At the beginning of the alpine resort business, services were the same for all guests. A few lifts, a crude warming hut, a handful of ski teachers, a part-time ski patrolman. But as business grew and winter resorts have matured, they have identified and served an ever broader range of market segments: Day visitors and overnight guests; wild young singles and innocent young families; skiers who want to connect with friends; riders who seek the adrenaline rush of steep terrain; and boomers who desire a peaceful, quiet oasis for relaxing and rejuvenation.
But resorts have often found it necessary to narrow their horizons and specialize in a limited number of these segments. Few mountains can be all things to all people. But progressive resorts are using technology to increase the level of specific services they provide and expand the niches they serve.
They are doing this through microsegmentation, the process of taking existing market segments and breaking them down even further. Guided by active input from guests, resorts can refine and filter their offerings to achieve highly personalized levels. Allowing guests to take part in designing their visit increases the chances of providing a completely unique and memorable experience. In its extreme form, this process leads to the most specific market niche of all—a niche of one person. You can’t get much more personal than that.
Win-Win Solution
The participation of the customer in the process of creating experiences benefits both guest and resort. Guests get more of what they want, less of what they don’t. Through active communication with your visitors, you can adapt your way of doing business to best suit your guests and deliver more valuable experiences with less wasted effort.
There are other benefits for resorts, too. With personalization comes the potential for increased guest spending. Plus, with guests designing their vacations through self-service applications, you achieve operational efficiencies. And as the resort amasses information about customers over time, the ease of future transactions can lead to improved customer service and loyalty.
Until recently, there was a practical limit to how far you could differentiate your services for your customers. The cost of customizing for a particular group overwhelmed the revenue potential. But technology, particularly the Internet, has changed the equation.
Three Key Developments
The rapid acceptance of Internet booking allows for three key developments: the proliferation of information, interaction with the guest in the home, office or at school, and the ability to capture preferences of current or prospective skiers and riders.
Once an individual provides this information, it can be used to improve the off-site resort experience through a personalized portal interface. The interface saves an individual’s preferences, helps them navigate the areas of your resort that are most important to them, and filters out the information that is irrelevant.
Additionally, booking on the web can turn a series of cumbersome dealings with multiple companies into a single streamlined process. Reserving a room, purchasing airline tickets, renting a car, getting directions to the resort, buying lift tickets, filling out rental equipment forms, enrolling in lessons, arranging for day care, booking a massage at the spa, and making reservations at a local restaurant—all can be done via the resort’s website. A well-designed website extends a part of the resort experience right into guests’ homes. (For an example of how customers might use such an interface, see “Market Micro-segmentation: Co-Creation in Action,” page 30.)
When the guest arrives at the resort, the stage has been set for an improved experience, since a series of tasks has already been completed.
While most resort websites offer detailed content, few capitalize on the Internet’s interactive capabilities in this way. This is a missed opportunity. The Internet and other IT infrastructure can work together to support the traditional communication channel, the telephone.
The next step is to combine the offsite web technology with advances in transaction processing systems, such as point-of-sale payments and direct-to-lift accessibility. This streamlines the experience from the moment the guest steps onto the property. Many resorts already have this infrastructure in place, but again, few exploit it in this way.
The goal is to actively create opportunities for personalization. You don’t have to know everything about your guests; you just have to give them the tools to design their own experience.
Making it Personal
Personalization occurs before, during and after the guest’s stay. The website, often the potential guests’ first contact with the resort, is critical for this stage.
During their stay, one-to-one marketing can boost spending as the preferences of guests are catered to during all exchanges with the resort. This can be accomplished, in part, by using credit cards, loyalty cards or season/multi-day passes to process transactions at each point of exchange. This is also a convenient way to use your existing technology to build a comprehensive customer relationship program. And using technology for these functions frees resort personnel to provide the best experience for your guests.
And that is important. The hallmark of a great resort is its people and the level of service they provide. Using technology for routine tasks frees staff to provide personalized service. Many resort jobs are transient in nature, but sharing guest information with staff and ongoing training can transform these front-line employees into first-rate guest service professionals. The staff may even discover unique ways to provide guests with new and exciting experiences.
Personalization also saves time for guests. And for many of them, time is at a premium. Individuals are devoting more days to work, leaving shorter time blocks for vacation. According to the American Express Leisure Travel Index, leisure travelers on average will take four weekend trips a year and just one vacation of longer duration. Personalized service maximizes the guest’s time spent relaxing or recreating.
After the guest’s visit, use the wealth of information gathered to follow up with targeted e-mail and marketing materials. This ongoing contact can translate into repeat business and generate critical word-of-mouth marketing. As a result, overall marketing costs go down, while visitation and revenue per visit rise—a winning combination.
The co-creation of the total resort experience is a powerful growth engine. Marketing, finance, human resources and operations can all benefit from, and play an important role in, this process. The more you cater to the personal desires of your guests, the more you will increase long-term demand for your resort—good memories last for years.
First Ascent LLC (www.firstascent.com) is based in New York City.
Micro-segmentation in Action
The Watsons are planning their annual family trip. The children are clamoring to hit the slopes, but mom and dad are considering a cruise. They decide to research their options by using the widest and most convenient source of information available, the Internet. After visiting several websites, they stop at Figment Mountain Resort’s web portal.
The resort looks great. Bob’s wife, Carol, likes the variety of trails for all abilities. The kids, Ted and Alice, like the look of the terrain park and experience a bit of the action by playing an online snowboarding game. They are psyched.
The Watsons peruse lodging, dining and off-mountain activities. All agree that Figment Mountain Resort looks like a great choice. They are already enjoying the resort—and they haven’t even left home yet.
The family plans the details of the trip. First, they select dates. Next, they consider their lodging options: proximity to the lifts, number of bedrooms, the view. Almost every choice is presented with a description and picture, in some cases a 360-degree view in virtual reality.
The central part of the trip is the skiing or snowboarding, of course, and the Watsons have myriad options. Carol would rather unwind and not ski the first day. The kids want to be on snow every possible minute. Bob wants to spend at least one day on the cross-country trails. Each member of the family selects a suitable lift ticket package.
To book their room choice, Carol registers with the resort’s website, providing the requested personal information. The website thanks the Watsons for choosing Figment Mountain Resort and informs them that no further information is required, but offers additional choices if they wish to make them. This takes more time, but the Watsons are happy to continue.
On the rentals page, Ted and Alice pick out their boot sizes and stance for snowboards. Carol is happy to enter rental information now rather than standing in line at the rental shop to fill out forms later.
Alice, the youngest, signs up for lessons. Ted took lessons last year, and he just wants to explore the mountain. Carol decides to indulge in a visit to the resort’s spa. She selects the seaweed wrap and hits the update button to review the vacation price.
Carol also registers general dining preferences, choosing vegetarian and low-cholesterol. She makes first-night reservations for dinner at the restaurant lodge. Looking at a bird’s eye view of the restaurant layout, she selects a table.
And then, a final selection: the Figment Mountain Resort loyalty card. It acts as a membership card and room key, and electronically stores information on pre-paid services. Enticed by the convenience, the Watsons opt in. A week later, they receive the card in the mail. Cool!
A month later, the Watsons announce their arrival by swiping the card as they enter the resort grounds. The swipe notifies the front desk and completes the check-in process. A bellman greets them, helps with their luggage, and shows the kids their snowboard gear—it was delivered to the room earlier in the day. The room is just as it was pictured, and the Watsons feel right at home. The bellman hands Bob a grooming report and the lift and lesson passes, and reminds Carol about her spa treatment and confirms the evening’s dinner reservations.
At dinner, the waiter swipes their card and shows them to their table—the one they chose online. The waiter brings over three different menus, vegetarian, low-cholesterol and children’s.
The next four days pass equally smoothly, and they part reluctantly from the resort. After they return home, a courtesy email thanks them for visiting, asks for feedback, and details future weekend specials. The family was already dreaming of returning to Figment, and this seals the deal. They fire up their computer again.
—DK
