Understanding the Global Guest

Today’s luxury hotel guests are often well-traveled and have great communication skills, hailing from various corners of the globe while multitasking through several communication platforms. They expect seamless experiences from the moment they book to the time they say goodbye. Communication is at the heart of this experience. It bridges the gap between diverse cultural expectations and the personalized service that luxury hotels strive to provide for each guest. In fact Intercom reports that 29% of businesses state they have lost customers for not providing multilingual support. 

Offering multilingual support isn’t merely a value-added service; it is an essential component in ensuring your guests feel understood, respected, and at home. Ultimately leading to high guest satisfaction experiences and more likely the valued-guest returns to your luxury establishment. 

The Competitive Edge of Language Diversity

A hotel that supports multiple languages through guest services can provide comfort in familiarity to a valued-guest. When guests know that there’s staff who speak their language, anxiety over potential misunderstandings or being unable to express preferences diminishes. This sense of ease translates into more positive reviews, repeat visits, and a reputation as a truly international destination. This not only includes person-to-person exchanges through guest services, but also through any messaging platform such as WhatsApp, WeChat, or SMS which are increasingly being used by luxury hotels to facilitate communication with guests. These platforms allow guests to send inquiries or requests at their convenience and receive prompt responses from guest services staff.

But beyond guest satisfaction, there’s the undeniable benefit of standing out in an increasingly competitive market. A hotel that demonstrates linguistic versatility showcases a commitment to excellence and inclusivity, placing it a notch above competitors who may not offer the same level of consideration.

Investing in Multilingual Staff, Technology and GenAI

The question then isn’t just whether to offer multilingual support, but how. Hotels have options such as employing multilingual staff, providing language training to current employees, or investing in technology like real-time translation devices and apps. These messaging technologies make it easier to communicate with their guests as you don’t have to hire employees to speak their native language, but rather the messaging platforms have easy to use translator apps integrated in the respective tools. 

With the advent of GenAI, translations have taken a step-up as now translations are based more on semantic meaning than actual words…

Outfitting your team with the right tools can go a long way. It shows initiative in meeting guest needs proactively. Furthermore, it empowers your staff, equipping them with the confidence to handle diverse guest interactions adeptly.

Culturally Informed Service

Understanding language nuances goes hand in hand with cultural competence. Luxury hotels that invest in multilingual support often find that they must also educate their staff on cultural sensitivity. Doing so ensures that cross-cultural communication is respectful and appropriate, which is just as important as speaking the same language. As GenAI evolves this will become easier and easier through messaging platforms giving the employee the necessary tools to effectively communicate to their high valued guests. 

Measuring the Impact

Before implementing any multilingual strategy, it’s important to measure your guests’ needs. Analyze your customer data—are there significant numbers coming from particular language backgrounds? Collect feedback on whether guests would value multilingual services. Such research will not only inform investment in this area but will also help tailor the approach to the specific languages your guests speak.

Conclusion

For luxury hotels striving to deliver the utmost in guest satisfaction, multilingual support is not just beneficial—it’s essential. It reflects a global-mindedness and a sophisticated level of service that resonates with cosmopolitan guests.

In a connected world, language is more than a medium of communication; it’s a tool for connection and understanding. By emphasizing multilingual capabilities, your hotel speaks volumes about its dedication to guest comfort and excellence in hospitality.

Remember, each interaction in a guest’s language is a step closer to a lasting relationship. Generous investment in multilingual support today could be the key to your hotel’s enduring success tomorrow.

Takeaway Thoughts for Hospitality Leaders:

• Assess the linguistic diversity of your guests and anticipate their communication preferences.
• Provide multilingual training for staff or adopt technology that aids in translation.
• Recognize the importance of cultural sensitivity alongside language skills.
• Analyze the ROI of multilingual capabilities through guest feedback and satisfaction scores.
• Lead the charge in offering inclusive, personalized experiences that make every guest feel at home.
• GenAI can help with translations as translations are based more on semantic meaning than actual words.
• As GenAI evolves, translating to their guests will become easier and easier through messaging platforms giving the employee the necessary tools to effectively communicate to their highly valued guests. 

Is your hotel equipped to converse with the world? Perhaps it’s time to speak the language of your guests.

Glowing

Glowing, Inc. is a leading US-based software company that specializes in AI-enhanced omni-channel guest engagement solutions. We provide some of the world’s leading brands in hospitality and other verticals an intelligent and unified platform to overcome the complexity of in-the-moment messaging and enhance guest experience–helping them win guest satisfaction and loyalty.

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According to a study conducted at the beginning of 2022, it has been observed that the frequency of messages being sent during the beginning of the pandemic back in 2020 is 2.58 times higher than the average number of messages sent per day pre-Covid times. Even now, people are still opting to use instant messaging to contact not only their family and friends, but also businesses.

We have searched on the commonly used messaging applications out there and understand why they are used by a lot of users.

Whatsapp

Whatsapp is one of the most popular messaging applications that has approximately 2 Billion users in 150 countries. Whatsapp application allows its users to send messages, photos, videos, and files to their contacts. Whatsapp also allows businesses to have their own official Whatsapp Business Account where businesses can create profiles, communicate with their guests, and send automated messages.  In a study conducted and released in 2022 by Meta, more than 1 billion people interact with a business over WhatsApp PER WEEK.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger is the next messaging application that follows after Whatsapp with registered users of around 1.3 billion worldwide. Same as Whatsapp, you can send messages, videos, files, and other multimedia files that you want to send to other users. Businesses have also integrated their digital marketing strategy into Facebook Messenger due to its average open rate of 70-80% which is significantly higher compared to emails.

WeChat

Originating in China, Wechat is the social platform that not only connects most Chinese people across China but also because of its gaining popularity, connects a million users outside of China. It is what you call a “multi-purpose app” as you can do so many things in the application from making payments to online shopping. On top of the fact that WeChat is the de facto social media platform in China. Most of its users are from China and have around 1.2 billion active users per month.

Line

Line is known to be the most popular and widely used messaging application in Japan and Taiwan. Back in 2011, when Japan was hit by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake followed by a tsunami, this application was developed to be used as an alternative to the telecommunications network that was damaged. Line  has around 178 million active users per month.

Viber

Another popular messaging application worldwide is Viber which was founded in Israel and bought by the Japanese company, Rakuten. It gained popularity due to its secret chat feature, and encryption. You can send messages, photos, videos, and voice calls in this app, and even allows businesses to create their own “Public Account” to communicate to their customers. They have around 260 million active users per month.

Telegram

Telegram is fairly new to the messaging application market as compared to its competitors, but it continues to have more users registering to its platform. You can also send messages, voice and video calls, photos, videos, and other files. It also has a feature called “self-destruct” for messages and files where you can set a time after they have been opened or read by the receiver. They have around 200 million active users per month, and its popularity is in certain European countries, but growing globally due to its emphasis on security and privacy.

About Glowing.io

If you want to utilize messaging as a mode of communication for your customers or clients, then platforms such as Glowing.io provide an opportunity for your business to directly communicate with your clients across all of the popular messaging platforms we have mentioned in this article. 

Glowing.io aims to provide an easy, yet impactful solution for any business to help drive engagement, and loyalty with ultimate impact on both the top and bottom lines. Glowing.io’s platform will make communication with your clients easy, simple, and personalized, as communication starts with each guest’ preferred messaging platform, from which there are many.

Authored by: Anjanette Rosauro

Glowing

Glowing, Inc. is a leading US-based software company that specializes in AI-enhanced omni-channel guest engagement solutions. We provide some of the world’s leading brands in hospitality and other verticals an intelligent and unified platform to overcome the complexity of in-the-moment messaging and enhance guest experience–helping them win guest satisfaction and loyalty.

glowingio.wpengine.com

The post Most Used Messaging Apps in 2022 appeared first on Glowing.

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.

Glowing

Glowing, Inc. is a leading US-based software company that specializes in AI-enhanced omni-channel guest engagement solutions. We provide some of the world’s leading brands in hospitality and other verticals an intelligent and unified platform to overcome the complexity of in-the-moment messaging and enhance guest experience–helping them win guest satisfaction and loyalty.

glowingio.wpengine.com

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This slow and steady growth is a perfect time for businesses in the industry to lay the foundation for post-COVID operations. Marketing will be the heart of a business’ success in this endeavor. It will help hospitality companies share their stories, spark conversations, and boost attention to their brands, creating momentum for business growth moving forward.

Yet a brand’s messaging will also have to change if businesses want to meet new customer expectations that have been similarly transformed by the pandemic. Here are a few differences hotels and other hospitality businesses can expect and should make to this end.

An emphasis on cleanliness

Most customers are hyper-aware of the fact that COVID-19 is still around. To increase their confidence in your business, consider sticking to the same cleanliness protocols required during the height of the pandemic and emphasize to your guests that you do so — not just in your marketing content, but also in your business’ direct interactions with potential and existing customers. You can even go a step further by disclosing the exact cleaning products that you use: 70% of travelers and 1 out of every 3 diners will be more likely to book a room or eat a meal at hotels and restaurants that do so, especially if the cleaning product used is a recognizable brand.

Integrated tech for safety

This same customer drive for cleanliness is also fueling their demand for contactless travel. That being said, implementing and broadcasting a contactless experience will go a long way today, when building customer loyalty is paramount. This can begin with omnichannel booking services and digitalized room key distribution during the check-in process. Curating a dedicated app or opening your social media channels to answer guest concerns before, during, and after their stay can further add to the contactless experience. Aside from enforcing social distancing protocols at your restaurant, you can even avoid overcrowding at the bar by sending drinks straight to hotel rooms with video instructions on how to mix them. These innovative services can enhance the customer experience and make your advertising strategies more compelling.

Featured local experiences

As people resume traveling, they’re more likely to first dip their toes in the water. That being said, you may want to tap into local audiences before expanding your reach outward. At the same time, your business may begin seeing guests that have passed this phase. In this case, you may want to highlight the local tourist experiences available in your area. For example, gym personnel can host running tours of your area, and your chefs can offer workshops exploring the local cuisine. Businesses can alert or notify their customers of special events or promos to keep them updated with the local scene. Such activities can make your business more unique and better able to compete with larger, more uniform hotel chains.

An enhanced online presence

With more people online as a result of the pandemic, companies are constantly bombarding them with advertisements. Consequently, it’s not enough to simply post regular promotions of your services online. Successful online marketing strategies work by making customers trust your brand. Build this trust through relevance and authenticity. Directly engage with customers by opening conversations with them on social media and hosting online contests to boost engagement. We’ve also emphasized that using effective messaging platforms to gather feedback can further help improve your services while making customers feel that you’re a caring brand that’s open to their suggestions.

Today’s customers highly value brands that are transparent and go the extra mile to meet their needs. By adopting the above changes to your messaging in your marketing strategies, you can reach their standards easily.

Specially written for glowing.io

Authored by Ruth Janice

Glowing

Glowing, Inc. is a leading US-based software company that specializes in AI-enhanced omni-channel guest engagement solutions. We provide some of the world’s leading brands in hospitality and other verticals an intelligent and unified platform to overcome the complexity of in-the-moment messaging and enhance guest experience–helping them win guest satisfaction and loyalty.

glowingio.wpengine.com

The post Hospitality Marketing After the Pandemic appeared first on Glowing.

What is a Metaverse

The traditional perception of a Metaverse is a 3D environment that is interacted through a VR or AR headset alongside some controllers similar to VRChat. However, the actual definition is much broader. A Metaverse is simply a virtual environment where people are able to interact (TIME). This more plain description can be applied to many virtual communication platforms that exist today such as Slack and Discord.

What makes Metacraft Unique

Metacraft takes the traditional Minecraft experience and enhances it through strategic usage of various plugins while retaining much of the vanilla experience. Metacraft accommodates various kinds of playstyles without causing conflict. Players have the option to spend months of their lives gathering resources and people to ultimately launch a massive siege as a collective nation against neighboring towns. Or spend years gathering a devoted group of builders to gradually build the largest and most detailed structure throughout the entire world.

Metacraft links the Minecraft platform with other communication networks such as Discord and Facebook Messenger in order to enhance the player experience and connect the virtual world with the physical world. Players that are active within Metacraft have the ability to contact those that are in the physical world through Metacraft’s integrations which allow messages sent within the virtual space to be relayed to people’s phones and group chats. The Metacraft team also will create historical animatics based on the events that occur on the server. Major events such as wars, the completion of great builds, and diplomatic events will all be cataloged in order to promote the player base to continue to ignite events that will keep the community engaged.

About Glowing, Inc.

Glowing, Inc. is the leading US-based software company that specializes in AI-enhanced omnichannel guest engagement solutions. For some of the world’s leading brands in hospitality and other verticals, Glowing provides an intelligent and unified platform to overcome the complexity of in-the-moment messaging and enhance the guest experience–helping them win guest satisfaction and loyalty.

For more information, please visit www.glowing.io

About Metacraft

Metacraft is a Minecraft server that enhances the Minecraft experience by allowing wildly different playstyles to thrive on the same server. This is done through a harmonious balance of claim protection that allows combat-oriented players to grief while supporting builders in maintaining their builds.

For more information, please visit www.themetacraft.tk

Glowing

Glowing, Inc. is a leading US-based software company that specializes in AI-enhanced omni-channel guest engagement solutions. We provide some of the world’s leading brands in hospitality and other verticals an intelligent and unified platform to overcome the complexity of in-the-moment messaging and enhance guest experience–helping them win guest satisfaction and loyalty.

glowingio.wpengine.com

The post Glowing and Metacraft: Introducing a New Metaverse in Minecraft appeared first on Glowing.