The hospitality industry has a long history of building sales processes in silos, dating back to when airlines, accommodations, and rental cars were first linked through global data networks (GDS). This outdated approach persists today, forcing consumers to book each travel category separately, creating a fragmented and frustrating experience.
The Collective Delusion
There’s a widespread misconception that a single brand can effectively manage multiple booking engines to serve the same customers. Even within a specific category, such as accommodation, a single operator might use various booking engines based on factors like organization or customer group (identity), pricing, campaigns, or events.
Hospitality vs. Retail
To illustrate the problem, consider today’s retail environment. Imagine a large retail store with 15 entrances, each serving a specific product category. Customers would need passwords for some entrances and have to check out separately for items like shoes and shirts, go back out again and through another door. This scenario would be unacceptable in retail, yet it mirrors the current state of digital sales in hospitality.
Consumer Frustration
At Stayify, we’ve listened to consumers, and they’re frustrated with the travel booking experience, which is even worse than retail was 15 years ago. Sales processes are fragmented and customer-unfriendly, with each service category operating in isolation and lacking cohesive merchandising.
Fixing Digital Sales in Hospitality
To improve digital sales in hospitality, the focus must shift to the end-customer, who desires a seamless interaction with a single sales process of a brand. The solution lies in service design, a practice common in other industries for at least a decade. By designing and planning the entire customer journey from the end-customer perspective, we can create a blueprint for a new digital sales experience.
Service Design and Customer Experience as Core Drivers
The service design process provides a roadmap for building this new digital sales experience. Starting from the desired customer experience, we can plan how to implement the front-end and connect the necessary back-end processes and systems to ensure accuracy in pricing and availability.
Utilizing Standard Software
Off-the-shelf standard software alone may not suffice to create the comprehensive digital sales experience needed to connect all back-end systems and processes. Additionally, no single software provider can cover all aspects of an operation without introducing extreme complexity, bureaucracy, and costs. Conversely, overly narrow software solutions fail to meet organizational needs
Conclusion
The hospitality industry must elevate its game in terms of customer experience and invest in delighting end-customers digitally. Design digital sales services and a technical architecture that addresses your objectives, select a manageable scope for implementation, and employ specialists to work out the details.
A blend of standard off-the-shelf software, custom development and a capable e-commerce platform that tie everything together in a single sales pipeline can maximize digital sales while minimizing friction for end-customers. Remember, end-customers will not accept the status quo.
At Stayify, we are dedicated to creating smooth and enjoyable shopping experiences for the future.