We’re loving this pre-arrival email that we build for our client, The Hempel in London, UK.

What we love is the consistency of the email design with the website so the guest has a seamless brand experience with the hotel and everything feels well thought out and attentive – which is the overall impression they are trying to portray.

This email features a pre-arrival survey for each guest so they may select items such as a cashmere & lambswool pillow, music preferences for the room and even champagne and chocolates that can be prepared upon arrival.

The other nice touch is the signature from the Concierge which gives it a personalized, hand-crafted feel.

The initiative aims to boost weekend stays and capitalise on the growing demand for more authentic travel by showing guests that they will feel better when they leave a Westin hotel.

Health and wellness focus

When developing its new marketing campaign, Westin moved away from traditional hotel advertising featuring fancy rooms and happy hotel employees and, instead, focused on health and wellness elements.

Westin targeted the new campaign towards more of a “psychographic” than a demographic group. In other words, the focus is on guests who are at different stages of their lives, but share a single need of personal wellbeing. In general, this target market, often referred to as “balance seekers” by Westin, is very health conscious and looking for travel options that help sustain healthy lifestyles, no matter whether staying for leisure or business purposes.

The “Elements of Well Being”

The advertising campaign uses artistic imagery that links what Westin calls “Elements of Well Being” with the benefits guests can achieve from their stay.

For instance, its resorts are depicted by a picture of a woman wearing a glamorous bathing suit and standing in a stylised pool of water with an umbrella and the advert’s text focuses on the benefits of getting plenty of sunshine.

Meanwhile, the Heavenly bed is depicted with a woman asleep on balloons, whilst the advert’s text highlights the benefits of a good night’s sleep, such as reduced stress, improved focus and enhanced memory. The Westin campaign comprises print (The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, digital (Condé Nast Network, Self.com, Epicurious.com, NYTimes.com and Oprah.com) and outdoor advertising, as well as social media initiatives.

Brand repositioning results

So far, the repositioning of the Westin brand has proved successful, further pushing the strong value sales growth achieved in 2010 into 2011. Indeed, at the end of 2011, Westin’s value sales surpassed pre-crisis results, at a total of US$2.7 billion.

Positive results are expected to continue, particularly as the unstable global economy is drastically changing consumer behaviour in favour of products and services that are environmentally friendly, healthy and authentic.

Analyst Insight by Lisandra Minussi / http://euromonitor.com
Source : Euromonitor International

Whistler, BC, February 20, 2012—In a year of celebration that includes the 2012 Olympic Games and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, hotels in the United Kingdom are seeking ways to stand out from the crowd, to offer added value, and to create memorable experience for guests. Recently, five UK properties commissioned Guestfolio to help advance these very objectives.

Now, the Eccleston, The Hempel, The Halcyon, The Crown Spa and Isle of Eriska Hotel are using Guestfolio’s seamless suite of Guest Relationship Management tools to engage guests at key touchpoints before, during and after their stay. Guestfolio tools include customizable confirmation letters, e-Newsletters and post-stay surveys, as well as a dynamic eConcierge platform to help guests explore the hotel and destination and make special arrangements in advance of their stay.

“This year visitors will be arriving in the UK with higher expectations than ever,” says Duane Hepditch, Guestfolio’s founder and president. “Our Guest Relationship Management solutions help hotels achieve the highest possible level of guest satisfaction by engaging guests and maximizing revenue opportunities.”

Says Gareth Banner, general manager of The Hempel, the five-star London hotel featured in the movie Notting Hill, “As a boutique hotel we strive to provide exceptional levels of personalised service. We chose Guestfolio because it strategically helps us to enhance the guest experience, from the moment our guests book a room, throughout their stay, and right up to their return visit.”

These properties join Guestfolio’s prestigious portfolio of international clients, which includes the Four Seasons Resort Whistler, Pan Pacific Hotels, Carmel Boutique Inns in California, and Fusion Maia Resort in Vietnam.

About Guestfolio. Guestfolio provides a seamless suite of Guest Relationship Management tools, from customizable confirmation letters to post-stay surveys and eNewsletters to a dynamic eConcierge platform that helps guests plan their trip in advance of their stay. By engaging guests at key touchpoints before, during and after their stay and providing valuable insights into guest preferences and sentiment, Guestfolio helps hotels increase revenues and build guest satisfaction and loyalty.

For more information visit www.guestfolio.com. In the United Kingdom contact Jeremy Duff at jeremy@guestfolio.co.uk.

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Guestfolio takes the traditional confirmation PDF files from Opera, Maestro, Epitome etc. and brings them to life. Hoteliers are now able to monitor the sent, read and click-through rates for all guest communications. Knowing the percentages of your guests who are actually reading your emails is one step closer to engaging them with relevant information and building good brand loyalty.

Average rates for a resort destination

We monitored the average email response rates for resort/leisure hotel properties around the world over the past year. Here are our findings.

You can see that the 4 star rated properties have a higher engagement level than the 5 and 3 star properties. Our assumptions are that those guests are more digitally savvy and are interested in further offers or services provided by the hotel. We should note that the 5 star hotels have a higher request rate for additional room amenities than the other hotels. The average ‘additional requests’ rate is approximately 5-12%.

Next week we will publish our findings for city destinations.

For hotels that don’t have the ability we have added a new data calculation to Guestfolio today. As one of the only hotel newsletter systems in the marketplace who communicate in real time with your hotel PMS (Opera, Maestro, Epitome etc) we can track people who make reservations after receiving a newsletter. We call it conversions and here is how it works.

Example of conversion tracking for a client hotel

Guestfolio pulls reservation data from your PMS and in this particular newsletter we can see that 6,901 people were sent the message. The open rate was 22% (number of people who read the email) and the conversion total was 51 (number of people who then went on to make a reservation at the hotel. By communicating in real time with the PMS we are able to view the room rate those guests booked and the number of nights. Multiplying those figures gives us the Conversion Revenue of $24,149, not bad for a single email blast.

Are you measuring your newsletter ROI now?

1. As we learned at this past year’s HITEC show in Austin, guests are more interested in accessing their own media rather than what you provide via your in-room televisions. With the new iCloud guests will be able to store, post and view photos & videos in real time from the guest room. Guests will expect more from your WIFI network and the traffic will increase dramatically.
2. An interesting new feature is Siri, a voice enabled personal assistant for your mobile device. If you have a hotel App you may want to consider adding features where guests can say things like ‘Add wine to my room’ or ‘Make me a reservation for next Monday’.
3. It’s getting even easier to post photos and text to social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. With the new iOS people can post to Twitter directly from their photo library – which means they may publish photos of less than perfect room conditions upon arrival.
4. Updates to Safari, the web browser for iPhone’s etc, now include an enhanced suite of CSS and html 5 functionality bringing in a whole new web platform commonly known as Adaptive Web. This new platform is what Guestfolio is migrating to and it allows the information you present to a guest be dynamic and custom based on the mobile device they are using. What this means is that YOU DON’T NEED TO INVEST IN YOUR OWN HOTEL APP. Some of you are discovering the on-going costs involved with managing the App for your hotel and it’s huge.

UPDATE: We also like this article published today by Hotel Chatter in response to the new iOS updates.

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This past weekend, I was lucky enough to spend a few days in Vancouver after delivering a keynote to a great group from RBC. I’m no BC resident but I’m there enough to know what a Japa Dog is, when to avoid post-game hockey demonstrations and most importantly, where to stay.

Normally, I stay at the Westin Grand. The service is great, the rooms are nice, the location is pretty central and – as weird as it may sound – I love looking out at the Public Library. This trip was extra special, though. At one point, I simply tweeted this:

I certainly wasn’t fishing for anything. Hell I didn’t even think they would be listening.  Like all good brands, they were. This was their response.

When I informed them that I was there, they asked if they could do anything to make my stay more enjoyable (nice touch). I privately messaged them (no need to air dirty laundry) that housekeeping had failed to provide shampoo in the room. They immediately corrected the problem.

But they didn’t stop there.

Mid-afternoon, they sent someone up to my room with a huge carafe of ice water, a tray of fresh fruit and chocolate and this thoughtful note:

Brilliant! While all of us celebrate huge customer service stories like KLM and Mortons, it’s small responses like this that separate the brands who get it from those who don’t. Here’s why:

1. They were listening. And they responded.
A lot of brands use SM channels to solve problems and avert PR disasters (as they should) but the potential is so much greater. Your clients ARE talking about you and listening gives you a chance to learn, be proactive, and be brilliant.

2. Operational integration.
Conversing with some SM teams is like talking to a call centre in India. Sure, they’ll pass your message along but you never feel like they have any power to do anything. When your product has a live, face to face component, they should have the power to affect it. Westin’s SM team had the power to fix a problem AND send a gift to my room quickly. Nice.

3. Transparency.
Even though I privately messaged them with my tiny and insignificant issue, they actually responded publicly with an apology. They actually shared their oversight with the world even though I gave them the opportunity to keep it private. Top marks.

4. Dialogue continuation.
When my friend Warren Porter  responded to my tweet, they engaged with him, too. They even complimented him on his glasses (they are pretty nice). The Westin was like the friend you like introducing to other friends. They could have got in and got out but instead, they were genuinely interested in the conversation and stayed around at the party long after the finger foods were gone.

Congratulations to the Westin Grand management and staff for providing a great lesson on what brands can do to create magic for their customers. As a result, they’ll be hearing even more positive comments in the future.

By providing useful, measurable feedback from verified guests, electronic surveys provide critical data for making sound decisions on budgeting, services and amenities, capital expenditures and employee training and recognition programs.

But not all survey tools are alike. To achieve the highest guest satisfaction ratings, hotels must engage guests from the moment they book a room through key touch-points before, during and after their stay.

More than just a smart survey tool, Guestfolio provides a comprehensive suite of CRM services, from customizable confirmation letters and pre-stay reminders to electronic newsletters and email campaigns. By providing insight into guest behavior, tastes and preferences, Guestfolio helps hotels enhance the guest experience, increase revenues, and build loyalty and advocacy.

Guestfolio survey advantages

•    Automated surveys integrated with a seamless suite of CRM tools and directly interfaced with your property management system;
•    Personalized eConcierge platform allows guests to explore your hotel and destination in advance of arrival;
•    Customized pre-stay reminders with special offers to upgrade rooms, add services and purchase in-room amenities;
•    Short, easy-to-complete surveys with high completion rates;
•    Customizable questions to drill down on strengths and weaknesses;
•    Daily survey alert, providing immediate guest feedback and facilitating quick action to resolve issues;
•    Analytics tools to track guest engagement, frequency, feedback and demographics and turn data into action;
•    Consistent branding and seamless communications.

How hotels are using Guestfolio

“From the pre-stay confirmation to the post-stay survey, Guestfolio guest communications look great, convey professionalism, and show our guests how much we care … The survey tool allows us to reach out to guests and reconcile issues before they post an online review … It’s been worth every penny.”
Gary Collinge, General Manager, Georgian Court Hotel

“What I like most about Guestfolio is that it is all so seamless – the customer confirmation, the reminder, the post stay, the stats … Feedback from the surveys allows us to focus on training and product upgrades, and the statistical information assists us in setting benchmarks.”
Christopher Ashby, Director of Sales and Marketing, The Sutton Place Hotel Toronto.

“We now have tools and data at our fingertips that used to be the exclusive privilege of chain hotels … The survey alert allows me to respond quickly to any concerns. It’s helped prevent a few negative comments from becoming online complaints.”
Bill Lewis, General Manager, Magnolia Hotel & Spa

“My favourite things about Guestfolio include the ease of using the product, the navigation from page to page, and all of the terrific tools and guest touch-point options available … Mostly we appreciate the responsiveness of the GuestFolio team.”
Jeannette M. Clarke, Operations Manager, Lakeview Hotels & Resorts

See more client testimonials

Switch and save

Using a different survey company? Switch to Guestfolio by December 1, 2011 and we’ll waive the setup fee. Visit www.guestfolio.com or call 1 604 932-2510.

It’s simple, every time somebody pays with a tweet, he or she tells all their friends about your hotel and voila – instant credible promotion for your brand. Marketing specialists tell us that a referral from a friend carries the highest weight when purchasing a luxury good or service.

Using the concept of ‘Pay with a Tweet’ your guests can decide if they want to pay with a tweet on Twitter or with a post on their Facebook wall to tell all their friends about you, your product and your brand. If they do you can offer them hotel amenities, free parking, discounted rates etc.

Here’s a video explaining the concept.

Pay with a Tweet – An overview from Leif on Vimeo.

WHISTLER FIRM GOES NATIONAL

Guestfolio provides 2010 Games visitors cutting-edge hotel customer service

January 25, 2010 Whistler, BC – International Olympic visitors to Whistler and Vancouver this February will be better served thanks to an innovative concierge support service for hotels provided by Whistler-based Guestfolio.

Duane Hepditch, founder of Guestfolio in 2008, recognized the need for customized information and assistance for hotel guests. Just two years later, the company services 35 per cent of all hotel beds in Whistler, including the 450-room Four Seasons Resort, the boutique 49-room Sundial hotel, and the brand new Aava Whistler Hotel. Hepditch has taken the company across Canada, with 36 clients including Vancouver’s Listel Hotel and the five-star Sutton Place Hotel.

Guestfolio and its partner properties are committed to providing exceptional guest benefits, not just during the guests’ stay, but in the pre and post-visit stage. The company provides a communication system to deliver targeted information to hotel guests. This enhances concierge systems already in place or provides information and help when concierges are not available.

“Guestfolio sets the stage for five-star support before a guest even shows up at the front desk,” says Hepditch. It provides information specific to a guest’s term of stay, so, for example, Olympic visitors can access a customised planner updated with news of pertinent highway closures, permit needs, and free Olympic events. They will also find insider tips (best places to eat, drink) and additional information if they are travelling with children.

Games guests staying in one of Guestfolio’s partner properties in Whistler or Vancouver are certain to benefit from the tool.

“Guest support is a key component of the Whistler experience, and what we learn here can help properties around the world,” says Hepditch, board member of the Whistler Chamber of Commerce. “The success of the hospitality and hotel industry, regardless of location, is built on a promise that guests are taken care of. Guestfolio software helps properties make good on that promise. And because we follow through, they fall in love with you.”

A little holiday romance is, after all, what everyone hopes for.

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Guestfolio provides concierge services to Whistler and Vancouver hotels including the Four Seasons Resort Whistler, Aava Whistler Hotel, Sundial Hotel, Carleton Lodge, Summit Lodge, Best Western Listel, Whistler Village Inn and Suites, Tantalus Lodge, Listel Hotel Vancouver, Georgian Court Vancouver and Sutton Place Hotel. Guestfolio is Whistler-based company that offers innovative customer management software for hotel and property managers around the world. For more information contact Duane Hepditch, 604 932 2510, or visit www.guestfolio.com