As you can imagine, guest experience and the need for guest engagement don't simply pause when times get tougher for hotels. In fact, during challenging times, engaging guests is one of the most effective tools to counteract the potential financial losses that are expected from a decline in guest arrivals, as you can read HERE.
When we started working with Banyan Tree Koh Samui in Thailand, the hotel had just suffered a sizeable setback from a drop in arrivals on the island, coupled with an increase in competing properties. In many ways, it was counter-intuitive to invest in a platform that was regarded as a "nice-to-have" back in 2018. We tried our best and highlighted research that actually proves an increase in revenues via guest engagement. Nevertheless, it was the hotel's independent decision to deploy our solution and go for it. Since then, the Banyan Tree Samui has become the symbolic "first-mover" that allowed us to refine Portier's bottom-line impact to its current state.
Where did the Banyan Tree property see increases?
Despite fewer arrivals, general guest spending increased by over $200 per room per month, and in-villa bath treatments were at the forefront of this increase, ultimately growing by 4X (or 433%) in comparison to the previous year. This was achieved by a level of discoverability that the likes of physical compendiums and IP TVs, for instance, couldn't deliver.
What's more, one push messaging campaign caught the imagination of hotel guests more than any other on-site promotion, namely a 20% spa voucher which was promoted via visually appealing full screen push messages sent to guests while they were on-the-go. This particular campaign led to a year-on-year growth of $48,000 (for an 88-room property) in spa bookings over the course of 12 months.
The property also saw some sizeable increases in cooking classes, romantic dining, airport transfers and booked activities. All of the above were promoted in different ways, and hotel staff utilized the dynamic nature of Portier's content delivery system and the company's understanding of guest behavior on and off property.
The key reasons as to why such impact was and continues to be possible with Portier simply comes down to the amount of guest engagement the Portier Platform is able to deliver. As you can read HERE, Portier now runs some of the industry's highest engagement levels and offers hoteliers multiple opportunities to further monetize guests on a daily basis.