Stephen, a well known photographer was planning a vacation trip to New York with his wife and 2 year old kid. He books a stay at your hotel. He is new to the city, and unclear about the facilities and surroundings. Following the confirmation of his stay he receives a pre arrival survey from you with various service options like Airport Pickup, Discount for SPA or Upgrade options. Almost after a week Stephen begins his vacation trip. Stephen arrives at the New York Airport at midnight after a long tiring journey with the 2 year old kid.

On arrival he receives a text message from you with details of Chauffeur who is waiting to pick him up from the Airport. Reaching the hotel he was directly led to the room without having to wait for the check-in process at the front office. On entering the room he found a room stocked with milk in the fridge and fruits and snacks of his preference on the counter. He also receives a digital voucher of 30% off on Spa treatment on property along with a curated list of destinations that one should not miss, visiting New York. He was delighted.

Your hotel had gone above and beyond to ensure that Stephen’s stay was as comfortable as possible, knowing that the nature of his trip was leisure and he is totally new to the city your hotel. Though these were small gestures from your part, your brand had won Stephen’s heart. How did you achieve all of this? All of this you could achieve by extracting data from the pre-stay survey which you had sent to Stephen almost a week back.

In the modern era of personalization and especially during post covid era pre stay communications as the one described above will easily win you loyal customers who will crave to come back again and again and also at the same time refer you to their other connections. Mostly we all think pre stay communication isn’t that important. We think that once guest books a stay in a property, the business is secured and the focus should be on giving a good experience on their arrival at the property. But this is not really true.

Today, guests have very limited attention span and they don’t care about you and your brand unless you treat them best from their first touch-point. As the saying goes ‘First impression is the best impression’; Pre Check-in is the key stage to set that first impression in your guest’s mind. Pre Check-in gives an opportunity to hotels to personalize guest experience by providing the guest with information relevant to their stay. With the right approach on pre stay communication hotels can personalize their guest experience, increase the revenue per customer through upsell on deals and promotions and seal business for future by gathering important guest details that will help future marketing campaigns.

Every guest books stay with you for some or the other reason. For some it might be special occasions like Birthday, Wedding Anniversary, a Business Trip or annual vacation etc. For whatever reason they have booked with you, you want to make sure that they had a great time with you. The Pre stay Communications helps to reveal the reason of their booking the stay with you.

Understanding this reason will help you to offer your services accordingly. For example, knowing someone has booked to celebrate an event like birthday means you can wish them on their arrival, even set a greetings card in their room before they arrive, offer them a complimentary Cake or dinner or a room upgrade. Unexpected gestures like these will make a huge difference to how they feel about your property. It all starts from finding out the reason why they chose to book with you.

Pre stay communication not only helps you to showcase your services, but also helps you to anticipate your guest’s needs and preferences. This will save a significant amount of time for those who face the guests at the property and also help you to up sell your services even before they check-in.

To find out more about the vast possibilities of pre stay communications and enhancing the guest experience, we invite you to explore our platform through a personalized demonstration.Book A Demo

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