Personalisation is one of the biggest trends to emerge in recent years within the world of hotel marketing, presenting new and exciting ways of building brand engagement and enticing prospects to book hotel stays. Many premium hotels have already begun to take advantage of the possibilities of personalisation, and now the rest of the industry is standing up and taking notice, too.

The hospitality industry has always been competitive, and particularly as the digital environment becomes ever more crowded, the appeal of increasingly personalised methods of reaching potential hotel guests become more intriguing. Personalisation has a number of benefits not least of which is as a means of gaining the competitive upper hand and prompting not just solitary hotel visits, but encouraging repeat custom and brand loyalty. These benefits are borne out by a study conducted by PWC’s Digital Services group. It found that 94% of senior level executives cited their ability to personalise content as being critical to both reaching and retaining customers.

The challenge of personalisation comes as customers leave increasingly large digital footprints about their interests and travel preferences across the internet via social media platforms, review sites and mobile apps. There is great potential for this data to be utilised as a means of capturing the attention of these same customers and provide personalised recommendations.

Today’s hotel guest craves opportunities for individualisation and tailored experiences. With this territory comes the need to personalise marketing and brand touch points, lest the traveller craving individualisation starts to feel like they’re one of a conveyor belt of guests.

Whether a business or leisure traveller, the same ethos applies; travellers are no longer content to remain anonymous when parting with their hard-earned cash at a hotel. Many hoteliers are eager to help capitalise on this new personalisation boom, but most are unsure where precisely to start and how to focus their efforts.

The personalisation process doesn’t begin and end with the time guests spend within the walls of your hotel. Prior to their trip, customers now expect to know much more than simply the price and location of their hotel and the style of their room or hotel suite; they also increasingly expect to be provided with information about what they can do in the local area, making great storytelling about your prospective guests’ hotel experience all the more important. These storytelling techniques prompt an emotional response before your guests have even arrived – engaging them with your offering in meaningful ways which can provide a healthy boost to your brand reputation management.

There are almost limitless possibilities to personalisation as the technology required for some elements of the personalisation process continues to evolve. Whether creating targeted, personalised content or providing a fully-personalised experience through mobile apps and even artificial intelligence, the value of personalisation is key amongst modern hotel marketing solutions, promising plenty of innovation and exciting opportunities for hoteliers, hotel marketers and their hotel guests for many years to come.