January 2024 Newsletter
January 2024 Newsletter
We welcome all our GuestPoint customers back and hope you had a profitable holiday period. Join us in viewing the first Newsletter of 2024. In this edition, we are looking at the shifts in corporate travel. While explaining the ins and outs of the customer journey. Discover new management tips for your property. And this month’s “how to” export reports in Excel format. Discover “What’s New” in this month’s updates. Gain insight into another GuestPoint property with this month’s “property of the month”. Finally, can you beat this month’s trivia?
Industry News
The shift in corporate travel, Why corporate travelers are looking for longer stays
Hybrid and flexible working arrangements have transformed the way corporate travellers approach their work trips. Current trends have revealed there has been a decline in short-stay trips which have been replaced with longer-stay hybrid trips which incorporate both business and leisure for the traveller. Why the shift? This combination of work and leisure not only enhances their travel experience but has also been found to have a significant impact on wellbeing and work-life balance.
What does this mean for motels?
This poses a significant opportunity for many properties to target corporate travellers who are looking for these hybrid trips. This new opportunity for longer stays means that more properties than not should be using the GDS as a viable channel to advertise their property toward corporate travellers.
How to set yourself apart
To cater towards these new business travellers may be challenging, however here are some strategies that should be considered. The use of exclusive bundles to incentivise a longer stay. This could be complementary breakfasts, a drinks package, or discounts on local attractions and activities. It should be used as a way to add value to your property and only be available for those looking to stay longer.
Make sure the amenities within your property are appropriate for working guests. High speed and working internet, potentially even conference rooms where a company may be able to hold events. A business centre or a workspace within rooms that allow patrons to complete work without distractions.
Advertise your property as both business and leisure. Display the ability to be accommodating to both. Display that you can also be flexible, being flexible allows guests to make last-minute decisions to extend their stay after they have conducted their business. Create an image of your property that appeals to both work and leisure showing a good work-life balance.
Conclusion
There has never been a better time to target corporate travellers. With this new trend, those who can cater to the needs of these business people who also are looking for a casual side to their trip can benefit enormously. This new opportunity could be what your property needs, don’t hesitate and fall behind the industry standard.
Blog Article
The Hotel Customer Journey
What is a Hotel Customer Journey?
The hotel customer journey is the process that guests undertake from the initial stage of planning a trip, to post-stay activities. Knowing about the customer journey is vital for hotels/motels, as understanding key reasons guests booked or didn’t book. It’s also informative post-trip to find areas they enjoyed and things that weren’t for them.
The initial stages of the customer journey
The initial stages of the customer journey begin with planning on the location they would like to visit. This could be either international or domestic, requiring the traveller to use a plethora of resources to make an informed decision on where they would like to visit.
What does this mean for your property? This allows for you at your property to have a potential influence on their decision. Marketing your property and the area around, could catch the eye of potential consumers and help sway them toward making a decision. This could be done through a variety of channels, such as Social media, online travel agents (OTAs) and tourism websites. It has been found that when researching where to visit travellers are more inclined to visit OTAs and independent hotel sites.
You should be placing a large focus on how your OTAs profile looks for your property. Don’t overlook the importance of your OTAs profile. It should have all the same details and information as your website and display your property at its highest standard. Along with your OTAs profile, your website should be modern and simple to use for all customers. A well-built website will help with your SEO, it also should be compatible with mobile phones due to mobile-first indexing. If you aren’t skilled at website creation it is worth the investment to get a third-party website builder experienced in accommodation to help enhance your property’s online presence.
Accommodation selection and booking stage
During the selection stage, travellers will have decided on the destinations that they want to travel to and will be looking at which accommodation suits them best to book. Similar to the previous stage there will be a high frequency of research through OTAs, direct websites and even word of mouth from friends or family. The importance of a strong online presence both through OTAs and your website being up to date is essential for success. Travellers will compile a list of hotels that suit their travel needs, and this stage requires your property to stand out from the others, so displaying your point of difference (POD) is highly valuable.
The key to the booking stage is a frictionless process for your consumer to book a room. If you have offered any additional packages these should be easily accessible and able to be added to their booking with ease. Any bumps in their booking process may cause them to choose a different hotel without much hesitation.
Read more about the hotel customer journey here:
GuestPoint Guide to:
Bulk sending Check-in forms
Creating a seamless check-in process is beneficial for both the guest and the management team. There are many ways that his process can be made more effective. Among these solutions is the use of GuestPoints bulk check-in form-sending capabilities.
To maximise your check-in efficiency, you should send the check-in forms a few days before your guests arrive. Allowing for a simple exchange of documents and a simple and effective check-in process. The benefits of bulk sending allow for a streamlined sending process, saving time on individual emails.
How to Bulk Send Forms
- Click on the Management tab
- Go into Daily Tasks
- Scroll down and find ‘send online check-in forms’
- Select the period you would like the forms to be sent for
- Click Send check-in forms
Management Tips & Tricks
How to Get Excel Reports
With recent changes to our PMS, we have moved over to PDF as the go-to format for reports. However, if Excel is your preferred reporting platform you can still access Excel reports. The simple process is as follows:
How to access Excel Reports
- Click on the Reports tab
- Find the category you would like a report for
- Click on the arrow within the box as seen below
4. Then click Export to CSV
Property of the Month
Kimberley Crock Motel
Located within the heart of Kununurra, it is described by many as the hidden gem of the Kimberley. The Kimberley Croc is the epitome of a tropical getaway. Surrounded by a unique Kimberley landscape which is home to many infamous Australian walking trails.
They make sure that all guests have the knowledge to experience the Kimberley to its fullest potential. Many of their staff take pride in giving local knowledge to all visitors, creating valuable connections with guests. This property puts importance on keeping up with current trends and gaining knowledge from webinars, newsletters and organisations they are associated with. This experienced management team knows the ins and outs of the industry to create a unique guest experience.
Within the grounds is a swimming pool, a full-sized commercial kitchen for any guests to use included is a BBQ area giving the poolside an alfresco dining experience. If you aren’t looking to cook for yourself the onsite dining option the ‘Barra Shack’ is a must-have with a special 10% off for all guests. A full-size laundry is available for all, with the option of a dry cleaning service. This pet-friendly property does have the works in terms of facilities for its patrons.
This property is not one to rest on their laurels however, they keep up to date with the latest trends and technology through a plethora of channels. Through the use of things such as webinars, newsletters, advice and updates from organisations they are associated with. Plus through individual research on things that could bring potential value.
The Kimberley Croc is a property that uses GuestPoint’s all-in-one solution with the connection of both GuestPoint Pay and Channel Manager. This property described our support as ‘invaluable’ highlighting the significant impact that an all-in-one PMS has had on their business. The use of GuestPoint Pay has transformed their check-in process into a seamless endeavour. Any issues or suggestions are being listened to by our team and implemented within the PMS, showing our team’s open-mindedness and connection with our customer base.
New Updates
V11.6
It contains the following new features.
- A new PDF viewer has replaced the previous print preview to address the printing issues. *Please note that we are seeing some issues where it is showing ‘The PDF file is empty, i.e., its size is zero bytes error’ when running custom reports, and randomly on some other reports. The dev team is looking for a solution for this but most reports should work without randomly displaying a blank report.
- Reservation Header: It will now display the Booking Reference Number on the right of the Reservation Number if the booking has the Booking Reference Number.
- Reservation Profile Fields: Functionality for Reservation Profile Fields has now been added if you use the Premium version of GuestPoint.
It contains the following improvements
- Payment Processing via payment gateways has been optimised so it would save the payment even if the user exits out of the payment window after initiating a transaction but before it completes the transaction.
- Optimisation of Non-Residential Account screen performance
- Optimised log-out/switch multi-property area to avoid accidental log-outs.
- Improved suggestions list for guests/companies to fully display mobile numbers and email addresses.
- Added character limitation on the Reason for Cancellation field to 100 characters with an inline message to prevent accidental over-typing.
WebPoint Update
- The ability to remove the ‘Children’ option, for properties that only allow 18+
- For clients using GuestPoint Pay, there is now an option to add surcharges to payments.
GuestPoint Trivia
What island nation is the first to ring in the new year every year?
A) Hawaii
B) Samoa
C) Kiribati
D) French Polynesia
C) The island nation Kiribati in the Central Pacific is the first location to ring in the new year each year.
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