What does the hotel industry have to learn from the Internet? --- A lot! 

A few months ago twenty organizational excellence experts and I, stayed in a major International hotel chain in Abu Dhabi during a 5 week assignment. The hotel is considered one of the top 5-star hotels in the city and has a good reputation.  

For me, the stay was above average but below expectations. It seemed that the hotel had a very common quality related symptom called “inconsistent quality”. Service quality was sometimes in the good to very good range and many times in the poor to average range. It was clear that service was not standardized and service providers’ skills varied.   

The main point of this article is that, two weeks later I stayed with the same hotel chain in the Holy City of Makah and the same quality issues were very apparent. But this is not what really amazed me.  

What was amazing was how little they knew about me; their customer! You would think that after staying with their hotel chain for five consecutive weeks they would know a little something about me. The information they had on me during check-in was very basic and limited. It included my name, address and club membership number. The “generic” service which they provided to me during my stay made it clear that they didn’t know much!  

The question I had in my mind was “why”? Why didn’t this “world-class” hotel chain know much about me, their regular customer? After 5 weeks of “living” in their hotel, shouldn’t  they have learned some basic things about me. Shouldn’t they have learned something about my likes and dislikes, my sleeping and eating habits, my behavioral patterns and other useful information?

Just think. Can you imagine how much data and information you could collect about someone living with you for 5 weeks? Can you imagine how much could you learn about someone by observing their behavior for 5 weeks? Can you imagine how valuable that data and information and how powerful that knowledge would be if utilized to satisfy that customer?  

Delivering “WOW” experiences requires deep knowledge of your customers - knowing your customers very closely and on a personal level.  Quality service should be focused and personalized; not general and generic. And this is not possible without collecting behavioral data about your guests, analyzing it and delivering uniquely customized and personal experiences that exceed their expectations.   

Hotels need to learn from web concepts like web analytics, user behavior pattern analysis and creating unique visitor experiences. Internet experts are very skilled in user data collection through web logs, websites visits, and search engine usage. Collected data is analyzed and user profiles and “personas” are created. Profiles are integrated into the website design process in order to maximize visitors’ experiences through the creation of user friendly (usable) websites.

Just imagine going into a hotel that knows you well before you set a foot inside it. A hotel that personalizes every interaction you have with it’s staff, systems and settings to your liking and satisfaction. Where you are bombarded with kindness, respect and joy during every minute of your stay. Such experience can only be possible when hotels become interested in knowing their customers firsthand and thereafter customize their services according to each customer’s unique needs.