Transcript
Introduction to Michael Coscetta
Hey everyone. Welcome back to another Matt Talks Hospitality. This time, we're gonna dig into loyalty. And in order to figure out what is loyalty, what it used to be, and what it is going to be, I've invited the ultimate loyal member of Marriott, but also our President at Mews who runs half the company, runs all of our go-to-market teams. Mike, do you wanna maybe give a short introduction to who you are and some of the great companies that you've come from, and the experience that you bring into hospitality?
Yeah. I mean, it's now been thirteen months at Mews, which has really been a blast. And it's a perfect fit for things I enjoy, travel things. I've spent time in fintech, SaaS, and, you know, it's been a really interesting run here for over a year. Prior I was at a blockchain company called Paxos running GTM there, helping the most regulated companies on Earth integrate things like crypto and blockchain payments and digital assets.
Prior, Chief Commercial Officer of Compass, which is the largest real estate company in the US, and before that, Head of Global Sales at Square. So, I've been spending a lot of time around fintech and around global businesses, which is where my need for loyalty and need for travel, you know, kinda make a meeting here.
How many days a year do you travel?
Probably 50 percent. Like, I think last year was 135 nights in Marriott hotels alone. So, like, there's more. There are other hotels I don't, I didn't count the other ones, but it's probably about fifty percent of the year on average. Plus, I split my time between Miami and New York. But those are homes. Those are not hotels.
So, do you enjoy travel, or is it just a necessity?
No. I love it. I love it. If I didn't love it, this would be a terrible industry, would be a terrible job.
And when you love travel, like, you have to also love the inefficiencies that pop up. You know, I got diverted to Boston last week, and, you know, I was in a hotel room a few weeks ago that had a leak, of course, right on the bed. You know, travel never gets old to me. And there are some places I've been to seventy, eighty times that still feel, you know, somewhat new.
And if it doesn't feel new or you can't make it feel new, I think travel gets old to people, but not for me.
And there hotels that you are loyal to that are not part of the loyalty program that you're, like, the Gold Diamond member of? Like, independent hotels that you're very loyal to?
A couple. But only because they happen to be in places that don't have, you know, kind of your standard branded, you know, portfolio to choose from. One is upstate New York. You know, just kinda good at the holiday season, go up there with a bunch of friends, go drink some wine, and enjoy something very different from Manhattan.
There's another property down in Florida that's kind of also in the middle of nowhere where you end up like, okay, you'll go back because it's a good experience. There's not really a commercial reason to necessarily go back. It's just that they treat you well, you know, and it's a unique experience.
So it's fun to be able to go back to the same spots. Some are good at remembering you, some are not.
Chapter
What research says about loyalty programs
So we conducted some research. We did some research with Talker Research, and they did research with two thousand US travelers over eighteen years old who are regularly traveling. And some of the findings are quite interesting. So they said seven out of ten travelers favor personalized experiences over traditional hotel rewards. The other thing that stood out for me was 82 percent of current hotel loyalty members cite frustrations with the traditional programs like points that are expiring, blackout dates, difficulty to earn points, etc.
Do you recognize yourself in some of those data points?
They're across the board. You have to. It's like, for me, loyalty on the personalized side, it's like you want the loyalty program not just to reward you financially, but to somehow make this experience better because there's a familiarity with you. And they have all your data.
They have all your travel history. Like, they should know you better than you know you. And AI eventually will probably help them know you better than you know yourself. On the points of frustration, these programs have changed over the years.
First of all, points are so much easier to earn than they've ever been. In the US, especially, you can earn points on almost every credit card, or you could transfer points from Chase, Amex, Citi, Capital One, Bilt, whoever, a currency of your choice, an airline, a hotel, whatever. So points are easier, but hotels have also shifted from fixed rate redemptions, category x equals number of points, which meant you could get some incredible outsized value for those points. Now it's all pretty much variable rate.
So they're not stupid. You know, they've pegged the points conversion to the price of the room. So you're no longer getting some of that incredible value that you may have in the past with with some exceptions. Some have blackout dates.
Some restrict the number of rooms that are available, you know, for points redemption. Some lack on all these crazy fees on top of the points redemption. Again, very hotel specific, but I think those two pain points are, or those two things are very clear, you know, and I think all loyalty programs today, at least like the points based loyalty programs.
Chapter
What's the point of hotel points?
But if those things are true, Marriott, I think they have 230 million loyalty members. They added, like, 7 million in Q1 of this year alone, like, new loyalty members. So if those things are true, that frustration level or the lack of personalization, how are they so successful still today?
I think there's still, like, a utility of the points. You may not be getting 3000 dollar a night redemption for, you know, 50 thousand points that you did in 2016, 2017. But what you are getting now is, like, a pretty predictable use of those points. And we were at the IHC conference in New York not long ago, and one of the brands actually had a quote recently in Skift that said more than 90 percent of points redemptions are for your, you know, 150 dollar to 300 dollar a night hotels.
It's not for the aspirational stay. That number felt really high, 90 percent, but maybe for that brand, it's very real because of their portfolio. So to many people, the points still become a really good arbitrage of, instead of spending 200, I'm gonna just burn some of these points. Maybe they don't travel very often.
Maybe they're taking their kids to college or they're going to a college football game, you know, or they're going for a weekend away, you know, in the countryside.
That's where points still become, I think, really valuable. The other thing is these points, the more you give them out, right, the more you have to give people reasons and places to spend them. So these chains have also offered, you know, experiences. You can now convert those points to a wine tasting.
You can go to a concert. You can book, you know, game tickets, you know, through those points. Terrible redemption values, but for some people, they don't care. They'd rather burn the points and not spend a thousand dollars.
You know, I'm the idiot with the actuarial table trying to figure out, like, well, this point is actually point four five percent lower than it should be on the one. Is that what you do?
Yeah. Yeah. Like, there's always, like, an arbitrage. Is it better to pay cash, or is it better to redeem points?
And points have, like, a generic value that you can calculate in many ways. So it's like, no, no, that's not worth the points.
I would rather use the points for the, I don't know, The St. Regis in Venice or the Al Maha in Dubai, you know, or, you know, the whatever, the new Ritz Carlton NoMad in Manhattan, you know, versus using it for a Marriott, you know, Courtyard that is 175 dollars.
Yeah. So often, we see this quantitative data, these studies that we have conducted, for example. But it's very rare that you hear from an actual guest who stays in hotel for half of their year, life. And I don't know anyone who stays in more hotels and who, you know, who really embraced the loyalty program of a particular brand and sticks with.
So I want you to represent all of these loyalty members around the world in this first bit. And then I wanna dig deeper in what the future of loyalty is down the line. But I'd love to understand what was the moment that this brand kinda locked you in, where you're like, yes, you got me. Like, what was the thing that happened in that journey?
It's kind of unfair because Marriott didn't get me, Starwood did. And Starwood, among travelers, especially business travelers, was regarded in the US as there is no better outsized reward system than Starwood points. And it was twofold, not just the way they rewarded points in the hotels, but their credit card. The Starwood Amex was the most valuable credit card scheme you could ever have signed on to. This was like consultant 101, investment banker 101. When you graduated college, first card you got was that Starwood Amex.
Because, again, the points redemptions were so valuable, and it was a very small chain. You know, I think when Marriott bought them, they were 700 hotels, 800 hotels. Marriott had 7000. Right?
So when you stayed at a Starwood property, you were recognized. You were treated differently. The pool was much smaller. So you did really feel that.
So that's when it really started. In college, like, I didn't care. Funny enough, I was an airline loyalty member starting at sixteen years old. That never changed.
So I've always been, like, addicted to the idea of, like, accrue points and redeem them for something. But that's how Marriott got me. Then when Marriott bought Starwood, obviously, again, Marriott's portfolio is the size of Starwood. And for a short time, you had these unbelievable redemption opportunities for the old Starwood points into the Marriott system.
I could talk about that separately, but that hooked a lot of the Starwood people to stick with Marriott. And then Marriott did a pretty amazing status match program and, you know, kind of a transition reward program of the best parts of the Starwood program, like their ambassador program, which now Marriott has.
You know, I have a love-hate relationship with Marriott because it's like you're kinda stuck.
At the same time, like, if you can use the point system the right way, it is very rewarding. But it's less rewarding in, like, the individualized personalized sense that I think some people really expect from a loyalty program.
Chapter
The challenges with loyalty programs
And like you said, I'm kinda stuck. Like, I can imagine that you sometimes feel trapped. But would you ever consider leaving for something else? Is there something else that might be equally good, or if not better?
Yeah. Like, I have top-tier status with Marriott Hilton, and I think I have, like, second top tier with Hyatt. My Hilton status comes from my credit card, and my Hyatt status comes from just some historicals, you know, with them. The challenge with having Marriott lock me in, right, is that I have lifetime status.
So, I don't have to stay a single night, and I still get second tier. So I don't get the ambassador status that I have now. But that ambassador program is actually one of the most valuable things that would be very hard to leave because it's actually a personalized individual, you know, who I could pick up the phone, send an email, and either handle problems or help arrange things or make certain things special. That's the hard part that I would find really challenging to replace.
But you can go earn points on any of these company programs and get kind of an equivalent loyalty.
It's a little different from the airlines, where hotels, I do think, actually reward their top-tier members better than airlines do. And we could talk about why and how and that matters. But each of the programs is also not equal. The way Hyatt treats its top tier, Hilton, Marriott are all very, very different. IHG and Accor are even more different from those three, you know, in terms of the biggest brands.
What are the differences that matter? And what are the things that drive you towards one of the brands or one of the programs when you book? When you've got the choice between all of the hotels in the city, what's the benefit that you're like, that's the one I'm gonna book?
Yeah. So you've got, like, five kinds of key, you know, like, loyalty benefits of these top-tier statuses. Typically, it's suite upgrades, check-in, flexible check-in, check-out flexibility. You know, you have certain, like, flexibility on the rate itself and discounts that come with the rate, you know, for some top tier.
You'll get free breakfast and lounge access. You know, sometimes there's also, like, you know, a special amenity or thing that the hotel will do, you know, for those top people. For me, like, I tremendously appreciate having a suite. Right?
I just like space. I don't like feeling like I'm cooped up, you know, in a room. Even if I'm there for eight hours max a day, there's just something mental about waking up and not seeing four walls caving in on you. So that's the one I appreciate the most.
And I think Marriott, as for all their faults, it's actually part of the program that they do really, really well. The other thing is this benefit called Your24. So for an American traveling to Europe, typically, you arrive, you know, six, seven, eight AM. Check-in time standard is three PM.
Maybe they'll give you an early check-in, right, as an elite member. But if the hotel's full, you know, you're not getting anywhere until four PM. But you can actually lock in an early check-in time and an early check-out time. Basically, you can arrange the check-in, check-out times based on your own schedule.
I find that to be, especially in London, insanely valuable.
That's amazing.
And I did a podcast the other day with Bashar, who said loyalty is bribery. And it's like, if we were to take the points away, you have no loyalty to that brand. You wouldn't go back to the hotel.
Was he right? Or yeah.
There are still certain hotels that give a good experience. Right? So all else equal. Right?
Like, we've talked about this. Like, there's, you know, there's a Marriott in Prague that treats me really, really well. I think they actually treat everyone really well. And they have, like, 90 suites.
So, like, they're upgrading everyone, you know, to suites. There are certain boutique hotels in the Marriott portfolio that are outstanding, right, in and of themselves.
So they're always gonna be good hotels, of course, in the portfolio. You would have to assume, you know, The St. Regis in Venice, The St. Regis Punta Mita, the, you know, the Ritz Carlton NoMad, the Ritz Carlton Tokyo are always going to be high-desire hotels.
But are you willing to spend 2500 euros a night for that room in Venice versus burning 80 thousand or 100 thousand Marriott points? Like yeah. That's a hard trade-off. So it is bribery, but it's also an incentive.
It's not just, like bribery is a reverse incentive in the sense, like, if you don't do this, right, like, I'm gonna give you this. And, you know, real bribery is, like, just pure incentive-based. So, you know, I love, you know, that there is a reason to go back. And by the way, you're also recruiting points, you know, to go for the next one.
So, and you can use those points for yourself. You can use them for family, friends, and, you know, it becomes a really valuable thing, you know, to not give up on.
And do you think that the current loyalty programs drive the right behavior? So, yes, they lock you into booking the hotel, but are you the right customer that spends a lot at the hotel as well? And is it the loyalty program driving you to do that?
I think it depends. Like, if you look at the percentage of rooms, for example, across Marriott Bonvoy that were booked by Bonvoy members, it's something like 65, 70 percent globally. So clearly, it's doing something if there's getting you into the room. Now is that driving the right food and beverage consumption or the right activities consumption through that hotel?
Very hotel-specific. Most of the time, I don't think so. The majority, I think, of Bonvoy members globally are business travelers. They're typically not, you know, gonna spend a ton at the hotel outside of, like, their utilitarian breakfast or grabbing a quick burger before, you know, you go to bed.
But I think there's a lot more they could be doing to both know your preferences and desires. Like, are you the type of person who would spend inordinate amounts of money on food and beverage at the hotel or book a spa or cabanas or other things at that hotel? I don't think these programs touch, you know, any of that. I think it's a big gap actually, in how they look at their customers.
Because do you ever get really personalized experiences based on what they know? You must have the richest, like, profile of data that they have access to in the central reservation system. But do you ever feel that they actually read it and did something with it to create something unique for you?
Some have for sure, which always makes me question how much they actually do have on me or if it's just all thrown away after every reservation.
The EDITION hotel in Miami, which is where I would stay constantly before I moved to Miami, they knew me inside and out. I mean, one year, I spent almost fifty nights there. The Sheraton in Tribeca in New York when I lived in San Francisco, but before I moved back to New York, that hotel knew me inside and out. Everything about the food I would order, the wine I like, the room I preferred, like, the exact room that they would have ready for me.
You know, it was, like, really unique. And that mattered because, to be honest, that's not the nicest hotel in Manhattan, not even close. It was several blocks, though, from the old office, and they did treat me in a very, very kind of special way. When I went back to The St. Regis in Venice last year, I stayed a few times.
But when I was there, they were the same woman at the desk, Valentina, who remembered me from two years prior.
And again but that's more of a personal remembrance.
It's the local, right?
I don't think there's anything. What's that? Yeah.
It's a local database. But, like, you think that they'd have a massive database of information that they use AI to kind of tell the hotels that you're about to go to that you've never been to before to create something special. But every example you have is, like, because you came there regularly, they knew you.
Yeah. But if you would think they have this massive database, right, in AI. I would think I think it takes twenty five minutes of typing before they can get your room key ready, so it tells me whatever that system is will remain unnamed. I have a feeling it's not, we know it's not Mews, but I have a feeling it's not something that's AI enabled in any way.
Chapter
How should hotel loyalty programs change?
Yeah. I don't think it is.
No. No. Unless by clicking on a keyboard, you trigger AI.
If you got to redesign the current loyalty program of the brand that you're loyal to, what would you change?
So, like, back in when I was at Square, we had a loyalty product. And one of the most common uses of loyalty was this, like, punched card mentality. You know? Buy ten, get one free.
That's not loyalty. That's just an automatic discount. An automatic discount is not loyalty, and I think many of the points programs today are just that. They're just automatic discounts for future stays.
I think you can do one of three things. One is, like, the surprise and delight type concept, which is randomly, unpredictably, not all the time, because then you just create an expectation, right, that just you change the bar. You have to do something that tells the guest that we know you really well in a non-creepy, non, like, privacy invading way, but just in a way that's like, hey. This is really special.
Right? And we know who you are, but only because of, like, our relationship as guests. Right? That, like, they would do something special.
I really think you can use data. You can use patterns to do that easily today. AI makes that, like, super easy. The second thing is you have to use those points in a way that creates, like, massive redemption value in a way that would trigger you to use the points in a way you never normally would.
You know? And, again, it's like a special, it's another form of discounting. But if you said, hey, you know?
And by the way, you look at their data. Like, Starbucks was actually incredible at this with their app. If you went into Starbucks every day and ordered a latte, they're not gonna offer you a discount for lattes. They're gonna offer you a discount for a sandwich, which you've never ordered, to see can we drive different behavior.
You know? So they look at your patterns at the hotel. Can they drive different behavior to travel personally instead of professionally? Can they incentivize you to go to Asia whereas you normally always go to Europe?
Those are types of things that I think could be super interesting for loyalty to truly do. And, again, I think with the AI where it is today, you know, these are things that's every company should be doing. But first, you need a CRM. Right?
You need good data. You need all the data in an organized, centralized place because Marriott, I think, has 38 brands or something.
9400 hotels owned by 9000 probably different franchise owners.
So it's very, very hard unless you could do it the right way from the ground up.
Because I imagine that those big giant hotel chains, they're sitting on, has legacy data servers that just cannot compete with something brand new that's coming into market. So if you were a smaller hotel chain that could design this from the ground up, you could possibly design something that is infinitely better than what you get because you can genuinely crack, like, look at the data and then do something with it. From what size hotel group do you think a loyalty program makes sense? Because we serve a lot of what we call mid markets, but they could be groups from 10 to 200 hotels. At what point should they have the traditional points program or a loyalty program?
I think that there's, those are three different things, right? I think a traditional points program is when you have, like, true scale. I don't know what the number would be. You probably need thousands and thousands of unique guests over some historical period to have patterns based on it. But the second thing is, you can still build a loyalty program that is very unique to your hotel and to your experience. And there's a paradox which is, like, the most loyal customers are loyal to the smallest businesses.
And this is very common of, like, people have their local coffee shop, their local deli, their local dry cleaner, their local whatever. So it does show that there actually is loyalty at even the most, like, small unit. But most companies are really bad at knowing that. Funny enough, who's really good at this? Like, in New York City, dry cleaners.
The dry cleaners know everything you need cleaned when oh, you need this tomorrow, right? Oh, this one you don't need till next week. We'll deliver it for you.
You know, all of this is, like, really unique. A hotel can do that at such a cooler level. You know? Hey.
We know you love your coffee in the morning. We'll deliver it to you. You know, there's a very famous hotel called the Fogo Island Inn, you know, the one, like, up in the middle of nowhere perched onto, like, a cliff in the middle of nowhere, on an island in the middle of nowhere, you know, off the coast of Newfoundland. And the story is it's one hotel, you know, and it's not cheap.
But the things that they're known to do for their, like, repeat guests, are, you know, pretty incredible. Like, they wave a blanket, you know, with your face on it. You know, they'll put your your name embroidered on the pillowcases. You know, little things that normally are reserved for the biggest change, they do, so that if there is a chance of you coming back, you're gonna come back.
And it's definitely memorable, and they're they have one of the biggest social media presences for a single hotel in the world because they get people to become evangelists of the company. And I think that's another place that you can, like, trigger loyalty, you know, just by turning your guests into advocates, turn them into evangelists eventually. And that could be done with one location. But you just need good data, and you need to listen.
Is it a loyalty program, or is it just a hotel that has great hospitality and great service mindset?
Chapter
Why guest experience matters
I think if a hotel has great hospitality, great mindset, you're gonna get repeat guests. There's no doubt. But then how do you get those repeat guests to do something different with you? Again, how do you get them to to book a spa weekend?
How do you get them to book a fancy dinner for their spouse or their family? How do you get them to think of this as a wedding destination or a hotel for a conference or a meeting? That's where, again, I think you take your repeat guests and you go from kind of a linear loyalty model to now how do I really expand my relationship, you know, with that person. And then if a successful hotel wants to open a second hotel, those are your first customers, hopefully.
And it's like, how do you then use that to build your next pool, you know, of customers? So good experience should be the best part of loyalty or the best driver of loyalty.
I guess you could have run a great hotel that has really great service. But when you start to proactively think through what a guest journey could look like and start to give it structure. I met with Maison Maire in Paris the other day, and they had, like, twelve personas that they said, if you're a family with kids, then we, you know, we lean into this kind of experience. And if you're a business traveler on your own, we create these experiences. And he's now open to multiple hotels so that he starts to structurally form a loyalty program, but it's not your traditional, it's really like, kind of filtered down to the twelve personas.
And it was the first stab at it, but I loved the way that he was approaching it.
Yeah. Segmentation is the first step for your customers and what are the behaviors of those guests. And what do they want? They're all different.
Right? A friend of mine just went to Morocco with two little kids, and, you know, he travels with the nanny. He travels with the three year old, the one year old. And what you need at the Fairmont in Marrakesh is very, very different from what, you know, I would need, you know, at the Fairmont in Marrakesh.
And, you know, they clearly took very good care of families at that hotel. So and now it's known if you're a family, this is a good destination, you know, for you. So being in the Medina when the streets are, you know, cobblestone and curved, probably not the best place to push a stroller, you know, through.
Like, hotels tend to be very good at knowing these things and knowing what those behaviors should be for a guest. And you help that guest kinda go down that journey with you versus automatically looking for just the next cheapest room or the room that's gonna offer, or the hotel is gonna offer them the biggest room. That's how you decommoditize, you know, I think, the experience.
So if you were a hotelier with a small group of hotels today, where would you start with this? How do you begin building a loyalty framework for your hotel and the tech stack that you build on? Like, often, hoteliers struggle so much and they're like, right. We're just gonna give a discount for next day, and it's then, it's the discount program. That's a very different thing than something that drives loyalty. Where would you recommend that they start structuring this?
Chapter
How to delight your guests
I think they have to listen to the guests, ask the guests questions. Like, I think guests love to share. If you're willing to ask. Right?
Again, when do you normally wake up in the morning? Would you like a wake up call? It's not because anyone wants a wake up call anymore. It's because it helps the hotel learn your patterns.
Right? We have dinner. Are you interested in dinner tomorrow night? Should I get you a reservation?
No. We're gonna eat out. Okay. That's important. Can I help you with that experience?
Can I help make some recommendations?
Turning the front desk especially into a concierge like mindset, I think, is at least how you start to collect the data, collect the insights. And then there has to be a way of storing those in a, again, in a, like, non privacy violation way, but do it in a way that helps build patterns.
Who are the types of people staying here? Hotels can collect this information. You know, during the booking process, they can collect it pre check-in. And, actually, hotels that help guests check-in before they physically check-in, you know, there are so many things that you could not only help save time on, but you can really build the best experience for that guest.
Will you be traveling with a pet? You know, will you, you know, have your kids with you? Anything we can, you know, arrange in your minibar or in the refrigerator. All those data points start to matter.
And I would just literally dump them into an LLM at some point and say, who are my personas? You know? Who are the customer types I have? And just start with something.
Listen. You know? Listen, store it, study it, and then build something, you know, and have AI kinda build the recommendations of what those types of personas likely are gonna want in that state and then in the next one. The other part is stuff will go wrong.
And how hotels address when things go wrong is sometimes I think it's actually even more important than how they kinda do the positive things because stuff inevitably goes wrong. And then that response to me is actually what shows a hotel that, hey, this is special. You're not just a number. And I think that's also part of the experience, but that matters a lot, especially if you're ever gonna go back.
Yeah. I agree. Like, often, the hotels where I've complained is because I cared. I was expecting so much from a hotel.
I complained, but then the way that they rebounded from the way that I've complained, I'm incredibly loyal to some of those hotels where something went wrong and it really annoyed me, but then they just stepped up to the challenge. And then now I'm just a loyal fan of it. I really liked what you were saying about collecting data. I think this is one of the biggest challenges we have in hotels where we have a conversation and then we move on to the next guest, but we forget to log it in the system.
And like we now consume any piece of data through our AI, right? We've got these tooltips in our profiles. But the problem is a lot of hotels don't log the data in the system, and you've gotta create a culture around collecting data. As you were talking, I was thinking, yes.
So what you could do because some of this will build in the very near future, but what you could do today is make sure that you capture the data. And then once every day, you have a report export that you run from your reservations report with all your profile notes and your reservation notes that you feed into an LLM, which you have educated about, you know, how do you want it to action something? Like, what are some of the surprises that you could build in? And you could set this all up today with an agent with with large language model with the systems that well, hopefully, if you're on Mews, you could do this.
But this is an easy way to start, like, structuring a loyalty program, and then slowly, you start to build from there.
Yeah. I think, you know, Mews offers an unfair advantage, not for us to talk around track here. But, like, there are so many things you could do with Mews to build loyalty that I think are so easy and lightweight and also easy for the staff to be able to execute on, not just easy for the owner or the manager to be able to build these profiles, but easy to then execute and to do it in a way that the guest doesn't feel like there's this transactional element. It really is about enhancing the stay, enhancing the follow-up.
By the way, even just doing follow-up with the guest after they've left the hotel, that's the first touch point to be able to get them back for the next one. And by the way, people tend to be the most positive or the most negative right after a stay. So being able to get to them right away and either to, like, mollify the negativity or to enhance the positivity, you know, is something that a hotel should be thinking of. And even the simple question of is there anything we can do better?
You know, what when you come back, right, assume the sale. When you come back, what is something we can do better for you? That's, like, one of the most critical piece of feedback that in the moment, most people are not even prepared to say because most people hold back, you know, the honest things, but, like, you probably wouldn't. But, like, most people would hold back.
But a day later, people tend to be much more open to share open feedback than they would standing in front of someone at the check-out table.
I really like that. And I what I would do now, so now you make me think so. What I would do is I would set up an automatic email that goes out with a nice short video from the GM saying, hey, we really value feedback.
And and it's like video content is so easy to produce with, like, a program like Loom, for example, that you then embed in an email that you automatically set up. It doesn't have to be triggered. I set up all these zaps that trigger certain things to team members that join our company that automatically get a video from me saying, you know, this is how we communicate internally. Hoteliers can use the same kind of Zapier kind of logic where you embed a video that's very personal from the general manager to every single guest that leaves that gets the feedback from them, that you then feed back into your system, that you then use to recycle into driving
loyalty from customers. So definitely.
Chapter
Loyalty and travel behavior
Nice. My last question, if there is no loyalty programs anymore, Marriott cancels all of their programs, how will that, how will your travel behavior change overnight?
Well, I'd have to figure out what to do with those 3,5 million points that are sitting there first.
Yes. We kill that.
They're zero?
Well, after I cry that there's about 100 thousand dollars in hotel value that I have not taken advantage of. I think there like, as I've traveled more and more, there are things that definitely matter less, right? Like, again, do I really need that suite?
No. But I really do appreciate the space. Do I want their free breakfast? No. I really don't.
I'm sorry. There's very little in a hotel breakfast that's gonna truly, like, change my world, you know, some dry powdered eggs and, you know, some stale toast. So it's it really, it does become, what is a unique experience of staying at this hotel. So it's like what would feel different?
What would feel new? So that means, like, unique hotel styles, unique hotel locations, unique hotel experiences. There are hotels, you know, like the Ice hotel, you know, in Jukkasjärvi. Like, do I really wanna be freezing at night?
No. But it's probably cool to experience that, you know, just once. Do I wanna stay in an igloo, you know, in Finland? Maybe.
Right? Do I wanna sleep underwater, You know, maybe in the Maldives or in Dubai? Yeah. You know?
And those are never gonna be chain hotels. Right? Those are always going to be unique things. So that's probably where I would always kinda gravitate toward what's gonna feel different, look different.
If you look at the Airelles Château de Versailles. Right? Now that is a chain, but it's not a, like, a big branded chain, and they're an amazing Mews customer. If you stay at that hotel, they literally wake you up with, like, a lantern in the morning.
They scratch on your door, like, I guess, they would in the fourteenth century, and they put up a tray of coffee waiting for you in the morning. So, again, they know how to get me. And that, those types of experiences, I think, really matter and would decommoditize the transactional element and make it really much more about what's gonna look, feel, and sound unique to be able to be, you know, really good memory.
I love that. So go back to really experiential travel and go back to the core of what travel is all about is things you'll never forget.
I think so. I think so. They're people are paying to stay at your home. So that's how, you know, an innkeeper, I guess, would view it a long time ago. And now, you know, how do you how do you recreate that same kind of level of hospitality so that people want to be there and wanna come back?
Mike, thank you very much.
You've got it. Was fun.
