The majority of travel worldwide involves leisure pursuits: visiting family, attending events, and exploring destinations like beaches and parks. Those who own and manage hotels, attractions, restaurants and other properties that cater to these visitors can tap into location analytics to improve the bottom line.
Where to Locate
The success or failure of every new and existing hotel or resort depends in large part on its location. Details like weather, distance to airports and restaurants are key. But so are the demographics of the potential site. Does it include a ready supply of employees? Potential guests?
If the property itself is not the destination, is it close enough to attractions to keep guest rooms full? Historic and current geodemographics as well as details of competitors in the region provide insights to select the best locations to break ground for the highest chance of success.
Who to Invite
Location analytics can help identify potential guests. Individuals and families who live nearby are one target, but so are those just a short flight away. So are those who have traveled to similar places in the past: those who love the beach return to other beaches, golfers are likely to seek other courses.
Income and travel habits play a role too: high end travelers may prefer well-appointed accommodations while working families with children may opt for more modest venues. Targeting invitations to geographies with high percentages of one group or the other increase bookings. One ski resort used location to focus ads and netted 4,752 visitors totaling $6.9 million in revenue. The locations targeted were not just the home or current location but also those of recent visits and searches.
How to Keep Guests Happy Onsite
Once a guest checks in at a property the focus for the staff is to ensure a pleasant stay and keep revenues up.
Using a visitor’s current location on site to prompt notifications about specials at the spa or a dolphin show starting soon can help create a memorable, sharable vacation.
Combining information gathered from past visitors behavior with current locations can prompt more sales. If historic data suggests half the people who leave the pool on hot days head straight for the juice bar, a text invitation to a guest just leaving the wet area might be all that’s needed raise sales of icy drinks.
Visitor navigation data can also indicate where visitors go and when, helping identify when to staff up at the daycare center or how late to keep the gym open.
Conclusion
Taking full advantage of location analytics, geographic data along with customer behavior in the travel and tourism space requires using them through a venue’s lifecycle. They are valuable during the planning phase, market development and once visitors fill the venue.