judgment. Cheaper prediction will generate more demand for decision-making, so there will be more opportunities to exercise human judgment.

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Why Guest Profiles are important for your business

Creating guest profiles can help drive more revenue for your business.

These insightful profiles are the result of all the information you, and your team, continuously collect and store from your guests before, during and after their stay at your property. This kind of data can be anything from the average rate they paid for a room, to the services they requested, an online review or even their favourite drink.

By using historical data from past bookings, hoteliers are able to make predictions about guests’ future behaviours and their spendings.The latter is extremely useful when it comes to establishing room rates.

Before technology, adjusting rates was a manual process and used as a technique to maximise profits. While the goal remains the same, technology has made it possible to not only keep track of guest’s past spendings but also to forecast how much they’re willing to spend in the future.

These days it’s absolutely crucial to have a system that gathers guest’s information instantly. That’s why we developed the GuestU Phone, a smartphone that accompanies guests during their stay and that can be beneficial for both sides. On one end it helps guests find their way around the city, by providing them with local recommendations and giving them free Wi-Fi access wherever they go. It’s also a great communication tool, that they can use to interact with the hotel staff and request services on the move.

On the other, the GuestU Phone is a powerful tool for hoteliers, enabling them with interesting data about their guests, that can be analysed and leveraged to provide more upsell opportunities, improve the guest experience and increase loyalty.

Measuring guest’s behaviours outside of the hotel can be extremely difficult without using a mobile device. This is the period where guests are most active and blocking out this information is a mistake if you want to create accurate guest profiles.

The more data you gather, the more you will know about your guests and their preferences, which gives room to personalised experiences for your guests and extra revenue for you.

Photo by Alexander Solodukhin on Unsplash

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Data: the new travel currency for hoteliers

There is no denying how much technology has evolved in the past few years and the impact it’s had in the hospitality industry. 

While investments in hotel technology continue to rise, the main focus for hoteliers is still on providing a memorable experience for guests. This is where data comes in.

Data is the new travel currency in the industry. It allows hotels to get insights about their guests’ behaviour, including what services they request, their room preference, how much they spend during their stay and many other factors that help create a guest’s profile.

With this information, hotels can analyse what areas need improvement and how they can offer a more personalised stay to their guests based on their personal needs.

Larger hotels will inevitably deal with higher amounts of data. In these cases, machine learning can be a key solution, since it can quickly analyse data and help provide immediate results without taking time away from your team.

Business leaders can benefit a lot from collecting data as it can allow them to make more strategic decisions and plan future investments.

To get ahead of the competition, hotels need to be taking full advantage of data to optimise their guest’s experience.

One way to collect guest’s data and simultaneously provide them with a more convenient stay is by equipping hotels with a GuestU Phone. This smartphone works as a city guide and a communication tool, offering guests local tips as well as free international calls, free internet and a chat service that they can use to interact with the hotel staff throughout their stay.

Guests spend most of their time outside of the hotel, without technological tools like the GuestU Phone, it is nearly impossible to obtain information about guest’s behaviours. By investing more in tech devices, hoteliers can facilitate their process of analysing data and focus on delivering a personalised service to their guests.

Photo by Paul Bence on Unsplash

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Convenience is the key to earning guests’ loyalty

Earning loyal guests in today’s competitive industry is not an easy job. The reason why most guests are turning to OTAs when choosing their travel accommodation often comes down to one thing - convenience.

A report by Phocuswright has shown that 47% of people prefer booking with OTAs simply because their website is easy to use. Others stated that they were used to booking like that or that it offered them a bigger selection. The rest of them focused more on the practical advantages of OTAs, such as better prices and simple cancellation policies.

Van Belleghem, author of the book "When Digital Becomes Human" was recently a host at a HSMAI event in London. During the event, Belleghem asked hoteliers how they felt about Booking.com and he received a collective groan. Surprisingly though, many of them have also admitted that they personally used the platform.

Travellers continue to use Booking.com, not due to brand loyalty but because their website offers a superior user experience compared to other booking sites.

The entire interface provides easy browsing and booking, and the site offers great conveniences for guests, such as free cancellations, instant discounts for members, mobile booking confirmations that can be accessed offline, city travel guides, and much more.

With guest’s convenience in mind, many hotels have started to improve their reservations system in order to promote more direct bookings and even invested on technological features so they could add a personal touch to a guest’s stay.

Among these features is the GuestU Phone, a smartphone that offers guests free internet, voice calls, a city guide and internal service requests. This convenient amenity helps hotels establish a better connection with their guests, allowing them to understand their needs and offer a more personalised service.

 It is this combination of convenience and personalisation that will give hotels an edge over the competition and thus increase guest’s loyalty.

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5 experts tips to improve guest's loyalty

Loyalty programs are not what they used to be. In today’s world, hotels need more than points systems and discounts to convince guests to return to their accommodation.

In an interview with SiteMinder, Jordan Hollander, member of the Hotel Tech Report team and a former worker at the Starwood Hotels & Resorts revealed a few tips on how to earn guest’s loyalty and stand out from the competition.

Here are our main takeaways:

1. Create a great relationship with your guests - loyalty points won’t always persuade a guest to come back after he had a terrible experience, so spend time developing a good relationship with your guests

2. Focus on your unique assets - with so many accommodation choices on offer, you need to show guests your hotel’s unique features and explain why they should pick you over the others

3. Pay attention to social media - guests use social media to share their experiences, keep an eye on these interactions to find opportunities for improvement

4. Be clear about the rewards - explain your guests the benefits of returning to your hotel, instead of talking about points use simple rewards that are easier to understand

5. Take advantage of technology - technology can help improve your guest’s experience, you can use it to collect guest’s data and understand their preferences, so you can provide them with a more personalised stay. In fact, personalisation is one of the key factors to gaining returning customers!

You can read the full article here.

Photo by Jordan Bauer on Unsplash

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Train your staff on adding a personal touch to a guest's stay

Great customer experience is often related to the connection your guests have with your staff. Technology can help in many ways, but there is still room for adding your own personal touch and that remains an important part of the guest service.

Many companies implement training programs to help staff succeed in their role. The same applies to the hospitality industry, where companies are beginning to develop programs that help managers and other staff members improve their hospitality skills, by connecting them with local business leaders and teaching them about local tourist offerings. Ultimately, your staff should become your city’s best ambassadors, sharing their knowledge about the city and providing personal recommendations to your guests.

Your staff should also become familiar with guests’ interests and find new opportunities to interact with them. Here are a few ways that technology can help your team add a personal touch to a guest’s stay:

Implement your own mobile app where you can include itinerary recommendations catered by your team (restaurants, museums, parks, etc.)

Collect data about your customer’s preferences and behaviours to create more personalised offers

Use a mobile chat service to communicate with guests throughout their stay

These three features are part of the GuestU Phone, a mobile device developed by GuestU that is helping hotels improve their communication strategy and increase guest’s satisfaction.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

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Change and Learn - AccorHotels on what it takes to succeed in the hospitality industry

In Late September, AccorHotels’ CEO Sébastien Bazin attended the SAHIC South America event in Buenos Aires. Bazin shared his thoughts about the importance of being able to anticipate changes in an increasingly competitive hospitality industry and his predictions for the future of the business.

Sébastien Bazin is a major figure in global hospitality and has been leading Accor since 2013. Managing a business with more than 4,000 properties in nearly 100 countries, considered one of the largest hotel operators in the world, makes him the ideal person to talk about what it takes to succeed in the hospitality industry.

Hospitality Net covered the event and we’ve gathered some of Bazin’s main ideas:

1. Adopt change and generate new ideas

"In today's world, either you change or you will be changed.", that was one of the CEO’s statements. He said coming up with new ideas, even when a company is in a dominant position is the key to success.

2. Learn from your customers

Bazin doesn’t see Airbnb as the enemy, he actually thinks they can provide valuable insight because they have understood something about travellers that traditional hospitality leaders have not - the importance of personalised experiences.

Today’s hotel guests don’t want to be seen as just another number, what they want is a unique individual experience that is catered to their needs and desires. Price is not as important as it once was, in fact, guests are willing to pay more to get an unforgettable experience.

3. Embrace technology

In regards to the future of the business, Bazin said that the hotel industry must prepare for the arrival of artificial intelligence and should embrace technology in order to provide a better service to their guests.

Conclusion

“Change and learn” were the main takeaways from the CEO’s speech. To succeed in this industry, hoteliers should be able to adapt to their ever-changing environment, by implementing new technologies for example,  and they should also make an effort to learn more about the needs of each guest.

You can read the full article here.

Photo by Slava Bowman on Unsplash

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3 ways you can use the guest journey to improve your revenue

The guest journey is divided into three phases: the pre-stay (also known as search & booking), onsite, and post-stay. All of them include opportunities to improve your revenue, so it’s vital that you stay connected with guests throughout their whole journey.

Rainmaker has gathered a few tips on how you can take advantage of the guest journey to improve your revenue.

1. Establish rates that drive bookings

The room cost is what most influences a guest’s decision when booking their accommodation. Thanks to revenue management solutions, you’re able to see which rates are working and which ones are not and adapt your Average Daily Rate (ADR) accordingly.

You can also use competitor benchmarking to check if you’re offering the most competitive price. By combining your own rate forecast with an analysis of your competitors, you can increase your bookings and profits.

2.Promote and upsell services

Marketing and revenue management should be working together to increase ancillary revenues. According to Robin Berrendorf, co-founder at MyEventBUTLER, 77% of tourists plan their trip activities when they are already at the hotel.

With this in mind, hoteliers should technically be promoting their internal services and other activities while guests are on their property and not during the pre-stay phase. Make sure to check if these trends apply to your own accommodation by using a revenue management tool. It’s also important to share any relevant information with your marketing department so they can look into promotional opportunities.

3. Reward your most loyal guests

You can find your “most valuable guests” by checking the number of bookings, how much they spend per stay and any upgrade requests.

Join forces with your marketing team to help run post-stay promotions that will drive valuable guests to rebook with you, starting the journey all over again.

Conclusion:

To improve your revenue you should be constantly engaging with your guests, from the moment they book your accommodation, to the moment they arrive and finally check-out. Using tools like the GuestU Phone - a personal smartphone for your guests - will allow you to keep a close connection with guests wherever they go and collect data that will help you create a customer profile and offer a more personalised service in the future.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

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Facebook Travel Summit - Video, Social Ads and Constant Innovation

At the beginning of September, Facebook hosted a Travel Summit in New York City entitled “Journeys Happen Here”.

While the event was mostly aimed at travel marketers, the information that was shared could easily be applied to any company currently using Facebook and Instagram for advertising.

Several companies attended the Travel Summit and shared their insights. We’ve gathered a few of their opinions and created a small list of how you can use Facebook to raise awareness for your travel brand:

Create meaningful video content

According to Facebook, 50% of mobile data traffic at the moment is coming from videos, and the number should rise to 70% by 2021. People are consuming content faster than ever, and consequently, their attention span is becoming a lot shorter (2 to 3 seconds). This is why many brands are turning to video to reach their audience and finding creative ways to share their message. For complex videos, brands can take advantage of the in-stream video which 70% of people watch until the end.

Make the most of social ads

Use Facebook and Instagram ads to target the people that are engaging more with your content. Test different strategies and use statistics to see what’s working and what is not. Interactive ads, such as 360 videos and short live sessions are some of the most recent ad trends.

Keep innovating

Facebook is constantly improving its features and building new solutions for its users. But for marketers, the challenge remains in learning how to quickly implement these solutions in an effective way. It might be hard to grasp Facebook’s constant innovations, but it’s important to hang in there and try to keep up with the industry’s trends to assure you’re moving at the same pace as your clients’ interactions.

Find out more ways to improve your business’ Facebook strategy.

Photo by Robin Elzerman on Unsplash

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4 tips to improve your guests’ experience

Managing guests’ experiences has become a top priority for hoteliers.

The way guests interact with hotels has changed significantly since technology was introduced to the hospitality industry. There’s no longer a constant need for face-to-face interactions, as there are many devices that can provide alternative communication channels and connect both sides 24/7.

Spending time creating a good experience for your guests can help generate more revenue and lead to better online reviews for your property. When crafting these experiences you should consider the three phases of the guest journey - pre-stay, on-site and post-stay. While the best moments are most likely to happen during a guest’s stay, it’s still important to think about their experience as a whole.

With this in mind, here are 4 tips you can follow to improve your guests’ experience:

1. Offer multiple ways to connect

Your guests have different needs so you need to adapt your service and provide multiple ways for them to connect with your team. This is where technology can help, by providing services like a mobile check-in or mobile chat, allowing you to keep in touch with your guests throughout their stay.

2. Create a profile of your guests

Collecting data is essential to create a profile of your guests. By acknowledging your guests’ preferences, your team is able to provide more personal recommendations and customise their stay. This can include treating your guests by name or offering to book a spa treatment, based on their previous purchases. They should also be able to recognise loyalty guests and thank them for choosing to come back.

3. Deliver memorable experiences

Focus on delivering memorable experiences to your guests that are catered to their needs. According to a study by Phocuswright 80% of leisure travellers and 94% of business travellers want to be able to use smartphones to request a service. Make it easier for guests to reach your staff during their stay, by providing a service like the GuestU Phone that connects guests with hotels and their destination.

4. Collect guests’ feedback

Collecting guests’ feedback is fundamental to understand what they like about your service and what needs to be improved. Many travellers make their booking decision based on online reviews, so it’s important to proactively address guests’ issues during their stay to avoid negative reviews in the future. One way you can collect this feedback is by providing an on-stay survey where guests can express their complaints.

Conclusion:

The best experiences come from understanding your guests’ needs and delivering a service that is individually catered to them.This is why it’s important to collect information about your guests during their stay, so you can anticipate their requests and ultimately exceed their expectations.

The GuestU Phone is a mobile device that helps you improve guest experience by providing your guests with useful information about your accommodation, local tips curated by your team and a chat service for constant communication. It also helps you collect information about your guests’ preferences, creating a profile of their stay to help you provide more personalised recommendations.

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Hotels know guests better than OTAs

The dispute between hotels and OTAs has been a growing concern in the hospitality industry. OTAs might be getting more traffic, but the truth is hotels are still the ones with constant access to their guests.

On October 11th and 12th, Michael McCartan, managing director Europe, Middle East and Africa at Duetto will be leading a talk on the relationship between hotels and online travel agencies at the Annual Hotel Conference in Manchester - he called it - “Make Love Not War - Embrace OTAs for a Brighter Future”.

McCartan knows OTAs are not very popular among hoteliers, which is why he picked a panel with a mix of hoteliers, tech companies and an OTA itself.

Here are five facts Michael McCartan shared about the relationship between hotels and OTAs:

1. Hoteliers are warming up to OTAs 2. Direct booking campaigns have limitations 3. Hyatt could have succeeded if isolated from Expedia, but it would have cost them 4. Hotels have one major advantage over OTAs: Access to guests 5. The future will be decided by cooperation, not war

You can read the full article by Hotel Management here

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How to use technology to improve guest engagement [WHITE PAPER]

For the past few years, technology has paid an important role in the hospitality industry, helping hoteliers improve their guests’ experience in ways that were unthought of a decade ago.

With the rise of mobile, guests are becoming increasingly tech-savvy and demanding more features that are catered to their own travel experience.

Our most recent white paper explains why it’s important to implement technological solutions and how you can use them to improve guest engagement.

Fill the form below to get your free white paper.

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Can technology help you beat Airbnb?

Airbnb is still on the rise and hoteliers need to watch out if they want to stay in the game.

There is still no idea of the exact impact the home-rental startup is making in the hospitality industry, at least until they share a bit more of their transaction data, says STR, a market research firm in the US.

And while Airbnb financial gains are still unclear, the truth is they are already influencing hotels in their decisions, who are thinking outside of the box and trying out new initiatives, including introducing more tech features to their accommodations.

So how can technology help in this situation?

It seems that the hospitality industry is extremely rich in terms of data, the problem is they don’t know what to do with it.

Here are a few things worth learning from Airbnb’s strategy:

Providing personalised recommendations

Making web pages load quickly on mobile devices

Reducing the number of clicks to finalize a transaction

Investing in both digital and real-world guest experience

Hotels have an edge over Airbnb though - their real-life interactions with the guests. In order to improve these interactions, hotels can use chat tools like the one from the GuestU Phone to communicate with a guest throughout their stay and learn more about their preferences.

Technology can ease the process of collecting your guests’ data and help you offer more personalised recommendations.

You can follow the rest of this story on Skift’s website.

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Why you need a mobile-friendly website

It’s no secret that travellers are spending more time on mobile phones than laptops.

There has been a significant growth in mobile traffic - around 51 percent of a hotel’s website traffic is now coming from smartphones and tablets, according to a study conducted by Sabre.

Having a mobile strategy is key to avoid losing bookings. This starts by creating a mobile-friendly website where guests can easily book their stay, but the strategy should also continue throughout the guests’ journey. 40 percent of hoteliers have admitted using separate designs for their mobile and web page layouts instead of a single, responsive website, which would be ideal.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating a responsive website:

Check how fast the page loads

Test on several devices

Use larger text for mobile

Create a simpler navigation menu

Optimize images

Use bigger buttons

According to Sabre, 5.5 percent of visitors booked on responsive websites versus 3.9 percent on non-responsive sites. That can make a difference between gaining or losing a guest.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash

Our solution

We’ve seen how mobile-friendly websites can increase the number of bookings at your accommodation. But the trend continues during the stay, guests are relying more and more on technological devices to better serve their needs.

With the GuestU Phone, guests can feel like true locals. The phone provides free internet and voice calls, useful apps and a travel guide curated by your team, contributing to a memorable stay experience.

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The Future of Technology in Hospitality

Sabre technology, one of the world's largest software companies in the travel sector has just released their 2017 Radar Report. The report shows how tech trends like blockchain (used for economic transactions), neural interfaces (based on a direct computation of neural system signals) and space tourism are being adapted to the travel industry.

The Sabre Labs team talks about the current tech trends and predicts how technology will affect the industry in the years ahead.

According to Mark McSpadden, vice president of emerging products and technologies for the Sabre Corporation, “we are in the midst of increasingly rapid and dramatic technological change, poised to revolutionize how and where we travel”.

Here are a few conclusions taken from Sabre’s report:

Blockchain – Considered the new "Internet of Trust,", this is the world's leading software platform for digital assets.

Neural interfaces – When it comes to the mind, there are two challenges that need to be taken into account: getting information out and transferring new information in.

Space Tourism – Space Tourism is not just about the promise of orbiting hotels, but also about developing technologies that will expand our horizons to the rest of the Universe.

"The next generation will see a radical transformation of how we live, work and play," says McSpadden. "We see tremendous opportunities for businesses to start experimenting with and implementing technologies like blockchain, augmented reality and trusted presence to help shape a more seamless, safe and personalized future for travel.", he added.

You can read Sabre’s full report here. Photo by Warren Wong 

GuestU is already thinking about the future and that’s why we developed the GuestU Phone, a mobile phone that offers your guests free internet and voice calls, as well as a curated guide of the city. Some travellers are already adapting to these changes so the industry needs to follow their lead to better serve their needs. 

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Can your accommodation pass this technological test? [QUIZ]

There are a variety of tech resources out there that can help property owners deliver a faster and better service to their guests. Are you taking advantage of these solutions already or is it time to start innovating? Find out how technological your accommodation is in this small quiz we created.

Loading How technological is your accommodation?

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A solution for personalised guest experiences

To be a successful brand in the travel and hospitality industry, it is fundamental to know your customers and understand their needs.

Over the past couple of years, many hoteliers and accommodation owners have started to invest more in technology solutions that help enhance their customer's experience. These solutions are able to automate tasks and provide useful insights about guests, which can later be used to provide a more personalised service.

Thanks to technology, tasks like collecting customer’s data are becoming increasingly easy and innovations like IoT are providing ways to improve the efficiency of daily operations, including energy and water consumption.

Guests expectations are rising, so the hospitality industry really needs to go that extra mile to provide a personal touch that makes travellers come back again and again.

Euclides Major, CEO and Founder of GuestU says “Hotels are getting closer to guests and providing an experience with a true individualistic touch that helps them feel welcomed and treated as individuals and not as another tourist.”

GuestU has recently been recognised by the CIOReview as one of the most promising technology solutions for the travel and hospitality sector. The GuestU Phone is an in-stay product that can be placed in hotel rooms and apartments, featuring a number of applications that help personalise guest experience and helps concierges understand guest behaviour.

You can read GuestU’s full profile with CIOReview here.