The beginning of 2022 was a great start for many hotels as signals for a new year of hope for the hospitality industry can be seen with more countries opening up their borders to tourists and at the same time, loosening the countries’ imposed travel restrictions. 

Despite the good news for the hospitality industry, there are still challenges, such as labor shortages to provide services to the guests staying on property. Especially now with increasing guest expectations, hotels need to stay on top of all of those expectations without affecting daily hotel operations.

Popularity with Messaging

Messaging continues to rise in popularity among mobile users and has become one of the most preferred ways to communicate with anyone. Especially during the pandemic with international borders closed, the only way to keep in touch with others has been through messaging. 

As of 2022, it has been estimated that there are currently at least 6.6 Billion smartphone users, or around 84% of the world population. This number continues to increase as the years pass, and we now see and understand how essential messaging has and will become. Messaging provides convenience to both the customers as well as those organizations, especially in service-driven industries, such as shopping malls, airports, and even the medical industry, have started to adopt messaging in their organizations.

Messaging in Hotels

Hotels need to keep up with their guests’ demands and this can be achieved with the use of messaging. Hotels that have adopted messaging as a way to communicate with their guests on their property are known to have higher guest satisfaction ratings and in turn, it helps to improve the day-to-day hotel operations. Harris Poll conducted research that showed that 77%  of consumers are most likely to have a great perception of a business that offers texting as a service channel to their customers.

One of our client brands which has adopted the Glowing.io platform, which enables easy messaging with their guests in their properties, did a comparison between the guests who messaged during their stay to those guests who did not message during their stay.  This brand found that those guests who did message the hotel during their stay scored 10 points higher in their overall satisfaction scores compared to those guests who did not message the hotel.

The hospitality industry prides itself on providing exceptional experiences for its guests during pre-stay until the guests’ departure. However, the adoption of messaging elevates the guest experience to another level without having to compromise the personal touch for each guest. For the guests, messaging also offers a simple, convenient and safe option to reach out to the hotels directly to send their messages or requests.

The hotel employees are already loaded with many responsibilities and we do not want to put more load on top of those. If a property adopts messaging, it will help to lighten the hotel employees’ workload by minimizing the need to answer phone calls or respond to emails. Through messaging, they will also be able to get all the details of the guest requests, assign them to the concerned department and get a response within just a few seconds.

Communicating with Travelers

Travelers nowadays prefer an option where they can directly contact the business directly via messaging as they do not want to be waiting for an email response or being put on hold during a phone call. They want an option that will get them an immediate response from the property.

Messaging also gives the hotel a chance to make their guests aware of what they offer in the hotel. Hotels can also use messaging as an opportunity to promote their onsite services or any current promotions they have to each of their guests.  A study conducted by Codebreaker  found that there is an 8x higher redemption rate when a business presents a promotion through messaging as compared to emails.  Messaging is not only more convenient and provides for better service, but also can help drive top-line revenue.

About Glowing.io

Messaging platforms such as Glowing.io provide an opportunity for all hotels to directly communicate with their guests from any popular messaging platforms such as SMS, Facebook, Whatsapp, WeChat, LINE, Telegram, and Instagram. Glowing.io aims to provide an easy, yet an impactful solution for hotels to help drive engagement, and loyalty with ultimate impact on both the top and bottom lines. Glowing.io’s platform will make communication with the guests easy, simple, and personalized while at the same time supporting the hotel for more efficient daily operations.