The Connected Guest Journey with Patryk Luszcz

Speaker A: This is the Halo Effect Hospitality Stories with Ashley and Michael Donald. This podcast is about people, their stories, and why these make hospitality so special. Every week we'll share insights from specialists across the industry. And whether it's just the two of us or we're joined by a guest, we'll always aim to make it valuable, engaging and fun. Welcome to the Halo Effect. Welcome back to the Halo Effect. Today we are delighted to welcome Patrick.

Speaker B: Oh, spot on, Michael, I have to say.

Speaker A: Patrick from Profit Room. Patrick is a UK regional director at Profit Room and brings more than 15 years of experience across luxury hospitality in both the UK and Germany. Having worked closely with, uh, independent and luxury hotels throughout his career, he has a strong perspective on the factors shaping hotel performance today, from direct bookings and digital visibility to conversion loyalty and the wider Guest journey. Ashley and Patrick are part of the Next Wave hospitality community, and Ashley recently moderated a panel at their London event featuring Patrick on the connected Guest Journey. And we're looking forward to exploring a bit more of that. Patrick, it's lovely to have you on the Halo Effect. Welcome.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you, Michael. What an introduction, I have to say, and it's my pleasure. I was not expecting such a formal introduction. I was brilliant. No, you're welcome.

Speaker C: Great pronunciation there as well. Well done, Mike.

Speaker A: It was pronunciation, at least.

Speaker B: I would say that was a 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10 for this one. I've had all sorts of things.

Speaker C: Oh, Patrick, it's lovely to see you again. And, um, I know we speak a lot with our Next Wave hospitality community and delighted that you can join us today. So, um, one of the questions we ask all of our guests is really to just tell us a little bit more about how you first got into the hospitality industry.

Speaker B: I mean, I think, uh, with Michael, uh, Even mentioning the 15 years, it was a bit of a cringe moment, giving away the age. And I was like, oh, damn it. I was hoping we were gonna leave that one out. Ah, no. But, uh, with all honesty, I mean, uh, my name is obviously Patrick. I'm Polish originally, but I was actually born and raised in Greece, uh, so being raised in Greece, uh, as a child, as a teenager, hospitality, uh, is in the bread and butter of pretty much daily, uh, life across many Greeks, as a matter of fact. Ah. So actually I was raised in a hospitality environment as a, and I have had the pleasure of working across restaurant venues, hotel venues, from the age of 13, 14, 15, really, in, uh, the sense of supporting, uh, those operations, but then more increasingly so within the FNB outlet standpoint, uh, you know, from the age of 17, 18, really running operations uh, across catering venues as a matter of fact. Uh, so it's always been in my blood to kind of uh, support uh, FNB outlets and hospitality venues to deliver outstanding uh, service for our guests.

Speaker A: Amazing. What was the kind of next step were you when you kind of started thinking about leaving Greece and moving around? What was the kind of, the starting building a uh, career as opposed to kind of almost, almost like I suppose just working with family and things like that beforehand.

Speaker B: And yeah, if I'm honest, this is where the real uh, joy and the experience in hospitality actually started because I actually chose to take it uh, as a career, as a career move as a matter of fact. And I first moved to the UK and to Scotland in particular, uh, back in 2012, uh, where I came in to study international hospitality and tourism management at Queen Margaret University for four years. Finished with a first class, uh, honours. I had to put that in there because I must be incredibly proud of that. Uh, but no, I was, was. It was something I've always seen as a career move, uh, and something I wanted to uh, have my life been led by really when it comes to hotel and hospitality as a matter of fact.

Speaker A: And when you got into the industry, was there anything in particular that kind of, that you went oh, that's uh, that's not how I would do it. I would improve that, I would change that or. Those are the things that frustrate me.

Speaker B: Many things in particular, if any people have worked in FNB outlets and FNB venues. There's many things that can go wrong and many things that make those experiences incredibly unique. So I've had the pleasure of working with many managers, many directors and um, people that I would report to directly. Where you'd learn a great deal of things by the things that they would lead you by, example. But arguably I would learn the most from the ones that were not managing correctly. And it's kind of that curve of. All right, this is a great example of what I shouldn't be doing when I work uh, with a team and what shouldn't be done, uh, on a daily hotel operation, whether it's F and B related or not. Because that's where my original, original kind of operational background came from. But yeah, everything at that point kind of led to the next thing and uh, I ended up entering uh, the hotel sales, uh, element where then I had a lot of exposure into the front of house, the positioning of hotels and how we could drive their business Profitability. Ah. So yeah, there's definitely been many learning curves. What shouldn't be done. I'm trying to put it diplomatically here. I had to be quite slow there when I was referring to specific cases perhaps.

Speaker C: Well it's great to have that real oversight across the business. I think particularly in your role with sales and having that empathy of walked a mile in their shoes. Whether it's in the F and B operations, whether it's um, front of house selling rooms. I think having, yeah that kind of um, that, that operational and sort of hands on experience I think is, is just so helpful um, in, in your role now with, with profit room. So, so sticking with um, the theme of, of profit room and um, and that kind of profitability. Direct booking, um, you know we, we work um ourselves with, with Halo on kind of advisory on, on whether it's booking channels, um, marketing strategy, visibility, etc. Um, but one question around direct booking that we often get asked is you know, why does it actually matter whether a guest books direct versus an ota beyond the obvious commission savings? So um, yeah, I would love to hear your perspective on you know, why does it matter if a guest books directly or through ota?

Speaker B: It's one of those questions we often ask ourselves internally as well where you know, if we speak to hoteliers, if we speak to our hotel partners is like okay, well have we answered the question of why, why would they change? Uh, why would they bother changing? And it comes back to some. One of those questions being that cost of acquisition as a business versus the OTA and third website, third uh, party websites and it's why change? Why consider this why now as well. Why is this uh, a more important factor now than it has arguably been ever before and why uh, afterwards Proform. As a matter of fact on my end, and this is a great to where I love how Prof. Room and myself specifically have really closely partnered with Next Wave Hospitality. Because this is exactly the answers we want to bring to the forefront and have those honest discussions. Uh, because it's about having that discussion with any specific hotelier and partner that we're talking to about honestly being open up those cards, open that discussion and answer the question of why that might, may be important. Uh, and we see many hotels being in a completely different position from an E Commerce standpoint, why it might be beneficial. That being said, it all comes down to the underlying factor of cost of acquisition and business profitability. It is a common fact that you know, driving your direct booking success, uh, whether it's online or offline, it comes at the lowest cost of acquisition. The disadvantage to, uh, offline inquiries, be over the phone or via email. There comes a strong, uh, cost associated to that when it comes to staffing and managing that, managing your brand standards. Whereas when it comes to direct online, that we refer to that as well. You know, you're looking at the lowest cost of acquisition as a channel where you have those costs attributed to your website, people entering your website through the means of traffic that they have entered it and making sure it's the best converting tool there to drive that success. So, yeah, it's definitely looking at how we as a business can, uh, in one shape or form drive that business profitability and make sure those hotels maintain their profitability and drive their profitability in an ever changing and difficult market. Uh, as it is, um, something that hoteliers are facing right now.

Speaker A: I remember staying in a small Italian, uh, hotel on our honeymoon. I'm pretty sure we wanted to extend for a night and they said, oh, if you want to extend for one night, you got to go on booking.com and extend. We have to book for another night on booking.com. what? I mean, I get it, I get it. Absolutely. The marketing reach of the OTAs is incredible. But if you're relying on OTA as your, as your, like, as your pms, really, I mean, that's what they were kind of doing. They must have been just looking at that. It was just absolutely most expensive PMS the world has ever seen. Uh, they would have been better off with a, with a, just a paper, just a, just a book and just writing it all down, I would have thought. Um, but, but apart from that finance immediate financial thing, there's, there's must be a, there's a life. Like return bookings, I think, are the massive ones. I mean, yes, you can have on your first booking. Absolutely. If you want to get that marketing reach and get bookings that would never maybe come to you otherwise. OTAs are brilliant, but there's that lifetime value and making sure that you kind of convert them. Um, are hotels still ignoring that piece? Many, unfortunately don't know what to do.

Speaker B: Many of them unfortunately are ignoring that piece. And, uh, I shouldn't be saying this, but I couldn't agree unfortunately with you, Michael, more, uh, where I travel a lot for business, I travel, uh, for leisure as well. Uh, and the amount of times I still speak to hoteliers and reception teams wanting to make a reservation first because their revenue strategy is not positioned correctly and their website does not reflect the best offering and it's actually cheaper for me to book on a third party website is, you know, for the majority of the consumers that's a business lost, that's an opportunity loss where that consumer will end up booking through that third party website. I am genius. Level three. Ah, unfortunately on, on those third party websites which I think were very aware of, which one am I maybe referring to? But that's not because of a choice, that's because of I was put in a position when I was making reservations at those hotels that I wasn't even provided with the option to book direct and at least match that rate that I've seen uh, on, on those OTA ch. Because I will call, I'm like hey, I found this rate. Literally I don't want to book it, I don't want to click that button. Can you please match that for me at least? I'm not looking to make like save any costs, I'm actually looking to save you revenue. Uh, and many hotels ultimately don't have that uh, available. They don't have that as an option. And ultimately it's those challenges, uh, that we look to resolve and look to undertake to drive that business revenue. And that's you know, just from a rate parity point of view, what can be done Second is how can you drive your rates, your packages, your availability, where you know, uh, those. On those third party websites, all they're focusing on is the rate. They want to make sure they have the lowest rate possible where they'll even undercut their own commissionable levels, ultimately making sure it's cheaper to book on their website than yourselves. We have seen as much as 20, 30, 40% really rate discrepancies being rates being significantly cheaper on OTAs versus their websites. And that's just killing the business, right, because they will just undercut their rates, uh, and it won't encourage I guess to build brand loyalty because if you don't book through your direct website, you can't acquire the email address or you can with certain tools that we've got in place, but you'll struggle and it's much harder to do that and it's hard to build that loyalty for first business acquisition, but then business retention because that brand loyalty is like cool, you've got this guest in house now what do we do to make sure that guest comes back and they stay with you again, uh, whether it's in 6 months, 12 months time or whenever they choose to potentially uh, stay with yourself, uh, again. So it's all those opportunities that hoteliers do have to ensure they do drive their direct booking success.

Speaker C: Yeah, and I think that the whole, you know, coming back to the value of the direct booking and you've touched on it there in terms of um, you know, once you have that guest's email address that opens up so many opportunities to then communicate with them ahead of their stay, um, to communicate with them during their stay and certainly once they've left to build that, that loyalty. And I think it's definitely, and we'll come on to talk about the kind of connected guest journey in a moment, but I think just you know, connecting all of the commercial kind of stakeholders in the business as well and um, you know, ensuring that, you know, marketing are really supporting driving traffic to the website through, you know, all of the different tactics, SEO, geo, um, but then as you say, that rate parity piece and ensuring that the revenue team are really looking at, um, ensuring, you know, certainly rate matching but looking at what else they can do as a direct booking benefit for people, you know, coming, whether that's complimentary upgrade, whether that's a, you know, discount on F and B, um, you know, and I think that's where, you know, a lot of boutique and independent hotels can have that flexibility perhaps to create those um, kind of like member type, um, program. So I think, yeah, absolutely. Coming back to, you know, the direct booking, it's more than just the commission saving, isn't it? It's, it's a whole loyalty kind of initiative really in many ways.

Speaker B: It's the opportunity it presents by having an effective direct booking strategy. It's the opportunity it presents to yourself as a hotelier of what you can do with that data to drive auxiliary spend. Uh, because by, you know, it's a given fact that yes, a bedroom may be just a commodity where it's just a bed and four walls, but it's actually the properties that differentiate themselves and the ones that are performing the best are the ones that have built that element of brand differentiation and why they're unique to the market and these are the most profitable businesses. So the opportunity that presents themselves when you've got an effective direct booking strategy is you're able to communicate to your audience that is, if somebody's booked a bed and breakfast rate only, why have they not booked an afternoon tea? Why, why have they not booked a dinner for ah, as a minimum? And then it's looking at resort capabilities is like, okay, I want as a hotelier communicate to that guest that if they've only booked a bed and breakfast, let's say or a dinner, bed and breakfast even. I've got an 18, 18 hole golf course around the corner where they can book their tea time with me directly uh, and streamline that process. So I want to make sure as a hotel I'm m communicating that value and the added advantage of what they can do to personalize their experience to make it the most unforgettable experience ever visiting our hotel. So you've got as a hotelier that power to streamline and flex your technology around the needs of your operations which is making sure you sell every square meter of your property to the max, to the highest possible uh, essentially rate you can to drive your profitability. Uh, and this is what uh, it does present.

Speaker C: No, I love that and I love that you know, you're tying it back to that experience and it's the experiences that the guest remembers and you know we'll build that um, loyalty and we did an episode recently focusing on upselling, um, and and it was really interesting in that conversation. It was you know, moving the mindset of the hotel team, thinking of it as selling and actually offering value and offering the guests an experience that perhaps they didn't realize that there was a golf course around the corner that they could book afternoon tea. So it was actually really enhancing the guests experience, building that loyalty and of course building that total revenue um piece as well. Um, so I think I ah, love that point around that you know that the upselling opportunity, it's helping to streamline operations, it's helping to drive revenue but ultimately it's building that amazing m experience

Speaker B: for guests and it brings uh, often I'll ask the question to hoteliers we're in discussions with whether there are hotel partners or not, like who is responsible for that experiential offering? Who is responsible for that upselling piece? And it's like oh, where does that ownership lie? You know, is it the gm, is it the front of house manager? Is it ah, the revenue manager? Is it the digital team? Ah and arguably I would say it's all of the above as a matter of fact because depending on where the guest is within their guest journey you have multiple opportunities of tailoring first and foremost and upselling their experience because it's not necessarily shifting it away from just upselling where it's yes, I'm just trying to obtain more money or more value out of this given guest which of course that's the underlying factor as a business we need to make revenue but actually it's we're in the experiential traveling, uh, um, with an experiential travel and guests are there to create emotions and about uh, there's been research done that 70% of consumers, 70% of hotel guests are driven by the emotions that they can curate and create whilst staying at a hotel. And that emotion doesn't just start on the reception desk when they check in. It actually starts from before they arrive at the hotel and when they start researching ah, their potential travel destination. And this is where we've seen a big disjointment across what consumers are looking for and what technology is available there to connect those two. Where you know, you'll often scroll through your social media feed, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, ah, TikTok more so and stuff. And you know, you, you're there, you're building those emotions, you're curating those experiences already from there. But as soon as you're looking to make that reservation you're like, you know what? I want to make that booking. There is that sense of all right now I'm going through a challenging, burdensome exercise of putting my credit card details to confirm that book and to go through that. And we've kind of gone to the point of digesting that. How can we streamline that big pain point within a consumer's mind to minimize the time that is spent, maximize conversions from the intent of purchase to actually purchasing that room, uh, that reservation, that experience. And this is where there's a big opportunity, uh, uh, from a starting point and along to every single point that it should be analyzed. What happens at reception, what happens at check in, what happens at checkout. There's multiple opportunities still.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity of just making that piece of that conversion just really frictionless. Um, and um, particularly with payments, there's so many times I've just abandoned bookings because it's like there's some issue with the credit card and then you know, they don't have a Apple pay or it's just, yeah, it's really frustrating as a, as a consumer. So just sticking with the guest journey and you've touched on all of the um, you know, that, that impression and that sort of intent can start really early. When people are sort of discovering a destination hotels, they're really at that kind of exploratory phase and that, you know, increasingly so using social media, um, for that. But um, you know, I'd love to know from your perspective, you know, how much of a hotel's discoverability is now shaped by things completely outside of their Direct control. So reviews, OTA content, AI search results, that kind of thing.

Speaker B: You kind of it's phrase. Well, I don't think it's out of their control, honestly.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: Uh, I think it's actually all to a certain extent within their control. Of course, it's kind of that element, full control, partial control. Right. For instance, your guest reviews, as much as it's on a third website, whether it's in TripAdvisor or wherever those reviews may be coming from on, on Google, they're still within the hotel's control. Right.

Speaker A: You can influence them?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you can influence them, you can manage them as a team and you can ensure you build a process that those reviews are the best possible reviews you can get. We work with a property down in Cornwall. I'll actually refer to this as a three mile beach. Uh, they're self catering units and I think they've hit now 500 reviews. Uh, maybe um, they've hit already or not. I'm not sure. They've been open for a few years now. I think it was about three years that they've been open for so now. And they only have 5 star reviews, 105 star review rating.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Like if you ask me, you know, that was within that property's control to deliver those. No, because not every hotel has a five star. Actually to be fair, I haven't seen any other site that has got 500 uh, reviews at least with all five star, not even one four star review. Uh, and you're like wow, this is incredible. Right. And that just brought it to the point of why are they in business, what are they trying to achieve and why do they, why are they unique for what they're doing? And it's just incredible what that team is doing there with Nick and his entire operations. And yes, as much as it's reviews on Google or TripAdvisor whatnot, it is within their circle of influence where they can control those reviews. But more and more so we see the likes of AI and you uh, know, whether it's Gemini, ChatGPT and generally the AI, uh traffic really impacting that performance and the traffic generator across hotel websites and that is influenced by those reviews, that is influenced with parts of, you know, having schema.org embedded within your websites. This is stuff that for instance at Proform we've embedded, uh, last year, no the 20 end of 2024, beginning of 2025 where we embedded it all within our hotel partner websites, uh, where you know, your schema.org were embedded in the in the homepages but then also over and above that what do you do to make sure that's not just embedded on the homepage but all your sub pages, your restaurants, your spa outlets. You need to build that exposure across ah the language learning modules and these are tools uh, that that do so quite effectively. PR uh has been more important than ever as well. Uh when you know if you're seeing that you're not being picked up by AI work on your uh, on your pr work on making sure you're more exposed across articles ah, showcasing your property in an X shape uh, or form that you wish to be portrayed as. Because this is all pieces that build together.

Speaker C: Absolutely. And I think um, I love that. Yeah you kind of hit the nail on the head in terms of there's a lot of I suppose technical and like the schema.org to the websites and the sort of technical foundations of websites um, both in the back end and maybe with the narrative and the storytelling on the front end but looking at that whole strategy as a visibility strategy. So what are you doing um, you know, with your PR agencies to drive that positive coverage? What are you doing in terms of your processes to ensure that um, you know any maybe um, challenging guest experience is dealt with on property? You resolve that really well. The guest has an amazing experience and leaves you that five star review. So I think it's um, yeah thinking of the bigger picture isn't it in many ways of all of those different channels that sit outside of your own direct channels of how you can yeah have that influence as you say. Um, so yeah, no love that and I love that you know already Profit Room has identified that very early on um, and and have already implemented that across your portfolio of clients from 10.

Speaker B: And yeah that's what we can do uh, like what hotel partner, hotel technology partners can do to ensure those partners are ahead of the curve with any evolving technology developments. Because we're luckily, I mean personally I love this time that we're in because it portrays a great opportunity for businesses like Profferoom where we literally need to be on, on our toes on a daily basis to drive that technology to an extent that positively impacts our hotel partners ahead of their competition. Uh but then similarly there's parts within the hotel's uh, offering which is like the likes of operation where necessarily Proform doesn't get directly involved with but how we can streamline those operations with the likes of itinerarizing a guest stay, being able to clearly see where your guest will be at A specific time they will have their spa treatment booked xyz, they will have their afternoon tea. After this they will have their dinner. Uh, at a given time the hotel can create an operational flow, managing their staff, managing those expectations to drive that unique experience. So these are all those elements that can indirectly actually impact operations positively to deliver that guest experience. And albeit there can always be a bit of a ah, challenge or a span in the work at the end of the day where a consumer might be a guest, might be annoyed about something that happened at the property. And I feel very strongly where every single team member within a property should be empowered uh, to take ownership of that and resolve those challenges. It doesn't need to go all the way up in the hierarchy of, you know, the GM or commercial director to manage a negative feedback. The individual team member could take full ownership of that. I personally feel they should be empowered to do so and then resolve that there and then. Because the sooner you can resolve a potential negative feedback you can turn it to a great opportunity. And ultimately something that would be in a one star review can quickly, uh, with an insignificant uh, investment from the front of house, uh, team member can be actually a five star review uh, because you turned it into an opportunity, uh, portraying that true level of service.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great Patrick. And these really do have a massive impact on demand and your visibility. But can we go back maybe talk a little bit about booking journey and conversion? Where do you find are the most sort of common places that hotels can lose that demand and lose that attention from guests before they book?

Speaker B: So there's one thing, demand, yes, where that traffic might be coming uh, into the website and into the booking engine. Uh, and another piece is in terms of conversion as well. If, uh, kind of looking at that website to book an engine journey, I'll often see hotels really trying to complicate things. Right. You've got elements where you want to add points to your loyalty, memberships, you want to add ah, discounts, you want to add X, Y, Z. And you're making it such a convoluted process for the consumer promo codes. Yeah, like ah, you know, there's so many things that hotels will make up and you're like cool, what for? Like what's the, what are we trying to achieve here? Right. Are we trying to win business or are we trying to direct the guest to book essentially elsewhere? And ultimately it's trying to digest the reason why and what are we trying to do here. So we work often with hotels and resorts, uh, where they will have that full service element where they'll have a golf course, they'll have a spa, they'll have multiple restaurants and you know, okay, cool, so what do we do to make sure each single guest maximizes the total revenue we can generate from that guest whilst creating a seamless user flow. So we've done so with multiple partners, uh, up and down the country where we've been able to streamline that entire booking process where within as little as, for instance, five clicks you can book a, uh, full package with tea time, dinner and spa all included. Uh, and you can streamline your entire booking within as little as five clicks and then personalize it at any time between the booking and your pre check, pre stay before your arrival. So that time that the guest has taken to book, that uh, reservation has been minimal. And then they've got loads of time to actually still personalize, adjust, amend their booking based on their needs and their requirements. So I found hotels, often they'll just want to give everything straight away. It's like, you know, when you go into uh, the supermarket and you've got 20 different choices of jam or whatever it might be, you know, which one do you choose? Well okay, a jam is a simple, simple thing. So you, whatever, I'll choose the one that's got the least sugar, which nobody really looks at anyway. But then from a hotel point of view it's making it clear, making it directly impacting their performance and finding out what their consumers want. So we've been able to take on hotel partners where previously in order to book a spa, ah, a table booking a golf tee time would take about 20 to 25 clicks. We've been able to minimize that to as little as five. And they're seeing double digit growths in their diary book and success as a result of that. And so this is sometimes something that we often kind of showcase and want to discuss.

Speaker C: That's fantastic. Um, so Michael and I worked at Turnbury, the golf resort. Gosh, uh, going back 20 years now. Um, but the, the golf, with it being, you know, open championship course, very, it was known more for its golf than its hotel. But um, when we worked there there was no sort of booking connectivity. Um, it was, was very manual and um, you'd have to book everything separately. But often um, we would have golfers that wouldn't book the hotel unless they could guarantee that they had their tea time. So there would be so many um, you know, phone calls to the golf resort, um, the golf kind of caddies to, to book their golf. But Then they would only get that booking once they'd confirmed their tea time. So it was a sort of yeah, different, different journey. Um, and um. Yeah and I think that the whole resort piece and that total revenue, um, and just making it easy and I suppose as you say sort of offering um, that experiential element at the right point of their booking journey as well. Because you know sometimes you do get that sort of decision fatigue. Um, so I think just yeah, being really kind of mindful of what the guest is thinking and adjusting the technology to support them with their sort of decision making process

Speaker B: from there's some simple things that we've, we've taken the approach of a best in class approach uh, where we don't, we don't necessarily have tea time functionality where we book the tee times uh, within the proform infrastructure or same thing from a restaurant point of view. There's providers there that have fantastic restaurant booking systems, spa systems as well. And they do, what they do is great. What we've actually taken into account is building an E commerce tool to bring everything together into one storefront, one digital digital essential distribution tool to bring all those best in class tools together to drive that success. So for instance what it is, it's we've got integration with Lightspeed Golf. So you know the, the golf team still utilizes lightspeed from their golf function and we bring it into essentially an E commerce offering under one digital storefront. The same thing from a spot point of view, we've integrated into uh, spot providers in order to, to bring that all together and create that unique offering. So therefore for instance as well if you're looking to stay at uh, five star resort and you know you're at Turnbury let's say and you're looking to go for the golf, you want to make sure you've got your golf guaranteed and the tee time available. So what we've been able to do is for instance golf packages will only be visible online if there's tea time available. If there's no tea time available, there's ultimately no golf packages available to meet both on that day. So being able to pull that live availability from all the systems to create uh, that seamless experience. So making sure your hotel's website and your booking engine is that digital storefront of yourself where if you've got strawberry jam in a supermarket it's there, it's the same kind of reference where if you've got golf tea time it's there to be put purchased seamlessly to maximize those conversions and this is exactly kind of the narrative we've undergone at uh, Proforoom to bring those best in class solutions together and have that live availability at uh, any given point for those hotel ah, guests because often those reservations will be made in the evening. They'll be made from the States as a matter of fact, particularly at the Turnbury. That'll be the case with a big demographic, will be absolutely segment traveling from the U.S. you know the time zones are completely different by the time you get the phone calls, the emails, it's just a pain point ah, for those consumers trying to manage us all. So yeah, this is bringing it all back to essentially ah, digital storefront which is great.

Speaker A: Yeah. And, and, and that's all flexible then as well in that, in that pre arrival stage as well. So as you, as you, as you talk about um, they still have access to the bookings, they can still go in, they can, they can kind of tweak things and add, add more features on which is almost like we would describe as upselling but it's, it's putting choice to the, to the, to the customer as well. Do you also combine it with sort of pre arrival communications? Um, how, how do you generally recommend that people that hoteliers would, would handle that? Is there a particular time schedule that you, that you recommend people reach out to their guests beforehand or is it different for every property?

Speaker B: Well it's different for every guest I would say because every guest has booked their own experience. You know, they are led by experience. That consumer intelligence is dictated by that experience. Ah so we refer to that internally as our guest app, guest panel, ah, where ultimately this is a great part of when that experience actually starts. Uh, so I've made a reservation. You know, different properties may be dependent on third party websites and OTAs at a different scale. So when you're 90% direct or 85% direct, you're not, you don't care about OTAs, you don't have an OTA problem. You're looking at how you can maximize that total spend. But if you've got 20% direct or 15% direct, this is where you're really dependent on cool. You first need to make sure you've got the best rate on your website. So arguably you will be selling room only or bed and breakfast depending on what your offering is. And then you use that base to upsell and add an additional layer of service to your guests experience before arrival and during their stay. Ah so within that guest app, hotels have got the full flexibility to control their itinerary. Of offering based on the lead time, uh, the booking that is made. So, you know, if somebody's booked a dinner already and they've got a dinner bed and breakfast, right, you don't want to be offering them a dinner as an option because that creates a potential pain point for the guest. Like, wait a minute, why are you selling me a dinner when I already have a dinner book? Wait a minute, have I not booked a dinner? That's a phone call to reception into the reservations team. This is a big no, no. So it's actually being able to completely personalize, uh, and create tailored communication, tailored demand based on what you've already booked. So if I booked a standard room for myself and my wife actually, like, wait a minute, I could actually go to a suite or to a superior. Why not send a nicely trigger email communication, whether it's through email or WhatsApp. As a matter of fact, like, why not send them? I was like, hey Patrick, would you consider, you know, for an extra 60 quid you could actually experience our suite offering with, uh, a view to the seafront rooms? Oh, shoot, 60 quid, why not? Uh, you know, and that takes, it breaks down that commercial element from a 300, 400 quid booking to, you know, it's only a 60 quid upsell, it's only a 50 quid difference. And I would actually be entailed to do so. And many consumers would be to do, would want to do so as well. So breaks that, breaks down that payment process into multiple stages. And we've done so literally by embedding that payment there and then. So it's only 20 quid extra. Let me just quickly take a quick payment for those 20 quids and if you want to add extra, anything extra, like a bottle of Prosecco tomorrow, why don't you do that as well? Uh, so, yeah, it creates that frictionless guest application and driving spend. Uh, and we've seen some great results actually because we've, we've been able to drive that uh, that upsell opportunity and the auxiliary spend by 106% since launching that guest app, as a matter of fact. So hotels are seeing more than double growth in that part of their business along with, you know, it's actually now entailing, uh, a total of around 18% of total revenue across our hotels, where those auxiliary, uh, elements to the reservation are only being driven, uh, online. Of course, there's much more opportunities there after that. What you can do, uh, when the guests arrive at the hotel.

Speaker C: That's fantastic. And I love that the breaking down of the payments because I do think it's a mindset and I know when we've, you know, you book a holiday and you've maybe paid for the vast majority of it there and then, and then, yeah, as you get closer and you get excited and you look at, you know, you go back onto their website and oh look, they've got you know, this, I don't know, spa, um, ritual or as you say, I'll just book that. It's only an extra, you know, whatever. And I think yeah, just breaking that down and um, enticing um, you know, the, the future guests to, to make those purchases ahead of time. Um, and then of course when, when they arrive on property as well. Um, and I know. So Profit Room has, has recently launched its own um, AI agent as well chatbot. So um, how, I mean how do you integrate the chatbot and you're talking about some of these automations and personalized upsells. Um, how, how does ProfitRoom, you know, use that chatbot to support both guest experience and that revenue generation piece?

Speaker B: It's um, Yeah, I mean in all honesty I think we uh, should be, we are like reviewing internal like how we position it because with it being like you referred to as a chatbot, it's actually, it's not only a chatbot. When you're like when you look under the hood, the amount of stuff that what it does actually it's a completely different element to it where it's actually the first natively embedded AI reservation agent within the booking engine. So there is no other competitor that we know that has a natively embedded AI reservation agent that is able to essentially manage those inquiries uh over the phone, WhatsApp, uh email messages. Right now for instance, we're embedding that AI reservation agent into hotel's uh, Outlook ah, inbox where ah, they can manage all email inquiries autorespond, auto generate and communicate with those guests, guests based on what they're looking to essentially um, book but also it's about curating that experience of how that AI agent can tailor and personalize a guest's experience based on what they're looking for. So what is their intent of stay? Am I looking to stay with my partner and my kids or am I looking to stay on my own in midweek? So it creates that uh, element of being able to ultra personalize a guest experience because it doesn't just direct, you know, okay, cool, this is what you want. Why don't you go and book it on the booking Engine because that's what others do. It's that bringing that agentic piece ultimately personalizing, acting as a consumer's pa, tailoring their experience of what they might be. Act might be looking for in the hotel to their intent of purchase. So therefore, you know, if I'm looking for uh, bed with my uh, partner and my two kids. All right, well there's actually local Cornish if I'm looking for a stay in southwest of the uk If I'm looking to stay in Cornwall, Falmouth, let's say there's local Falmouth experiences during your stay. You may want to do xyz. Uh, you may look to essentially yeah, okay. They might be the brassy but actually we might have a great kids entertainment uh option uh around the corner which might be great opportunities for you. So it's really curating that individual independent uh, experience for each guest uh, and tailoring that offering on their requirements.

Speaker A: So it's, it's a really interesting point on, on, On Trust there as well. So the. Am I right in thinking then the agent would, would potentially recommend a really family friendly venue not associated with the hotel around the corner ahead of something in the hotel if, if they felt it wasn't as suitable for, for you.

Speaker B: It's. Well there's a, obviously there's an element of peace where at the end we want to go protect the revenue for the hotel. Uh, so first and foremost is making sure that revenue is protected for the hotelier. Ah. And it is uh, first and foremost it uh, tailors their offering based on the hotel's offering. And that's always the case because I mean the hotel wants that.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And if there's other AI agents and AI tools where you know, you can have your chat GPT on your phone further of tailoring that. But it's, it's around the experiential offering over and above uh, your room and your, your stay. So for instance, if I refer to that three, uh, Mile beach for instance, uh, there, um, just by the seafront and a big part of the offerings like surf lessons for kids, you know, really tailor that based on what they may be looking at, uh, but without necessarily directing them away from the site. Like just. I wanted to be clear there because that's not the intention there. But it's about making sure it really caters and tailors their offering to what they may be looking at. Looking for.

Speaker A: But at the same time the properties, if people, if they find that people are looking for something in particular, they can go, okay, well maybe we should be having surf lessons that we do internally and we get our commission and we are driving revenue for the hotel and doing everything. There's a huge amount of information there because people are getting really used to using AI and there's an honesty there that people are putting questions and asking AI that maybe they haven't even thought of before. And that information can be, can be used in many different ways.

Speaker B: So far I've been kind of referring it specifically from a UK standpoint where I know hotels are often talking about their golf, the spa and whatnot and their internal offering. But one thing that is increasingly being prevalent in the UK as well is those experiential offerings across specific cities. So I mean, I'm just outside Edinburgh and providers, there's a great deal of local providers with local experiential offerings across, let's say for the Edinburgh French Festival and whatnot. And those providers are often on systems like Fair harbor or Boken, which are essentially experience platforms. Uh, and we've built direct integrations with the likes of Fair harbor or Boken to be able to create those experiential LED offerings, uh, surrounding the hotels. And they use it as an affiliate, uh, affiliation program where they actually generate additional revenue. This has specifically been done and built actually for the Nordics market, specifically in Finland where a lot of our properties around Rovaniemi M area, they do a lot of like husky ski rides and have that, you know, Icelandic or Nordic experience, uh, within kind of that ice snow experience. And they work on such platforms, uh, and it's a great tool for hotels to diversify their revenue streams and tailor and personalize their guest stays.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think particularly you talked about Edinburgh Fringe, which is internationally recognised husky riding. What a unique experience to that particular region. And so you'll often have, similar to the example earlier with Turnberry, they'll be visiting potentially to do a particular activity, whether that's to attend, um, something at the festival, whether it's to do, you know, something that's amazing, um, in the snow. So as you say, to be able to kind of have that all integrated into one platform, um, from a consumer perspective is just so beneficial and you're not having to go off to multiple tabs open and trying to kind of coordinate availability across multiple different sites. Um, so I think that's a really valuable, um, kind of next, um, level and in terms of kind of future development and using um, whether it's, you know, through agentic AI or just generally with, with AI and um, you know, what, what do you think and this is real crystal ball stuff. But what do you think the biggest sort of difference that AI could potentially make in hospitality over the next sort of three to five years?

Speaker B: I'm personally of the opinion, if I'm honest of uh, AI is still in its infancy. Uh, there's so much more to be done, uh, and we're only just scraping the surface from it to a certain extent. That's a bit scary seeing that's already possible with it. But I think it's going to go to a much more advanced level uh, and really help us utilize it in ways we're only starting to comprehend. Uh, so there's kind of this merit within proforum where we feel everyone and every single individual, whether they're in the product team, developing product, whether they're in their sales or marketing team or account management team, they must use AI and they utilize, they should utilize AI to such an extent where they feel it's too much, uh, too much of AI utilization. And sometimes I have my team complain, oh my God, another AI tool or another AI change, uh, where they actually, they feel it's too much to ensure we are keeping in line or keeping fast enough pace when it comes to AI, uh, to ensure we're a viable option as a business. So we're seeing AI in every single area of our business and everything we question is like okay cool, if we're doing this, can we replace it or can we utilize it elsewhere? We're doing so whilst also increasing our headcount as a business as a matter of fact. So we don't see it as a, as a tool or a means of cutting operational costs actually we're seeing it as a tool of how we can exponentially grow and deliver our products and our solutions and our offerings. We're actually, actually just now as well opening up new roles for development, for new developers, ah, to enhance our development capabilities and yet build more enhanced products. Uh, so I think it is that kind of crystal ball question where uh, what will uh, be possible at the moment. I've seen you know, hotels often using, utilizing it a lot for reporting for data collection, analyzing uh, that data and definitely it does so quite effectively. Ah, but I think that next step is how you know, from an agentic standpoint, uh, how it will positively be impacting over and above that, you know, the distribution, the operations, every single piece of the business if I'm honest. Uh, and there is that query, that debate of yes, but it's not for every single site, it depends what property it is. That is A corporate site in the city center, maybe the guests stay in those properties will have a different expectation than hotel guests staying in a five star resort with a full, with a full service ah, offering. And I couldn't agree more as a matter of fact, and this is exactly what I'm saying, it's not there to replace, is there to enhance that offering. Because every consumer, if they're able to utilize specific smart tools, AI driven or not. Because I think often there's AI tools labeled as AI, which isn't necessarily AI, it's just a smart set of algorithms put together that appear and they're just labeled as such. But I think we'll see much, much more of that come into fruition of how it can ultra personalize a ah, hotel guest experience. And it's all about that ultra personalization being able to give options, ah, and really streamline that entire flow. You know we have questions often hotels issues and challenges often face about staffing. A lot of manual work, a lot of systems being disconnected, uh, and all those challenges to a great extent will uh, be able to be utilized and managed and streamlined and resolved with the use of technology, uh, inevitably, hopefully sooner rather than later because I'm a big fan of that uh, to try and take a challenge and grab it by its horns like a bull and figure out a way to uh, bring that challenge uh, across uh, so yeah, it'll be interesting definitely.

Speaker A: Thank you so much Patrick. If anyone listening wants to learn more about what Profit Room does or if you want to connect directly with Patrick, um, we'll connect all the show notes, um, we'll leave in the links to the LinkedIn and the website and everything else. Um, but Patrick, if a hotel came to you tomorrow and said, you know, we want to improve both our guest experience and our commercial performance, what would be the first thing you tell them to start on? What would you get them to focus on?

Speaker B: The first thing, um, let's grab a seat, have a coffee and uh, see why uh, what they're trying to achieve, why they're trying to do that, uh, and really analyze and adjust that. I personally don't feel there's a silver bullet, uh, that what happens at one property, what one hotel client might be doing, uh, can be replicated elsewhere. Personally I feel it creates, requires an element, a strong element of personalization. Analyzing uh, the challenges a specific hotel may be facing and then identify where uh, those challenges may be, uh, and whether or not we're a right partner. Because uh, I don't think every technology is for every single hotel. And it's about making sure you identify your ICP as a business and really add true value to that hotelier. So, uh, yeah, um, I would. As per hotel standards, normal. Let's have a coffee. Let's discuss. See where you are and then. And then find out what they may need.

Speaker A: Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Patrick.

Speaker C: Thank you, Patrick.

Speaker A: Chat. Um, anyone listening, please share the episode with someone you think might get a bit of use out of it. It really, really helps us the podcast. But, Patrick, thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you again soon. Thank you.

Speaker C: Thank you, Patrick.

Speaker B: Thank you, Ashley. Thank you, Mark. It was a pleasure.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening. Welcome to the Halo Effect Hospitality Stories with Ashley and Michael Donald. We hope today's episode has offered some insights and encouragement to anyone navigating the world of hospitality or entrepreneurship. We'd love to hear from you. If you have a question, want to suggest a topic or interested in just joining us as a guest, you'll find our contact details in the show notes. Don't forget to follow, like or subscribe to the Halo Effect on your favorite podcast platform, so you never miss an episode. Until next time. Thanks. Thank you. And we can't wait to welcome you back for more stories and inspiration.