17 Sep The Hospitality and Travel Industry Need to Reinvent Themselves

You need to own the Guest Relationship!

At a recent “Hospitality Hackathon” that I facilitated for top executives in the hospitality and travel industry, I discovered something interesting. In the old days hospitality and travel led the world in customer experience, then something terrible happened! The executives that led these organizations made a philosophical shift from believing that they were in the guest experience business, to believing that they were in the real estate business.

This may seem like a simple mindset, but it turns out that the best organizations in hospitality have continued to reinvent each and every guest touch point, whereas organizations that believe they’re in the real estate business are simply polishing the deck furniture on the Titanic. My message to hospitality is simple… You need to own the guest relationship or it will be stolen from you by aggregators and online booking services. My estimate is that there is a potential for as much as 30% growth for hospitality and travel organizations that leverage guest experience design. One footnote, stop trying to sell guests $10 bottles of Evian water! Engineer each and every “micro-guest moment” and you will lead your industry and guest satisfaction, growth and profitability.