In an era of rapid digital transformation, the hospitality industry stands poised on the brink of a monumental shift. The future of hotels, motels, and short-term rentals will be profoundly influenced by the rise of digital technology and it is critical to keep on top of them.

There will be many technologies that will be expected and digital guides will provide guests with instant access to a wealth of curated information, they will not only enhance guests’ experiences but also increase the efficiency and profitability of hospitality businesses.

As the industry moves towards this digital frontier, getting it right will be critical. It’s about more than just making information available – it’s about personalizing the experience, streamlining operations, and cultivating loyalty among guests. For the forward-thinking hotelier, the embrace of digital guidebooks is not just an opportunity; it’s imperative.

What if we could take it a step further and use a digital guidebook to truly personalise the guest experience?

Join us this week for a sit down with our very own sponsor, Roger Graham a digital guide creator, founder, and CEO of Orana Stay, to learn about the latest technology in digital guest books and how they can enhance the guest experience at your accommodation. We discuss how digital guidebooks can improve the guest experience in hotels, including the benefits of convenience, personalization, interactivity, up-to-date information, sustainability, cost-effectiveness, multilingual support, and integration with other hotel and short-term rental services.

Roger Graham is an accomplished software developer and entrepreneur with expertise in the hospitality industry. He has spent several years developing backend solutions and owns and operates his own short-term rentals. Roger’s focus lies in creating automated and integrated solutions for small to medium-sized property managers, with the aim of enhancing the guest experience while giving property managers back valuable time to grow their businesses. His vision is to significantly cut the time investment required to set up guest experience apps through his innovative smart technology.

Reasons to listen!

The Power of Personalisation: Uncover how digital guidebooks can tailor guest experiences, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty. 🎁

Data-Driven Communication: Discover how data collection helps create a seamless flow of communication between hosts and guests. 📊

Integration and Automation: Learn about the benefits of integrating digital guidebooks with property management systems for increased efficiency. 🤖

The Impact on Business Scalability: Discuss how digital guidebooks can help property managers grow their businesses, saving time and resources. 🚀

Future Trends in Digital Guidebooks: Explore upcoming developments in the digital guide industry and their potential impact on guest experiences. 🔮

Using a digital guide is an excellent ROI on an investment of a few hours of your time 👍. It’s the low-hanging fruit in your accommodation business. That’s why I recommend every host and property manager use a digital guidebook like Orana Stay.

Join us in this extraordinary conversation, that befits you, our extraordinary audience.

📽 Watch the episodes here
🎙 Listen to the episodes here

Transcription:

Bart: Okay, everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Accommodation Show. This week. I am joined by the amazing Roger Graham from Orana Stay. Welcome to The Accommodation Show.

Roger: Thanks, Bob. It’s really a pleasure to be here and I’m looking forward to seeing what we can discuss today.

Bart: I’m absolutely excited. I’m ravenous for this particular topic because this week, we’re going to be talking about personalizing the guest’s experience with digital guides. And that’s one of the holy grails that I think a lot of businesses haven’t achieved. And that is incredibly important in 2023 and 2024. And moving forward so I’m excited about today’s topic, but before we get going, I love for you to introduce yourself. Let us know where you’re from and what it is that you guys do in the industry.

Roger: Absolutely, thanks. But while we say I’m Roger Graham from Orana Stay, and we are the creators of Araunah Stay. I’ve been working in the software industry for approximately 20 odd years now. But I’m what I call a tech entrepreneur. So we love creating solutions for our customers, really listening to what people want and then creating those solutions that really drive the interaction and really add value to your business.

Bart: Yeah, look and I counted encountered you folks at the Astra conferences, the strange short-term rental conference, but what I like about you is that I think we’re kindred spirits because we’re all about kind of hospitality and looking after people understanding their experience in that journey, but then mixing it with our knowledge of the technology side and what’s required to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to make a functioning product for a guest.

Roger: Absolutely. I think that one of the keys is that in this industry, there are a lot of moving parts, there are little bits and pieces that kind of all really talk to each other and if you don’t really know what you’re doing in that space, it’s very hard to join those dots. And I think it’s something you do really well bots. And I think it’s something that we all love doing and I think it’s going to create something really wonderful in 2023.

Bart: And it’s a really fascinating one and I think that most people when they think about websites, and when they think about technology, they’ll just go and create a website with the free website with there’s nothing wrong with a free website, by the way, most websites have ever built, kind of built off of a free framework. Yes, but the key is actually getting that framework working correctly so that it works seamlessly on the guest side right?

Roger: Correct. This is all about seamless. It’s about basically integrating and automating your processes because if you don’t do that, and if you look at the amount of time you spend trying to do stuff manually, you’re kind of wasting your money there you should be building your business not spending all your time doing administration.

Bart: Well, that’s right. And then I mean, it’s interesting because you folks are doing digital guides right now. As an entrepreneur on the call, maybe one day I will start a digital guide but you will know very well. That there’s absolutely zero chance of me getting into that field. What do you what are those barriers to entry for people to create products that really work?

Roger: So digital guards, quite complex for every living person from the outset is going to start when they go to the hospital. We say people it’s like the Titanic, the tip of the iceberg, but when really knew what all the stuff behind the scenes, infrastructure, and technology behind them to actually drive those cards. And where we’re going obviously, the neurons stay is really automating and integrating. So we will really take that experience and really personalize it for the guest. And the only way you can do that is through automation and integration.

Bart: So it’s interesting. So the personalization part is something we’re gonna be talking about today and how important it is to the user journey that guests experience and I really want to be clear that your solution will work for short-term rentals also work for a hotel as well. You guys are quite agnostic in terms of which one you’re working with.

Roger: That’s correct. Yes, it’ll work. Ideally, the ideal market is if you have more than five properties but cities will work, and stand-alone standalone we’ve got honestly laughs That’s really cool. You’re just smaller properties, where the integration and automating things between a property management system such as like SD, and or on a stay. What that allows you to then do a site to create a personalization experience because you know, what the information about the property, you know, the information about the guests that’s coming into their property, and you can now automate the process of those guys and really personalize it to that guest. And then over time, once you have more history about those guests, and especially guests that come back, you can then start saying well hang on, you know, when they stayed here last time, they bought this bottle of champagne, well, maybe we should be offering it to them again, etc. So it’s really starting to learn about your guests. And also that’s where I was gonna start coming into play where it really adds value. It’s been able to predict those kinds of scenarios.

Bart: You’re getting way ahead of yourself. But we’re going into AI, which is important and the interesting thing with AI and for a lot of people just conceptually, we’ve been using AI for a long time and it’s been around for ages and a lot of it is in the background. You don’t see this actually happening but when you’re typing a word into your phone, and then it auto-corrects it. You’re already in the world of AI. So it’ll be interesting to talk to you about when you see that progression with the AI but I want to kind of wind it back a little bit for people because you want to give them some ideas and inspiration for what they could be doing with these guides and their properties. And if they already have digital guides, we’ll be talking in a second about where they’re gonna go and what you’ve progressed to. But simply go back to the basics in terms of the real function of a digital guide. What are the benefits of having a digital guide rather than old school paper one?

Roger: Well, absolutely. I mean, just from the maintaining paper guards is it’s a bit of a nightmare. So first off, you’re getting rid of the paper, which is going to obviously save you money but what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to engage with your guest, literally from the time they book until after they’ve left because a guest that’s engaged is going to have a far better experience when their stage of the property. They’re going to arrive knowing information about the property and we all know people don’t read emails anymore. But they do sit on their phones. If anyone’s sat on a train lately or any way that there are mobile phones you’ll see one that hit download your phone because they read that information. And the most important bit as well as that your brand is on their phone. It’s an icon on their phone. We know over 70% of people never delete icons from their phones. You’ve got a captive audience in terms of who’s looking at your access to information are the most important part of what is when they come back you one of those guests come back and when they come back, you want them to book directly and that will take them straight to your book direct site saving on those fees.

Bart: So you’re building that loyalty with a customer by them engaging in your platform and your network and kind of that whole product offering. And I find it interesting as well. The guest journey and the guest’s experience is something we talked about a lot, especially when we’re talking about doing things like upsells, promotions, that sort of thing. And guest guides are critical in that process because what you’re doing through the guest guide is you’re creating a new way of interacting and engaging and communicating. And one of the things that I find interesting is that you have the opportunity to sell to someone when they’re at checkout through your website. Then the real business gets started after that because you do you upsells and cross-sells on the website. And then as soon as they’ve booked you’re sending them an email confirmation and at which point you could be saying hey, why don’t you buy this? Why don’t you buy that? Or, especially if you know your guests and you offer them products and services relevant to them, bear with them. You can also get them because I know you’re probably excited to add to this but then you’ve got the next opportunity which is to get them before they arrive right you could send them an email seven days and three days before they arrive when they’re getting quite excited. Then you’ve got more opportunities to communicate with them when they arrive. Then you’ve got more opportunities whilst they’re there. And then once they check out you’ve got all these opportunities to ask them to rebook or for example, to send a promo code through to a friend is a referral to get them to book so there’s all these opportunities to interact with the guests are going back to your point. People don’t really read emails. But if you give them a link to a guide that is relevant to where they’re staying, it becomes a bit different.

Roger: It does become a lot different. And then what you touched on there really is one of the messages we’ve been saying is that when you have people stay with you, you’ve got a captive audience, and you’ve got them captive from the time they book because they were interested in where they’re going. And the more information you can give them the more they can buy stuff. The more money is in your bank pocket in your back in your bank account basically. And the beauty of the guard is absolutely correct. You can upsell information but you can also Ansel so for example, in the area, you may have wineries that you can create a relationship with where you recommend people go see these wineries, but you can actually order the wine from the app-delivered straight to your door. items you may have in the room. One of the discussions we had recently was in the area. There’s a local artist that does paintings and we said well, why don’t you take those paintings from the local artist, put them in the property, and offer them for sale? Because you’re supporting the local community. You’re not having to go and buy the paintings yourself for your property. And you actually make a profit out of that as well. So there are so many different opportunities that this opens up for you. And I think one of the aspects is a digital guidebook for guests, but it’s also a very powerful marketing machine for your business. Effectively.

Bart: So we just finished up our revenue Maximizer mastermind which is a program where we were talking about the different opportunities to upsell and cross-sell and all this sort of thing. And that the one thing that I kind of I’m trying to get away from is the idea of selling and what we’re trying to do is improve people’s experiences and you know, just make it that bit more comfortable. And people will pay for it and they’ll be quite willing to pay for it as they go so the guest guide thing is not new. I think a lot of people know about it, they might not have done it themselves. But one of the things that can be quite challenging is the actual implementation. So getting, especially when we’re talking about volume, we’ve got to set up all our properties. We’ve got to get them to get all the pictures, get all the local information. And therefore especially if you’re above five properties, it can be quite arduous to do and I know it’s kind of a bit leading because I know you folks are working on doing some integrations for that. I would like to know what are the main benefits that you’re seeing to a host to have integration between their guest guide and whatever their property management system or software is.

Roger: What we’ve got to bear in mind and you’re spot on there as military about five properties and starts becoming a problem. You don’t literally have the time and I think the biggest resistance people have to these digital guards at the moment is affected by the amount of time it takes to set them up. So our focus over the past while has been how we reduce that time and effort to not only set them up but then you also got to maintain them going forward. One of the key aspects is obviously the integration side. And where the integration comes in is it allows us to seamlessly connect your PMS through to the digital experience guard, but not just basic information, we talking about a full integration. So what that means is you can select images in the digital experience Gods straight from your PMS, for example. Other examples might be that you’ve got content in your PMS that you’d normally send out via emails at the moment where you can include the content and the digital guard and also update it automatically. So the minute you make a change in your PMS, it’s one source of truth is what I call it. That information will automatically flow through to the guard and automatically publish new versions the next time a guest accesses it. It’ll affect to be up to date with you having 50 done nothing.

Bart: Amazing. You know if you’ve got pictures and that sort of thing that you’re changing if your descriptions change if an immediate is changed in the property and you need to be updated and that’s going to push through so that that’s awesome in terms of that setup part which can be quite a lot but for me, the real beauty is this personalization, this idea of personalization, and I think for those of you that are listening, a great way for you to understand this and I’m sure there are so many examples maybe you’ve got some as well Roger but when you go into a hotel, they quite often now they put your name up on the screen Welcome to our hotel bar it kind of ends there right that’s the end but you know a now even if you’re using Google if using all these different services, they will greet you by name but also they’ll start to recommend things based on your tastes and once and that sort of thing. When we do an integration, then we start we have equal opportunities to start to talk to our guests absolutely in a more personalized way.

Roger: Yes. So basically what will happen is from the PMs system, we will get the booking information we obviously store that very securely. One of my passions is cyber security. So it’s one of the things I make sure doesn’t go anywhere. And we’ve really designed our platform around that whole concept of cybersecurity, but what it does is that book information comes through to Ernesto. And then part of the process is each guard. You can stop personalizing the information and the experience for the guest. As I said to you earlier, if we’ve got historical information, we can then start saying well hang on this guy when he stayed here. Six months ago he bought x y z.

Well, there’s promote that term but you’ve got to have that history in place to start doing that. So the sooner you start, the better. But what it really allows us to personalize and then what we’ve done is because we work quite closely with property managers and property managers typically will have two 300 properties on their books. What allows them to do is really create their own property management guard, they don’t have to separate guards for every property. They have one guard for their management company. And when the guest accesses it, they get a unique PIN code that gets sent to them. It automatically takes them to their property but it really personalizes it’ll say, your bot Welcome to x y Zed. We look forward to seeing you in a couple of days. This is when you’re arriving. This is when you’re leaving. And we can also change the content displayed during the journey. In a guest journey. There are typically five stages, which are the pre-arrival, the day of arrival, your stay pre-departure, and post-departure and for each of those sections, you can really decide what content gets shown to the guest during all those phases. And as I said, as you get more and more history, you can adjust the content, etc. To really take into account certain aspects of this day.

Bart: My mind boggles because of one thing that we had talked about probably a month ago, and a half ago because full disclosure runner is sponsoring the accommodations show which is very much appreciated. And I mean, I think we would have done this episode regardless of that. So one of the things that we talked about when we were putting together your sort of your package or what would effectively talk about was the future of digital guides. And I think that what you’re doing, you’re scratching the surface of a massive opportunity correct? In terms of what you could potentially do.

Roger: The potential is huge. I mean, the other side of it, if you just ignore the digital guard per se for a second, the whole communication that has to go with their digital guard as well. So you actually really want to start communicating through the app. So that the whole communication, sending emails at certain events sign to really know your guest, who is your guest, what they like? What don’t they like? And also getting personal information you got to be obviously careful. In how you store information, etc. And use it because they are rules and governance reports. But what you can use, you really want to use that to your benefit to really market your properties to your guests. And I’ve always said to people, it’s far easier to get guests to come back to stay with you than to keep looking for new guests always come and stay with you. And I think that’s a critical factor in this whole process. But the mind does boggle as to what’s going to happen. I mean, as we said we’re not going to go into today but I was going to change the way this is going to work. But also automating a lot of processes. So for example a lot of the guards, you have to set up restaurants and attractions in the area and local events. Again, it’s automating those processes so the guard should be intelligent to know where you are and showcase that information for you automatically without you having to go and set it up manually.

Bart: Yeah, I absolutely love that. I feel that it’s what’s interesting about the AI part is I think that it’s always going to be AI will take care of 80% of it. And then you put your secret sauce on top to definitely finish off that job and I think it’s gonna be that way at least for the next few years and maybe a few years time have figured out a way for it to come from bots voice or Rogers voice or Rogers experience in your life. Right because I think that’s the one key thing that guests want they don’t want to feel like a robot is talking to them. They want to feel like it’s a human who’s thought about them. Even that hotel example is quite an interesting one. Like when I see that I’m like, Oh, they thought of me. Correct. I didn’t think you know, the system thought I mean, are they actually personally thought of me? Yes. So getting that right is going to be critical. I want to ask you about something else. We’re talking about this guest journey. And one of the things you said that I want to come back to is people don’t read emails anymore. I’ve booked a lot of trips recently and I’ve probably received at least 20 emails confirming this sort of thing but I don’t really read them. I just assume that. That’s so good. I got an email. Yeah. All right, great. So the other opportunity here is to use SMS as well. So it’s a way of communicating with your guests. And rather than trying to deliver the entire message through the SMS, we’re leading them to something which is a bit more unique, a bit more bespoke, a bit more tailored towards that particular guest. Do you think that’s gonna that be an important part of this puzzle?

Roger: Yes, it is. What does where you got to be careful with guests as you said, you got 20 emails. I mean, I stayed in Newcastle a few weeks ago, and I think I’ve got 16 Just from one place. At that point, you’ve turned off and I think that’s the problem, it’s information overload, but people are busy. And I would much prefer to get an SMS or say you’re staying at XYZ Hotel. He has a digital guard. That’s what I need to know. Because from there, I’m installed on my phone and I can go and look at any information I want to find out. For me where I stayed. I just want to know if I had breakfast or not something get an answer until I actually got there. So it’s kind of those things is you need to be able to answer the guests’ questions but not in a way where it’s taking up all your time to do that shortcut phone them etc, etc. But I’m busy, they’re busy, and kind of just wanna be able to say, well, actually, I’m sitting on the train or whatever. I’m nowhere I’m going, what are the facilities What can I do I shouldn’t be sitting there for hours trying to find out the information. It should just be there on I’ve got it. I should be good to go. But it’s a mess. And also the other one is obviously WhatsApp is quite a big factor today. That’s the other one.

Bart: And also we chat integrations.

Roger: Yes, well, there are lots of them. We’ve got to make sure we focus on the ones that people are going to use and it depends on which generation again, you’re talking to. So one of the big objections in the industry is Oh, my guests are too old to use a guest that well. I don’t agree with that, that concept, but we also got to realize that the guests that are traveling today are definitely your younger generations. And they’re going to be using WeChat and Tiktok and all these kinds of different applications. So your guest cards also have to be geared up toward social media. You need to make sure that you’re connected to social media, they’re interacting the social media and they can access your social media from the app because that’s another market. That’s very big and it’s growing all the time.

Bart: It’s incredible the number of Instagram messages that we get. We don’t have the biggest Instagram profile because a lot of the work that we’ve done has been appealing to sort of a Facebook sort of generation. And now we’re doing more on Instagram and then just like that, sort of, you know, the email doesn’t really happen. It’s all on Instagram messenger. And as soon as they say, Hey, give me your email address, the whole conversation falls apart. So you have that opportunity to start to get on the front foot and I think you’re absolutely right that the way that people interact with the property is going to change. 

And I think that what’s interesting as well with the guest guides, I think there are two ways to live right, which is, which is something that a lot of people haven’t talked about, but you know, you could I’ll give you a really good example. My Google Home device, is probably going to go off in the office right now. It says it now has a screen in-built into it where I’m getting key information. So the way that I would see that I’m not a big fan of interacting with the venue on my phone as such, but I prefer to have a bigger format screen like if I’m in a restaurant. I don’t really like the food menu to be on my phone because it’s a little bit it’s just hard to use it if they gave me a tablet I’d be like, This is amazing. So as a host, you also have the opportunity right to get a tablet and make it really a premium experience.

Roger: Absolutely. There’s nothing stopping you from putting this on a tablet in the room because it’s always transferable. We actually can take data down to Room level. So means you could actually have a personalized experience per room and where that’s really valuable is that if you’ve got somebody that places have actually rented rooms that don’t rent out the whole property and you’ll have different features of each room. So tablets highly valuable at that level they are the only problem with a tablet though is you can only use it once to get there. So you’d still want to introduce them to the phone before they travel. Yeah, but then suddenly you could hand them over to a tablet once there rather than that remote premises.

Bart: Fascinating. So I mean from a high level what we’re really talking about is the ability to personalize, yes, a guide. It’s also the ability to scale. 

Roger: So if you’re a property manager, your business is about getting more properties on your books. And the only way you can do that is to scale and skill. You need to reclaim your time because your time is your biggest enemy at this point.

Bart: And that’s that was the last one it really is that ability to save time on communicating with guests with FAQs and that sort of stuff. They are just checking here answering those questions as you would have in a normal paper guy but also that ability to change things on the fly whenever you want.

Roger: And also remember it’s also about promoting the local area. So obviously in the guards, you can embed videos of areas you can embed, personalized, welcomes from owners, from the property managers, etc. You can see embedded videos of different attractions so you can make it a very interactive process as well and that’s very easy to do. So it actually takes it probably to the next level that a paper guide could live or cater for. And also remember you can also do bookings through the app. So there might be restaurants that you want to showcase. Or you say to guests look, I want you to stay here because you know you’re gonna get 5% back from that restaurant. Then you can showcase those in the app and say well book. And it takes us straight to the restaurant booking site.

Bart: Now one of the questions that I get asked quite a lot is great, I’ve got my guy, but how do I do that? How do I deal with the upsells? How do I deal with the payment part? Is that something that Iran has built already or you’re planning on building?

Roger: We actually finished building that so but built it into the app as the shopping cart facility which is the upsell that integrates with Stripe and then depending on which PMS you integrate with as well. We can actually integrate that and send that information straight back against the reservation. I think that’s very important.

Bart: Is that done as of today?

Roger: It’s done as of today. We are busy testing it so it will be released shortly.

Bart: Yeah. So if you’re listening to this episode, it’s done. It’s already done. Done. Wow. That’s incredible. That’s impressive. That’s important. One of the things that I’ve been advocating with these sorts of ideas is to get into it. See how it works. See what the response is from your customers and then go from there. Don’t try to solve the whole problem from the outset. Because you won’t you’ll probably get it wrong or you’ll do something and the demand just won’t be there. And you’ve spent six months on this program of delivering wine for people and no one really wants to bind or you’ve done things wrong. So you just get in there and do that. And that’s, I’m incredibly impressed and enthused, that you guys have built as seen the need for that particular pot of soup. I think that the next stage will be great to have a guide, it’s great to have the product, but getting that connection and what it is that people actually order and buy that’s where I’ll be coming in as a consultant go, Hey, this is how you make it work. This is how you get people to buy it is all good and well drinking the dream but actually to get people to get the extra level. There’s a lot that goes into it.

Roger: Absolutely. And I just want to reiterate what you said because I’ve been doing our software for 20-odd years and I always firmly believe in baby steps as well. So don’t try and do everything at once. It’s just you’ll fail. It’s just it’s too overwhelming. You start with the small steps but the long-term goal is to how to achieve that stick of one, get your god out go to let’s get your inventory and goal three, etc, etc. And if you do it that way, it’s a much better success rate overall.

Bart: So look, I wanted to move on to another question which is coming burning on my mind and we’ve been talking about a lot is the future. And one of the things you said is my guests might not be that technology technologically savvy, which is okay. There’s nothing wrong with that we can still provide solutions, but I want your thoughts and your opinions on what the future is going to look like in five years and in terms of that guest’s experience and people having this information at their fingertips.

Roger: That’s quite an interesting question but so I think what’s going to change as I said a little bit earlier in this is that your younger generation is becoming your travelers and the younger generation sees travel in a completely different light. So five years from now you’re going to have another five to five generation generations and the five years of travelers coming through. And the expectation there is that and if I look at my kids everything’s on the phone so everything they do everything they interact with when they’re at school, everything’s on a Mac or PC etc, etc. So the expectation is there that everything that they need to do on their travels from booking, etc. is on the phone. Now if you look at the travel industry already, we do pretty much a lot of stuff on our phones. 

I mean I went to the US last year I booked the flights on my phone, I booked the hotels on my phone, and I checked into the airport on my phone. I got the Uber when I got to the US on my phone and then I got to the hotel and was given a piece of paper at reception because I didn’t read the instructions. So I think that’s really where people aren’t gonna understand is that the journey has become digital, and you can’t just stop at the booking and say, Well, that’s the end. So five years from now, if you don’t have digital guides and interacting and giving the people that information they want, they’re not going to be staying with you. I think that’s the ultimate outcome of that. So you really, it’s Adaptil dollars. I think we’re out now we’ve been lucky and unlucky with the whole COVID, thing that yes, the hotels and Airbnb, etc. Went through a two-year hiatus as I call it and they’ve had a really good bounce back, but that’s not going to last forever either. 

So it’s again, it’s gonna go back to well, how do you engage your guests, keep the guests get them coming back and this is where it’s going to really be is how do I get in as I said bought up direct because that’s where your your your extra money comes in. When you indirectly save on those fees. So technology is going to drive this I mean we have only seen the new technology front coming up now, in terms of interaction and personalization. In five years’ time we’re having this conversation is going to be a vastly different landscape that’s going to accelerate very, very quickly.

Bart: Yeah, look, if we actually go down there and we start to go down that loyalty and building that loyalty. I think that you’re gonna have you know, there’s only so much you can do with providing a 10% discount every time. But integrating that brand through their experience with everything they do and making giving people more reasons to use our apps. If you look at the big hotels, they’ve all done it because they have the budgets to do a small operator you just can’t achieve it. At this stage. But that will start to change. So already getting yourself ready in that way I think will be important. That one last question that I have for you for today and I’m more than happy to have you back in the future. 

And I imagine our relationship we’re gonna be working together for a long time, but this might be a bit of a Corker for ya. See CRM. So we’ve talked about personalization and the data security side is not what I’m getting at. What I want to know is I haven’t seen great examples just yet of fantastic CRM solutions. So for those who don’t know CRM is a customer relationship management software or system where you’ve got your guest’s details so that then you can sort of you know, how much they might have spent in the past you’ve got their contact details if they have an issue and you need to, to log it so that you know that so next time they check in you know, they have a kid and they don’t have a kid really but this requires a lot this requirement. Where do you see yourselves fitting into the customer relationship management side like that data point data you’re going to have on your side you’re going to keep them OPMs side or you can go from your blended between?

Roger: I’ll tell you a  little secret, but we are busy building that out. We actually are keeping the data outside. But we actually are collecting the data already. So as you get bookings coming in, and they might come in from different booking platforms. We’re already collecting their data and matching it. So we are not duplicating that guest. But it goes much further than that. It’s about creating a seamless communication flow with the guests. And it’s not just we’re not just talking about the booking, we’re talking about going forward. So for example, if it gets the state of me in three months’ time, I want to say well, you know what, after three months, let’s send the guest check how they are they offer them a special deal, maybe know when their birthday is so sending them a deal for their birthdays or etc or know the why they stayed in the first place. Was it a wedding anniversary or did they get married or, and sorts and actually know about your guests and then build their communication so the CRM side sock communicated our guests to actually really drive those bookings? That’s what you want to do. It’s their personal experience of saying, yes, we know you say to us last year you say for a wedding anniversary, etc, etc, whatever you want to say but it’s about having that information to hand know that they’ve got four kids, for example. You’re able to get the accommodation, the office, the office has to be intelligent as well. And I think it’d be more when I get an email saying come stay with us. Amazing King suite. I work I’ve got four kids. It’s not the kind of work it’s about really creating that experience. 

Bart: And one, one last tip I’ll give around there. It’s absolutely critical that you put kind of timestamps on that you need to know roughly how old your guests are. And the reason because in five years or 10 years’ time, they’re going to be a different demographic and most likely have changed their wants and their needs and they’re not going to be out partying in their 50s or 60s or maybe they will be your you get some friends there. But that’s exciting to hear about the CRM side and something to watch for. I think that the biggest takeaway here is we’re trying to get more usage of digital guys. We’re trying to scale digitally Guys. And we’re now progressing into the next few years into that personalization of a digital guide. So now’s the time to get off onto it. Roger, one of the things that’s the hardest is kind of that onboarding, the setup, do you have any sort of solutions for that?

Roger: Yes, we do have solutions for that we got quite a unique offering, especially for the time-poor people that want a solution. But also from the combination show we see we’d also look after anyone that comes from the convention show with a discount for life as well. So to help them on getting on board, etc.

Bart: A lifetime discount, you’ve heard it here he cannot take a back anymore. So all the resources and the links that you need will be in there in the show notes. So if you want to take advantage of it just jump on below and you’ll have all that information. I think that from my end, I mean, we could talk for another hour or two but I think those fundamentals of getting yourself sorted I think we have covered today. Do you have anything else you want us to talk about?

Roger: I think it’s just really important that people understand, one of my beliefs is a personalized service. So the one aspect of our businesses, everyone’s always contactable, we don’t hide behind emails. So if anyone even has just basic questions or just wants to find out more, just give us a call. We are here to help. Everyone has a direct line.

Bart: Yeah, beautiful. And what’s so important in this day and age is feeling like you can get stuff done if you do have an issue or

Roger: It’s so frustrating when you can’t get hold of someone in a business that just drives you mad so

Bart: Got it. Beautiful look, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us. I appreciate the support of The Accommodation Show. I love working with Ozzy’s businesses as well. People that are local Ozzy Kiwi businesses, anyone this side of the world I really love but I particularly love serving customers all over the world which I know you folks do as well. So any listeners in the US if you’re in the UK, any territory whatsoever get in touch, and they will have some sort of a solution for you. Roger, thank you so much once again for joining the show. I do really appreciate it.

Roger: Thanks, Bob. It’s been an absolute pleasure. 

Bart: And folks. don’t forget to like and subscribe. Let me know whether you’re using a digital guide and whether it’s impacted your business. Put the notes in the links below. And make sure that if you’re listening to a podcast you leave us a positive review because it keeps us doing what we are doing and providing more valuable content for you. Thank you so much have a good day.