Marketersneedtounderstanddecisionmakingoftravellers

Regardless of industry, it’s frighteningly easy to lose perspective on the role your company plays (or doesn’t) in people’s lives; as marketers, we often have an outsized view of how important our brands are.

NB: This is a viewpoint by Lauren Walsh, chief marketing officer, Sullivan.

While we spend a lot of time and resources thinking about what we want to say and how to say it smartly, we don’t always spend enough time understanding what our customers are trying to do and, more importantly, how they’re going about doing it.

Facts and figures around mobile booking or average return rate are valuable, but they don’t explain the why: why do customers prefer one channel over another? Why are most bookings made by return guests vs. new guests?

These questions can lead to some of the most breakthrough ideas for how to reach people. Understanding how and why a customer makes a decision is the first step to actively influencing those decisions for the better.

In the hospitality industry, understanding decision-making is particularly important. Given the growth of aggregator sites, travellers often evaluate hotel choices without ever reaching a branded experience— meaning, whether or not a traveller picks your property is increasingly out of your hands.

Or is it? It is possible to understand how your customers make booking decisions and, in turn, find new ways to make sure you’re getting in front of them at the right times.