The FINANCIAL — To win guest loyalty in the future, hotels need to deliver a global, local and personalised experience, suggests a new report published by InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG).
The research also shows that personalised brand experiences which resonate with the local culture are particularly important for the fast-growing number of international travellers from emerging markets.
The collision of these three dimensions, accelerated by the rapid rise of technology-enabled personalisation in recent years, is changing the experience guests expect when they travel. Hotel brands that are able to become truly “3D” – by delivering localised and personalised experiences through trusted global brands – will build the trust that is needed to sustain lasting relationships with guests and outperform in the future, according to IHG.
“Hotel brands have traditionally concentrated on being 2D – how to be both global and local. But our research shows that the rise of personalisation means brands must be 3D in order to build both trust and lasting relationships with guests and to win in a highly competitive global market," said Richard Solomons, IHG Chief Executive.
“We know that our guests trust IHG’s global brands to deliver on a promise of quality and consistency time and time again. But they increasingly expect these same brands to deliver localised and personalised experiences, whether they are travelling for business or pleasure. That is why we have developed our ground-breaking HUALUXE Hotels & Resorts and EVEN Hotels concepts, and why we are focused on supporting technology-enabled personalisation across our brand family,” he added.
Over the last 12 months, emerging market travellers have been travelling more frequently than their developed market counterparts, says the report. Whilst they are more likely to look to a global brand for an assurance of quality, emerging market travellers are also more likely to make choices based on differences between hotel chains. This group prize personalisation and fit with local culture most highly of those surveyed. These trends point to the importance of trusted global brands being able to deliver the combination of localised, personalised experiences. The report also shows that initiatives that allow guests to create their own experiences through technology are equally important, particularly to the Millennial ‘Laptop and Latte’ business traveller group – which has the most trust in global brands to be innovative.
IHG is already addressing the growing consumer demand for 3D brands in a number of ways. Two examples include the development of our two newest hotel brands: HUALUXE Hotels & Resorts, the first international hotel brand designed specifically for Chinese travellers; and EVEN Hotels, the first mainstream holistic wellness hotel brand. These new brand launches build on IHG’s existing focus on delivering a higher degree of localisation and personalisation across our portfolio of trusted global brands, according to IHG.
Discussion about this post