It’s not just about data for data’s sake. It’s about making sure you activate your data to drive profits.

That’s the message that Bryson Koehler, Revinate CEO, brought to NAVIGATE London. NAVIGATE is Revinate’s premier customer event, and for the first time, we brought it to the EMEA region. The event was held at the Royal Garden Hotel in London.

More than 100 attendees, four partners, 20 speakers, and 17 sessions made our time together come alive. We couldn’t be more thankful for having our customers, partners, and hoteliers with us for the day.

If you missed the chance to attend, don’t worry. This blog post compiles four content themes that shaped the event.

What you will see here

• Guest data is gold
• Every channel matters
• And what does personalization drive? Loyalty.
• Maximize direct profits and NOI
• Unlock seamless group management with a Customer Data Platform
• Exciting days ahead for EMEA

Guest data is gold

Take a minute to observe the weather outside at the moment. Is it raining? Is the sun shining?

If it’s raining, many of you might have already anticipated it and adjusted your plans accordingly, thanks to your weather app.

Weather is one of the biggest influences on our day-to-day plans, including travel. And all the data that drives weather forecasts is all around us.

Gathering more data helps build better weather forecasts and deliver them in a more actionable way, accessible on your mobile phones to assist in decision-making.

Understanding the connectivity of data and operationalizing it at scale applies equally to understanding your guests. From the moment your guests book their stay with you, there’s always a signal‌ — ‌whether it’s a business trip, leisure, or something else. Gathering guest data helps you understand them better and make better decisions. Bryson Koehler, Revinate CEO, explained all of this as he introduced the new Revinate CDP.

Your guest data is gold. Superior guest data drives superior results‌ — ‌personalized communications, enhanced guest experiences, and maximized direct revenue and profits.

But it’s not enough just to have the data. It requires modern graph technology to pull all of the signals together. Having your data on a single platform is the best way to collect and activate it, ensuring personalized messaging reaches the right guests at the right time.

Every channel matters

Personalization matters. Renee Murrieta, founder of Show.Tell., shared everything you need to know about using personalization to drive engagement during her session, “Driving Engagement Through Personalization in Every Step of the Guest Journey.”

Renee emphasized that personalization is no longer optional — it’s expected. In fact, 78% of consumers are more likely to make a repeat purchase if the offer is personalized. The good news is that you can now automate personalization throughout the guest journey, across every channel. If you need inspiration, here are some of the examples shared by Renee:

Deploy website personalization

Channel: Website

Website personalization involves tailoring the content on your website to suit a particular audience, using information you have about them. This involves using personalization tools like TripTease or other similar platforms.

For instance, website personalization tools allow you to layer in in-line messages and pop-ups with specific messaging, offers, and content targeted towards specified audiences based on known attributes. An example of this would be using geo-location data from users’ IP addresses to display an international offer. For example, a pop-up in Belgium (BE) could reinforce a specific message or promotion.

To measure the effectiveness of such personalization, you can use reports like the Synxis rate code production report. For one client, a rate code that was otherwise opaque turned out to be the 4th highest net revenue producer among their 13 transient rates live for the year 2023. This particular rate accounted for 10% of their total revenue, demonstrating the significant impact personalized content can have on revenue generation.

Utilize Website and Cart Abandonment campaigns to recover abandoned bookings

Channel: Website and Email

Website abandonment occurs when visitors leave your site without completing a booking. Cart abandonment happens when guests add items to their cart but leave before finalizing the purchase. Both types of abandonment are common in the hospitality industry, with a cart abandonment rate of 80% and even higher rates for website abandonment. This results in overall conversion rates in the low single digits.

Sometimes all a guest needs is a nudge to cross the finish line. Send them a reminder or even a special offer to help them complete their booking.

Website and cart abandonment campaigns, which target these potential guests through personalized reminders and offers, can significantly help recover lost bookings. Revinate’s cart abandonment campaigns, for example, see open rates of 63%, click-through rates of 11%, and conversion rates of 11% on average. If you need tips and best practices on how to deploy these campaigns, have a look at our guide, “10 strategies to recover revenue from website and cart abandonment”.

Establish Pre-arrival communication

Channel: Email and Messaging

Pre-arrival communication involves sending emails or messages to your guests before they arrive at your property. These pre-arrival emails are a great way to enhance your guests’ experience before they even step foot on your property.

For example, if your guests are traveling for leisure with their family, you can include suggestions for fun local activities in your pre-arrival email. This not only helps them plan their trip but also shows that you care about their experience. Additionally, you can offer upsells such as a nice family dinner at your hotel’s restaurant. Food and beverage (F&B) options are the most popular upsell category, according to our annual Hospitality Benchmark Report, and suggesting these in your pre-arrival communication can increase your revenue while providing added convenience for your guests.

Overall, pre-arrival emails serve multiple purposes: they build anticipation, provide valuable information, and offer opportunities for upselling services that can make your guests’ stay even more enjoyable. By engaging with your guests early, you set the stage for a memorable and satisfying experience.

And what does personalization drive? Loyalty.

Carlo Del Mistro, Chief Digital Officer of Ennismore, shared their industry-shaking loyalty program during his session, “Dis-loyalty Unpacked: Ennismore’s Revolutionary Approach to Loyalty.” Ennismore released the program with the question, “How can we make loyalty fun again?” And so, Disloyalty was born.

Launched in August 2023, Disloyalty is a paid membership that encourages travelers to explore new places by giving them bigger discounts at hotels they’ve never stayed at before within the group. It also provides instant access to benefits. The program is applicable across nearly 10 hotels within their portfolio worldwide, across different brands. They started simple by having a dedicated website for the loyalty program, but used multiple channels to promote the program: email, social media, and voice. The app will be launched at the end of Q2 2024.

The results? 23% of members book multiple brands within their portfolio, and to date, the program has generated EUR 40 million in direct room rate revenue.

Maximize direct profits and NOI

Your guests have a choice. When they’re looking to book your hotel, they can book directly, or they can book through numerous OTAs. Give them a reason to book with you. And once they do, remember that the journey of direct revenue doesn’t stop there. There are other avenues you can tap into to maximize your revenue.

From your restaurant, spa, golf course — you name it. All of these elements are part of the guest experience, so why keep all of these systems separate ? Using a Customer Data Platform can help you optimize direct revenue on all of your channels. Cost-effectively acquire and re-acquire your most valuable guests, delivering substantial ROI with millions in incremental revenue and profit while minimizing reliance on costly OTAs.

Leura Morahan, Revinate VP of Product, shared these insights and more in her session, “Revinate’s Customer Data Platform: Powering Direct Revenue Channels.” The more you understand your guests, the more you can communicate with them according to their preferences. This drives more revenue and boosts your NOI.

Unlock seamless group management with a Customer Data Platform

Meet Grace. Grace is a keen traveler who enjoys staying at your hotel brand. She has stayed at your properties in Amsterdam and Berlin, and now she’s planning her stay with you in London. At a glance, you can tell she’s a loyal guest. But here’s the catch — she doesn’t always book directly, and there are different emails associated with Grace.

You have her data, and she’s happily shared it with you. All you need is the technology to merge those profiles. That’s what identity resolution can do for you. CDPs like Revinate have AI-powered data cleansing technologies that help hoteliers tackle one of their biggest challenges: time. These merge and dedupe features use the power of machine learning to identify OTA emails and merge them with existing direct booker information, allowing you to decrease OTA reliance. A simple 5% shift to direct bookings can lead to huge cost savings and improve your profit margins.

Once you’ve identified Grace as a loyal guest, you want to collect relationship-driven data that adds to a 360-degree view of her profile. This is possible with the graph technology within the Revinate CDP. And why should hoteliers be excited about this technology? According to Leura, “For the first time, it gives you a complete picture of your guests, in ways you may have not been able to understand before. A way to drive insights from these relationships, which helps you achieve your goal of driving direct revenue… No one’s done it before, and that’s why it’s so exciting.”

Leveraging a CDP helps you create personalized experiences that strengthen guest relationships, which in turn builds trust and loyalty.

Exciting days ahead for EMEA

It’s only looking brighter for the region, and in the short term, EMEA is getting ready for another record-breaking summer. Events will have a big impact on the region, including the Summer Olympics, the Eras Tour, and other major happenings on the calendar. Cristina Balekjian Director of Hospitality Analytics, UK, CoStar Group shared the region’s market trends during her session, “Market Outlook and Trends.”

NAVIGATE London was an opportunity for us to connect with regional hoteliers, and we are very grateful to our hoteliers, customers, and partners for taking part in the event and sharing their knowledge and insights with each other. If you missed us at the event, you can reach out to our team for a chat here.