At Portier, we believe that creating a five star guest experience means engaging your guests and making them feel confident, empowered and most importantly relaxed.
In 2019, Thailand is expecting 41M tourist. Vietnam is expecting 15M, and Indonesia 16M foreign tourists. While many travelers that choose to stay at luxury hotels and resorts can speak some English, and maybe even some of the local language, many of them will struggle to communicate while on vacation. Using a foreign language, whether that’s English, Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai, can be stressful, not only for your guests, but also your staff.
A guest that is comfortable communicating and engaging with their hotel is 46% more likely to spend more on services at their hotel. Here are three reasons why helping your guests communicate in their local language can help create a five star experience for your guests and staff.
Confident guests will tell you when their standards are not being met
It is very difficult to feel confident when you simply can’t say what you want to. Rather than ask for a change, people who struggle to speak in English or the local language, might choose to not say anything when something doesn't meet their standards.
This is problematic because when they return home, they might tell their friends or worse, write a negative review on TripAdvisor about their experience.
Relaxed guests are more likely to enjoy their vacation
Communicating in your native language is relaxing. Simple things like translated menus and compendiums go a long way to let guests know what to expect and what to do when things don’t go as planned.
If a guest knows what to expect and understands what to do when things do not go as planned, they are more likely to sit and enjoy the resort, the bar, or any of the other services a hotel or resort can offer.
Confident and relaxed staff make confident relaxed guests
Communication requires both a speaker or writer and a listener or reader. While most luxury hotels have people on staff who can speak many languages, the organization could become too dependent on that staff member.
But what does being hospitable actually mean? It means being welcoming, being engaging and being of service. It also means putting your guests at ease and giving them confidence in, and an understanding of. the hospitality experience you are offering.
How Portier uses translation to drive better guest engagement
Speaking another language is difficult. And while we do not claim that technology can solve all translation issues, we do believe that our translation technology and services can help your property to make both your guests and your staff more confident and relaxed.
An up to date, translated compendium
Each Portier phone comes with a hotel’s compendium translated in up to five languages.
This ensures that all hotel marketing and information is up to date and available in the five languages that are most common among the hotels’ guests.
For an international traveler, accessing the hotel’s offerings in their own language is not only a sign of cultural respect, but it helps the hotels access a larger audience when it comes to marketing all of the property’s services.
Concierge Connect
Concierge Connect allows hotel guests to chat directly to individual staff or departments. Each message is auto translated to enable better guest support. Guest services can access the translated chat via the web-based view, their mobile device, or the Portier chat app.
Realistically speaking, hotels simply can’t cover the world’s languages with staff members that speak all of them. Portier’s technology serves as an amplifier to the ability of hotel staff members. If your concierge for instance, is an excellent team member in English, why shouldn’t he or she be just as excellent in Chinese or Arabic - that’s where Concierge Connect makes a compelling difference in the day to day servicing of guests.
Contact our sales team at sales@goportier.com, to learn more about how Portier can help you to create a better guest experience.