Sage Hospitality Group

Sarah Duffy

Hospitality Marketing Strategist

More Digital Touchpoints Need More Human Touch 

It starts with understanding your brand and what your core guests expect from your brand. From there, you can start to push the boundary through the lens of the brand.

In theory, the more digital engagement you bring to the table, the more you need to match it in person. So, for example, as hospitality brands increase their digital touchpoints along the customer marketing journey with personalized email campaigns, tailored ads, custom welcome screens in the room, presence in emerging social media platforms, and more, they have to match that with personalized human-touch service: custom amenities, personalized welcomes, and itinerary recommendations.

And these are just the beginning!

Evaluating your steps of service and auditing your digital marketing strategies for personalization opportunities is a great place to start.

"With a deep understanding of your brand and your core guest, marketing leaders can build thoughtful, cutting-edge campaigns that leverage the best parts of both emerging tech and the human touch."

Hospitality Needs Creative Studio Thinking

From the standpoint of social media and content marketing specifically, consumers and creators have really evolved this channel. In my early days of social media management, the mid-to-late 2010s, we’ll call it, the strategies I built and executed for hotels and restaurants were very literal. Posting for #WineWednesday you needed to do to reach potential guests, drive engagement and ultimately, butts in seats. Today’s consumer is rarely wooed by a simple photo of wine, and the hashtag #WineWednesday is basically obsolete. The brands that are winning consumer attention have embraced the “TikTok effect,” leveraging their social media channels for storytelling and niche trends within their community. That means you need to be a hotel or restaurant and a creative content studio, operating both at expert level.

Brand Identity Protects Consumer Confidence

The decision has to be rooted in brand identity. If you embrace a marketing technology that isn’t congruent with your brand identity, you will lose the confidence of your consumers. In hospitality, particularly hotels, I think about check-in kiosks a lot. While not necessarily a “marketing technology,” it’s a guest touch point that is relatively recent tech. For a brand like YOTEL, whose identity is built around a streamlined approach to lodging, kiosks make a lot of sense. I would be very disheartened if I ever encountered a check-in kiosk at say, a Ritz-Carlton.

The Future of Luxury Will Feel Human

I believe there will be a clear divide between hospitality companies that engaged with AI and emerging marketing technology thoughtfully and those that went too far, sacrificing human connection for profit.

No longer will luxury be defined as “the most optimized,” rather, guests will seek out and pay a premium for “the most authentic and human” experiences.

With a deep understanding of your brand and your core guest, marketing leaders can build thoughtful, cutting-edge campaigns that leverage the best parts of both emerging tech and the human touch.