In today’s digital world, apps have become a crucial part of every industry, and hospitality is no exception. A hotel mobile app can help take your hotel chain to the next level while driving direct bookings and boosting loyalty. Increasingly, mobile plays a crucial role in the guest’s journey from the time they book, to before arrival and after departure.
You can use this tool to keep guests engaged while at the same time pushing forward your marketing objectives and giving your hotel a competitive edge. We’ll talk about all the benefits in this article, so you’ll get a better idea of what a mobile app can do for your hotel chain and why you should have one. So, keep reading to learn more.
9 reasons why a hotel chain should have a mobile app
With increased smartphone penetration across the world, the importance of mobile is increasing, and the hotel industry must be up to the challenge to create seamless buyer journeys across channels. Mobile is increasingly becoming an essential part of the travel purchasing process, which is why it’s so important that your hotel chain has a mobile app, to facilitate the ease of this process.
Let’s take a look at the nine reasons why hotel chains should say yes to mobile apps.
1. Data and insights
Data and insights are the key to any marketing campaign or pricing strategy, and with a mobile app you have easy access to this data. Get insights gained from the app to track user preferences, understand the user journey better and keep track of guest information. You can then use the key learnings to optimize processes and make data-driven decisions that will streamline the booking process and the guest experience.
Learn seven ways to use data to improve sales.
2. Essential marketing tool
Hotel apps are a powerful marketing tool that can be used to promote your business and propel your sales objectives forward. Using in-app push notifications, you can create a series of messaging throughout the guest journey.
Before they book, you can alert potential guests of special deals, promotions or price cuts to incentivize them to book. While they’re staying with you, you can use the app to upsell, offering add-on services like spa treatments, room service and special tours. And, after they stay with you, you can use the app to connect with guests and keep them engaged, which is a key part of any loyalty strategy.
3. Everything in one place
Long gone are the days of print-out itineraries and reservation codes. With a mobile app, your guests have everything in one place, whether they want to book a room, cancel a reservation or upgrade. The app serves as a self-service tool that can also reduce the pressure on your front desk staff. Guests can access their reservations and even check-in directly from the app, cutting down on wait times at the front desk and improving guest satisfaction.
Learn more about the benefits of mobile check-in.
4. Provide better customer service
We’ve mentioned the fact that mobile check-in can reduce the wait at the front desk, but an app also allows you to provide better customer service in general. With the data acquired from the app, you can better target your clients with the right deals, keep track of customer profiles, and create personalized messaging that gives that added personal touch. Personalization is key to nailing the guest experience.
On top of that, with the help of an app, you can also implement a digital concierge that allows you to quickly resolve issues and enact service requests like providing extra pillows or room service, among a range of other services like setting up wake-up calls and more, all of which help create a seamless stay. Find out how a digital concierge can benefit the hospitality industry.
5. Multilingual capabilities
The power of the internet has allowed hotels to reach markets that they would have otherwise been able to reach. With the opening of new markets comes new challenges like language barriers. However, with the help of an app, you can provide better multilingual service. Guests can also choose the language they want to use the app in so that communication between your hotel staff and multilingual guests is streamlined.
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6. Better offers
Using customer data gained from the app, you can better understand booking behaviors and preferences so that you can better target your offers using push notifications. More targeted offers lead to better campaign results, and offering the right service at the right time can do wonders for your campaign conversion rate.
7. More attractive loyalty program
In addition to being able to create better offers, a mobile app also allows you to make your loyalty program more attractive because it’s more readily accessible. Guests can more easily keep track of their points and rewards, cashing in on them more effectively. You can nudge them to take advantage of the deals with push notifications and in-app reminders.
8. Unlock other smart hotel features
We’ve briefly mentioned the fact that your hotel app can be used for different features like digital concierge and mobile check in. But, what about smart hotel features? With an app, you can unlock capabilities like using augmented reality to create tours of hotel rooms, giving you the chance to upsell more expensive rooms. You can also use the app to send a code to unlock the room for a keyless entry. Smart hotel features help bring your hotel chain to the next level.
9. The ease of digital
When your hotel creates digital solutions like a mobile app, it helps to streamline operations, taking the pressure off the front desk and automating processes that would otherwise be manual. A digital solution helps to improve the guest experience, improve guest communication and target campaigns using one small but powerful channel: smartphones.
Conclusion
In this article we’ve looked at the top nine reasons why a mobile app is a good idea for your hotel chain. These are the ability to capture data and insights, a great marketing tool, having everything in one place, providing better customer service, multilingual capabilities, having better offers, enhancing your loyalty programs, being able to unlock other smart functionalities and simply because it makes things easier.
You can capitalize on the revenue and resources your hotel has thanks to being part of a chain to create an app that provides a seamless user journey throughout all interactions with your brand. A digital experience is not only easier, but it also helps give you a competitive edge, especially for early adopters of hotel mobile apps. Do you need any more reasons why you should say yes?
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