A current examine by Agilysys, a number one international supplier of hospitality software program options and companies, has revealed a stunning pattern within the APAC hospitality trade: excessive visitor satisfaction doesn’t essentially translate into repeat enterprise.
Regardless of constructive experiences, many travellers aren’t returning to resorts they’ve loved. This “rebooking paradox” presents a big problem for hoteliers within the area. To delve deeper into this concern, we spoke with Tony Marshall, VP Managing Director APAC at Agilysys.
In our unique interview, Marshall discusses the components contributing to this paradox, the significance of personalisation, and the ever-growing function of know-how in driving visitor loyalty.
Readers can obtain the complete examine right here.
Your examine highlights a “rebooking paradox” the place solely 37% of APAC travellers rebook regardless of 86% expressing excessive satisfaction. May you delve deeper into the important thing findings and the explanations for this discrepancy?
Marshall: The ‘rebooking paradox’ we recognized actually underscores the complexity of loyalty in hospitality. The disparity means that satisfaction alone isn’t sufficient to drive rebooking. The rise of OTAs and the benefit of comparability procuring have considerably impacted visitor behaviour. Having a conventional loyalty program that simply provide you with factors most likely isn’t sufficient anymore.
To deal with this, hoteliers ought to prioritise personalised experiences and provide tangible worth inside their loyalty packages. By leveraging deep knowledge evaluation and a single visitor profile, resorts can achieve invaluable insights into visitor preferences and tailor their choices accordingly. For example, spa workers can coordinate remedies with restaurant bookings, entrance desk brokers can recommend focused, personalised, upgrades, and restaurant managers can suggest particular wines primarily based on previous preferences.
This stage of granular personalisation, past simply figuring out your identify and what number of factors you’ve collected, is essential for constructing robust visitor relationships and fostering long-term loyalty.
To that finish, 73% of APAC travellers spotlight personalisation and loyalty packages as important drivers of rebooking. Do you assume there’s maybe a false impression within the trade in regards to the depth of personalisation required?
Marshall: Sure, I imagine there’s a standard false impression that primary personalisation, reminiscent of figuring out a visitor’s identify and loyalty factors, is sufficient. Whereas it is a good place to begin, it’s clear from our examine {that a} deeper stage of personalisation is important to actually drive rebooking and loyalty.
A major instance is Raffles. They excel at creating luxurious experiences, however their method to personalisation typically seems to depend on handbook efforts. By leveraging know-how, they may assist streamline their processes and elevate their visitor experiences to even larger heights.
It’s not simply luxurious manufacturers that may profit from superior personalisation. Midscale resorts can even differentiate themselves in a aggressive market by harnessing the ability of know-how to ship tailor-made experiences.
Do you assume driving loyalty is tougher for impartial resorts than it maybe is for the bigger teams?
Marshall: Probably not, no. We’ve developed software program that may work with each. We work with the massive chains, Hilton and Marriott for instance, however our software program is versatile in order that we are able to work with smaller boutique properties too. It might work simply as nicely for the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, with almost 2,000 rooms as it might for 50 room property. We are able to both deploy on premise, or within the cloud, so it’s rather a lot simpler for smaller, boutique and impartial resorts to make use of this sort of know-how that it ever has been earlier than.
“The bottom line is to strike a steadiness between automation and human interplay and leverage know-how to enhance, not substitute, the human contact”
Back to your examine, it was attention-grabbing to learn that 30% of APAC travellers respect workers remembering prior conversations. As AI and automation turn out to be extra prevalent, how can hoteliers steadiness doubtlessly lowering human-to-guest interplay whereas sustaining rebooking charges?
Marshall: Nicely, automation can streamline many repetitive duties, reminiscent of evening audits, predictive ordering, and yield administration, however it’s important to take care of a powerful human contact. By automating these duties, workers can give attention to offering these memorable personalised experiences and constructing relationships with friends.
AI can play a big function in enhancing personalisation. By analysing visitor knowledge, AI can predict preferences and tailor choices accordingly. This permits your workforce to supply extra related and priceless upsells. I feel the secret is to strike a steadiness between automation and human interplay and leverage know-how to enhance, not substitute, the human contact.
Whereas the examine might not have particular age demographics, traditionally, loyalty has been more difficult amongst youthful generations who’re much less brand-loyal and extra price-driven. Is it cheap to count on that you could obtain the identical ranges of loyalty from a youthful demographic?
Marshall: The youthful generations, they’re so value delicate. However in addition they need the posh contact, the personalisation, the experiences. They need all of it they usually need it yesterday.
However I feel you’ll be able to nonetheless count on loyalty, you simply have to talk to the person. Personalisation is that individual. It’s not about reducing and pasting each provide to everybody, it’s about figuring out the person. That’s what actually helps to achieve Gen Z and Millennials, to satisfy their expectations of prompt gratification. I feel it’s potential to get an additional 10% spend from a youthful visitor, in case you’re hitting the best buttons with them. So, the best messaging and the best platforms too.
And once you get them on-property, that’s the place you’ll be able to hit them with the personalisation that can actually impression the possibilities of them rebooking.
“All of it comes again to the know-how and that single visitor profile; figuring out and actually deep-diving into the information that you’ve, to actually perceive your visitor”
The examine emphasises the significance of shifting from RevPAR to RevPAG to realize a extra holistic view of visitor spending. How can hoteliers undertake this method and what advantages can they count on from specializing in income per out there visitor?
Marshall: Normal Supervisor’s have at all times been measured on RevPAR. By shifting to a RevPAG (Income Per Out there Visitor) method, even simply throughout golf and spa, you’ll be able to develop the income per visitor by 10%, per go to. All of it comes again to the know-how and that single visitor profile; figuring out and actually deep-diving into the information that you’ve, to actually perceive your visitor.
All groups, advertising and marketing, F&B, golf groups and so forth. must work collaboratively to make use of the know-how and higher perceive upcoming visitor preferences and behaviours. You possibly can then begin to tailor and personalise your packages accordingly and drive that further incremental income from a way more focused method.
After all, you’ll be able to section by spend too. You possibly can even begin tailoring packages in your high-net-worth friends, the highest tier of your loyalty programmes.
Lastly, what’s subsequent for Agilysys in 2025?
Marshall: Nicely, we’re going to be out and about at a whole lot of commerce reveals, holding our personal seminars and attempting to teach and assist the trade higher perceive how they will use a RevPAG method with our merchandise to realize not less than an additional 10% of income.
And when it comes to Agilysys, there’s a whole lot of issues occurring and much more to come back! We’ve been spending $40m a 12 months on our R&D, with a workforce of 1,500 staff, to proceed enhancing our merchandise during the last 5 or 6 years. The distinction between us and a few of the others is that we’ve actually gone again and tweaked our product, by means of a consultative course of with hoteliers, in order that it’s not simply one other off-the-shelf product.
We’ve accomplished the rewrites to make sure that our merchandise are trade main. Now it’s an ongoing course of to make sure we maintain reinventing and maintain innovating, with a give attention to RevPAG and serving to hoteliers to extend their income.
About Agilysys
Agilysys completely delivers state-of-the-art software program options and companies that assist organizations obtain Excessive Return Hospitality™ by maximizing Return on Expertise (ROE) by means of interactions that make ‘private’ worthwhile. Clients around the globe use Agilysys Property Administration Methods (PMS), Level-of-Sale (POS) options and Stock and Procurement (I&P) programs to constantly delight friends, retain workers and develop margins. Agilysys’ 100% hospitality buyer base contains branded and impartial resorts; multi-amenity resorts; casinos; property, lodge and resort administration firms; cruise strains; company eating suppliers; greater schooling campus eating suppliers; meals service administration firms; hospitals; way of life communities; senior dwelling amenities; stadiums; and theme parks. www.agilysys.com
