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Transcript

Introduction to customer loyalty
 
Hi, everyone. You've made it back to Matt Talks. And this week, I want to talk about customer loyalty. It's a thing that I care deeply about, and it is important because I wanna have an emotional connection to the hotels that I book.
 
And often hotels fail in this area. But if there's anything that is important with regards to customer loyalty, it's that this is the most affordable channel to find customers. I often talk about the website being your most important salesperson because it's a very affordable channel. If you get a customer that has stayed with you, before and they might have booked through an expensive channel, the next time that they book, it is your job to make sure that they book direct because this is the cheapest, most affordable channel for you as a hotel company.
 
And this is the kind of business that you want to drive. But it isn't easy because there's a lot of competition out there and you need to do a really good job. So what I wanted to do in this this Matt Talks is really break down, you know, the different types of hotels. And sometimes you might want to do a loyalty program, sometimes you need a brand, and sometimes it's just a book direct program that works really well because there is very limited return business for your hotel.
 
And that's okay.
 
It's just important that we acknowledge that so that you focus your attention on different channels and segments. So what I'll do is I'll break down this talk into four listing segments. Firstly, I'll talk about what is customer loyalty.
 
Secondly, I'll talk about whether it makes sense for you to join a major global brand or whether you should go at it alone. The third part is really when you start to say, hey, yes, I am gonna go at this alone. And if you start thinking about building a loyalty program, what are the major components of your thinking? And then the last piece of this is really what do you keep in mind as you've launched this program, or a book direct program?
 
How do you drive that program operationally? Because there are a lot of things that you should think about operationally. You cannot just tell your marketing team to just say, hey. Do a loyalty program and then expect them to make that all happen.
 
This is a complete cross functional team effort across the brand if you wanna make loyalty loyalty work. And this is why most loyalty programs that are run by independent hotels don't really get traction because of the execution that happens on the on the ground. So those are the four components.
 
And, hopefully, you get something out of this that helps you run your hotel better and, hopefully, drive much more loyalty customers because these are the most affordable customer segments that you could ever have.

Chapter
What is customer loyalty and how to drive it - thinking beyond points
 
So in this first block, I wanted to talk about what is customer loyalty. And, we have this tagline at ÐßÐßÊÓƵ, make it remarkable. And you see this throughout our communication that we we have this tag around changing guest experiences. And when you do so, make sure that they are remarkable experiences. And we picked that word remarkable for a very specific reason.
 
Because when you go to a hotel and you say to people I had such a remarkable experience remarkable is better than it was a good experience it was it was great. Remarkable means I'm going to talk about it because there was something that they did that made me, really remember them. And it was so remarkable, I'm going to leave a review. Or it's so remarkable, I'm going to tell my friends about it.
 
So, and I think that's the core of what loyalty is, creating experiences that are truly remarkable, that help customers, come back or bring other people in, like them raving about it to other customers. And then, you know, that's also loyalty. Even though that guest might not be able to return back to your hotel, their loyalty to your brand drives other guests to visit. I talk about this hotel in Sweden that I visited recently Ett Hem.
 
And the experience was so remarkable that I've now told many people on LinkedIn or in person, and several people have said, oh, I am going back there. Whilst I may not go to Sweden very often, I now have brought other customers through my customer loyalty to their brand. So that is is a really important aspect of loyalty. This isn't just about the one guest that's staying with you. It's about the network effect that they bring to your brand.
 
And through that, the emotional connection is really key. People will remember how you make them feel. So whilst you may have all the facilities, at the hotel, that tick all the boxes to get the booking in the first place. They will return because of the way that you made them feel. If I feel extremely welcome and recognized and and all my needs were addressed in a remarkable way, I'm left with something that went above and beyond what my expectation was because my expectation level of a hotel is now the bare minimum facilities, and I can check-in and check out. But when you exceed those expectations through a handwritten card or just a little nice touch or just someone who remembered something that I'd said and then, like, asked me about it the next day, those emotional connections are really key to driving loyalty.
 
When, we talk in hospitality about the word loyalty, Most people think, oh, points. I've got to save points and I'm not gonna get status and then I can use that to, get upgrades in hotels or I can use my points to, you know, buy a free accommodation. And whilst that is directionally correct for the major brands, I think, when you're running an independent or a small group of hotels, loyalty is much more than just points collection.
 
And this is what the big brands get wrong often. They think it is just about those upgrades and about the points collections and the credit card program. And, yes, it does work, but it doesn't create genuine emotional connections. And I think that's where the brands miss out most of the time, because they are so focused on driving those programs about points that they lack the focus on really real hospitality and driving emotional connections. And this is where independent hotels can thrive.
 
So if you think about small hotels, they are often pushed in a corner thinking, oh, should I join a major brand, because I want to have a loyalty program? Or could I achieve something really special myself? And I actually think you can, but you do have to work hard at driving a differentiated experience.
 
And how do you recognize guests that are loyal to you, and what do you do for them? It doesn't need a loyalty program, but it does need a darn good PMS, property management system where you that allows you to recognize your guests or a CRM system that recognizes them digitally automatically, online. And I'll give some examples of some of this, that could really help drive that guest loyalty.
 
And then lastly, loyalty is a two way street. This is not a I want my guests to be loyal to me, but there's also loyalty that you have to your customer to drive their experiences. Like, you are selling a brand online and they come to your hotel and you need to really work hard at earning their loyalty. And that's that's difficult because, you know, we lack staffing, and I had a different talk about staffing levels.
 
But also when you have a modern system, we try and talk about let let us take care of the automation whilst you take care of the customers, while you create these remarkable experiences. And you gotta really, really work at that. You know, us taking care of, of the admin doesn't mean you should lay off half your team. You should leverage those teams to drive these very unique experiences.
 
So as we deploy AI across our system, we're now telling you this customer cares about these things because I've seen that from their history. And that's where AI comes in. We read these profiles of guests, and we tell you this is a customer with a feather allergy. So make sure that the pillows in the room are already changed, and you let them know when they check into the reception.
 
That creates loyalty because the guest is like, oh, you remembered that I was coming. You remembered that I'm allergic to feathers, and you've already taken action on that. And that creates a remarkable experience that they will talk about. So make sure that this is a two way street. This is not just a points program where they would just have loyalty because they're getting something out of you. It's because you made an effort to make them feel special. So if I'd say anything, loyalty is about how you make customers feel, and making things remarkable so they will turn they will return back to you in the future.

Chapter
Global brand loyalty programmes vs independent
 
So the big question is, should you join a major global brand and put a brand on the roof and join their loyalty program, or should you go at it alone? Should you drive your own, independent brand, and start to build out that business in that way? And there is no right or wrong answer in this. It is very much dependent on what you're looking for. If you as a hotel, you're highly leveraged by a bank loan, for example. The bank may dictate to you that you have to join a global brand because they have a higher level of security for return on investments. You know, a business with a McDonald's logo on the roof is more likely to succeed than an independent fast food business.
 
So, you know, if the bank requires you to join a brand, then you join a brand that makes the most sense for you.
 
If you are a purist, if you are a hotelier that gets very excited about creating a differentiated experience, choosing a brand will limit you in your ways. They will limit your tech stack. They will limit the way in which you can drive these differentiated experiences. So if you are a pure so if you're an entrepreneur that wants to do something different, that gets frustrated about how our industry works, then don't join a brand because you don't get that flexibility because the brand will dictate you how you operate.
 
So if you think about, joining a major global brand, what this does is that you get a a set of customers coming in the doors that are looking for a set of facilities.
 
So when I book my corporate stays, my secretary knows that I look for a gym. And it is very like like I know that if I book a Hilton or Marriott, I'm gonna get a gym. I don't even need to go to the website. I know that the minimum facilities are there and it's a twenty four seven gym. So I can wake up at five and go to the gym. No question.
 
If I book an independent brand, I have to go to the website. Often these are bad websites. I won't find that information. I go to booking dot com to find whether they have a gym, and if it's a twenty four seven gym. And then I end up booking on booking dot com.
 
So, what I get from the brand is a level of minimum expectations that I'm gonna get. I'm not going to the brand for remarkable hospitality. I'm going because I'm on a business trip, and I need efficiency. And I wanna get in and out.
 
And I wanna know that all the facilities are there, and everything is working according to the minimum standard. But this is not great hospitality. This is just a and that's where loyalty programs come in, and they're very targeted towards corporate travelers. Travelers who repeatedly go to certain business destinations, who want efficiency, and and and they just book those hotels repeatedly.
 
And, generally, if you're a hotel in a corporate location with lots of offices around, it makes more sense to join a brand because these corporate brands, they have business relationships with the corporates. So, you get into that preferred booking program. If you are a a Hilton, a Best Westerner Choice, you'll have more likelihood of to being accepted in the corporate booking program, driving more corporate business that you just cannot target as an independent hotel. As an independent hotel, you'd have to target that through, for example, a secretary loyalty program through the local offices. But that's a real hard schlock to kind of get that business in.
 
So if you do choose for the big global brand, you're doing it because you wanna drive probably mostly to corporate business, but also it comes with a real high cost. So you need to write a really strong business case that tells you, yes, you know, you're buying the brand at a significant cost. That needs to drive a huge amount of volume to pay off that cost and that loyalty.
 
And this is just, a business plan that you have to write. And it doesn't create great hospitality, and if that's what you're looking for, then going with a brand might be the way to go.
 
The brand doesn't make sense for any type of hotel in any location. If you are a countryside hotel, a brand might not make sense for you because they don't have business in the countryside to drive.
 
Some of the brands that are in the resort locations, it might not have a huge volume of business going into those resorts. So it is very determined on what kind of hotel you are and what's the impact. And then if you are in the countryside, it might not be a Hilton that may make sense for you but it might be more of a leisure brand that you might want to put in there.
 
So, that's if you pick the brand. If you go out of the loan, if you are an independent hotelier and you are just genuinely a hotelier that gets excited about creating a differentiated experience, you don't want to go with a brand because they dictate you what the minimum standards are and they put so many restrictions on you as a hotelier that you lose flexibility. A lot of the big global brands will tell you these are the systems you will work with.
 
Whereas today, like, for example, if I look at ÐßÐßÊÓƵ, we have a thousand integrations.
 
A brand will say you're allowed to work with twenty integrations and that's it. Whereas we're like, no. Try out any of these thousand integrations and whatever works for your hotel is the right thing to drive the right experience. So the flexibility you get, with remaining independents could drive an outsized impact because the brand will drive, business into the hotel but at a high cost rate.
 
So, whilst it's predictable, it also won't have an outsized impact. And with an independent hotel, if you truly create something that is so unique and so differentiated, you could have an outsized impact because you don't have this heavy cost base in the hotel that you have to pay towards the brand to have a high volume business. You could run a lower occupancy hotel, but because of your cost base, and your flexibility in systems drive a much stronger outcome, and you could have a significantly stronger outsized output by remaining independent. And this is the thing that a lot of hoteliers don't think about.
 
But all the money that you're saving, you could invest into driving unique experiences for guests.
 
If you think about what you pay for a typical booking for a brand or for an LTA, you're looking at twenty percent of the booking value. What if you take fifteen percent off of that average value and you just say, hey, I'm gonna create great experiences from fifteen percent. And if your average rates, you know, in a hotel is, I don't know, two hundred fifty euros for two nights stay, so it's like a hundred hundred twenty euros for two nights stay, there you've got twenty euros that you could tell your team saying you've got twenty euros per booking to create really great experiences. What are we gonna do as a hotel brand to get something really exciting going?
 
And I think that's the conversation that we should be having. As an independent hotel, you could run a significantly better business driving significantly more loyal fans. Like, I think that's the difference. It's not, loyal, loyalty program customers.
 
It is fans. It's people that think you've done something remarkable. They'll rave about you. They'll have other customers book you directly.
 
And that will drive the major output of your business. So there's two distinct decisions. One is, do I want a predictable, model where I'll just run a business? It'll work.
 
It isn't the most exciting hospitality experience, but it's a very efficient, well running business, which is the brand. Or do I want to create something that is really unique and I could potentially have an outsized impact? And then you run an independent hotel and you should think deeply about loyalty, but it's definitely a different loyalty than collecting points. It's it's it's customer fan

Chapter
Creating effective loyalty programs
 
base, that you're trying to drive.
 
So if you have decided that you want to create a program, a loyalty program, or a program to drive recurring, visits from from guests, you need to start thinking about, okay, what's what what's the program that makes sense for me? If you're a hotel group with more than ten hotels, I would say, a minimum ten, but you also need to be in primary locations knowing that there's a very high likelihood that guests will have, an overlap in the destination. So if you're thinking Europe, you're looking at Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin. You know, like, you wanna have real, consistency in the destinations that you have.
 
If you're a secondary location hotel chain with secondary cities, it is very unlikely that you'll have travelers, having overlap in what their travel plans are versus what your portfolio is unless you are a destination hotel, unless your hotel is so unique that people choose to travel to your hotel because of your hotel. And that's very rarely the case. Most of the time, people that travel on corporate will go to the corporate location unless it's an off-site.
 
And people that travel for leisure will go to a destination to go skiing, to go to a city trip.
 
Very few hotels have attained the status of being a true destination hotel.
 
So for that reason, if you are a smaller hotel group, then the traditional loyalty program with points and statuses is probably not what you're actually looking for.
 
What you're looking for is to drive, direct bookings from the website. You're looking for to to capture people's email addresses so that next time that they're thinking about your destination, that you're front and front of mind and that they'll book direct instead of going through an OTA or through a different more expensive channel.
 
So most hoteliers will will actually be looking for that type of program.
 
If you're building loyalty program, you'll probably end up on a serious software like a, like a Salesforce platform where you have to do a custom build out of what you're looking to attain. And if you are large enough, it definitely pays back and it's very, very interesting, but you're you need to make sure that you have enough overlap with the territories because a typical customer will travel, you know, minimum thirty nights to attain any serious status in these programs and that's really hard to achieve if you don't have enough overlap in portfolio.
 
So let's talk about building your own kind of book direct and book recurring program because that's where, you can actually build some fantastic workflows and work with fantastic partners. So what you're really trying to do is making sure that you have the best offers directly on your website. And, obviously, a lot of hotels are afraid of their rate parity with the OTAs, and, therefore, they offer the exact same rates. But they don't realize that on the OTAs, the moment you log in to the OTA, they will offer you a better rate on the OTA than they do directly.
 
And we as hotels like, now that we're, you know, there is no need for this this traditional rate parity anymore, you actually can do the same thing on your website where you have the best prices on your website. And the goal is to get customers to log in. And log in literally means log like, leave your email address and then through that, you get into a secure page. So if you just have a button saying log in with Facebook or log in with whatever, Apple login, the moment they press that button, they have verified themselves.
 
You now have their email address, and they can go into a secondary page inside your website where you can have all of your very special offers loaded, which are better offers than anything that they have. And most customers know this, and you can advertise this in the right way so that when they come into the website with partners like, you can tell them saying, hey. We've got special offers, you know, for for for members. And a membership really just means give us your email address, and then we allow you to log in to the special, back of house, area where you can then, book our hotel for these special offers.
 
What customers are often looking for when they, book direct are special special rates. Obviously, the primary thing is always rates. But also a modern younger generation is looking for very different gratification whereas previously, I was looking for status and points that I can spend those points. Today, people are looking for much faster gratification moments. So maybe on your own website, you can say if you book direct, you get an early check-in, you get a late checkout for free, guaranteed.
 
That's a simple benefit that you can offer to help prioritize those guests that book directly with you versus the guests that go through an OTA.
 
What we're seeing is that, a lot of tools like CRM tools help in once you've captured the email addresses because the the absolute goal of a independent brand is collect data, not just email addresses, but also the sources and the origin of business, like, why they're booking you. Because you start to build up, knowledge about your guests. And that's what, what I see with most hotels is that they have the they they they capture the email addresses and then they just work with Mailchimp. Mailchimp is the number one integrated solution on the CRM side of ÐßÐßÊÓƵ.
 
But with Mailchimp, you have to create your own campaigns, and you throw them out when the hotel needs business. So the moment you're like, right, February is looking pretty weak. Let's just run out a promotion to, you know, all of our database, about February. But the challenge is if you're a leisure hotel, in in a specific destination, those customers might not be looking because they they came last year, Christmas, for a holiday.
 
They're not looking to be there in February. So it is very much aligning the need of, the the customer with the time to book, and this is a continuous journey. So whereas Mailchimp is effective in, you know, being able to create these great mail templates and uploading a database and then communicating with customers. You're we're seeing very low success rates with the traditional Mailchimp campaigns because you're sending them at the time when a customer is not ready to actually book because you haven't properly segmented the databases and built in continuous flows.
 
What's, the CRM solutions we're seeing that are specifically built towards hospitality, like, for example, the the the two most purchased, solutions are Cendyn and Revinates.
 
There, you continuously build a database.
 
You upload all of the segments saying this customer stayed on this particular date for this particular reason, and then you build, continuous campaigns. So you start to say, you know, hey. Last year, this customer booked in November for a Christmas holiday.
 
So next year, come November, you wanna send another reminder saying, hey. Last year, around this time, you you booked our Christmas holiday. Here's a special offer for you specifically.
 
And this really tailors to customers, and that's why you'd invest into a proper CRM versus a Mailchimp, which is a very one size fits all solution. And the impact of a campaign from a revenue or a Send nine is much more effective because you've properly segmented, understand why customers are booking you, and then at the right time, you're approaching them with the right offer that entices them to come back to the hotel.
 
Another thing we're really seeing is that offering the right perks, for returning customers is really interesting because you might not want to be a loyalty member. But if you say, hey. You know, to returning customers, we're offering very specialized perks, for special occasions. That really drives stronger conversion of those bookings.
 
And, specifically, room upgrades are obviously a thing that people are looking for. And there's not that much cost to a room upgrade for a very loyal customer because if you think about what a customer spends, a typical what we see across me is a typical, customer pays about a hundred twenty to a hundred fifty euros per room per night. You pay an OTA for that booking about twenty percent probably. So you're looking already about thirty euros that you're paying to that customer. If they book directly with you, and they are a recurring customer, you're not paying pay per click ads. So you've got a budget of about thirty euros to give them something. And a free upgrade or an early check-in is a very logical thing to give away to a customer that is giving them your giving you his his or her loyalty.
 
And I think that's really the goal of a book direct program, making sure you always recognize a returning customer by making sure that you capture their, email addresses and that you segment them correctly, that you use a CRM to target them. And then when they walk in the door, you call it out. You're saying, I see that you've returned and you've booked direct. Thank you so much for your direct booking. I've actually upgraded you into a higher category room thanks to your loyalty.
 
That means a lot. If you can bring a message across in that way, that means an incredible amount to customer because you've now recognized that they are a loyal customer without them having to wave a gold card in your face to say, hey. I'm very important to you.
 
It's actually more powerful if the hotel recognizes the guest than when the guest has to tell you that they want to be recognized, which is the traditional loyalty program. And I think that's the thing that independent hotels that want to drive recurring, customers should focus on training the team, using the data to really drive that experience in recognizing the customer, acknowledging that they have booked direct, and then giving them a benefit. And they will remember this. If you do this in the right way, they will remember this and they'll come back for that third or even

Chapter
Levaraging data for personalized experiences
 
the fourth time in the future if you do this in the right way.
 
Right. So we're building a loyalty program or a program in which we are trying to drive customer loyalty. I think that's a very different thing from building a loyalty program being points and status to driving customer loyalty, a customer wanting to book again because they actually really love the hotel.
 
And and I think that the biggest shift here is about making sure that, first of all, we we recognize the customer. You can only recognize them if we have their historic data. So obviously, when they've booked direct, we have their profile with our email address and we recognize this customer. If they have booked through an OTA, we can't recognize them because that email address, is a different email address from the personal email because the OTA sends us a anonymous email address that becomes inactive the moment the guest departs. So there's no way to continue communicating with this guest.
 
So we've deployed in our online check-in feature. The moment we recognize one of those anonymous email addresses, we say, hey, guest. Please give us your real email address so that we can, merge those profiles and and and basically collect more information and then obviously target this guest afterwards. So So we do this automatically through the online check-in, through the kiosk, but a lot of guests still check-in on the reception desk with our team members.
 
So it's all about teaching the team members that, we need to get the real contact details of these customers because that needs to feed into our CRM that starts to drive the communication with the guests automatically after the guest has departed.
 
So the first and most important thing is that always having a clean database, capturing email addresses, and try and match and merge. So even if, a guest has one of those booking or coming emails, they might have stayed there before. They might say this on check-in because you asked them.
 
And you can then match and merge. We are about to release a really exciting new match and merge feature that helps automate this. But, also, I think solutions like Revinate and Cendyn have solutions where they help merge profiles across the database because the cleaner the database is, the more powerful it becomes. Because one of the most dreaded questions, I'm asked often is, like, have you ever stayed with us before? And I'll be, like, yes, twenty times.
 
But hotels just don't recognize me because of their legacy systems that don't connect the dots on on all of the the data points that exist. So firstly, it's about making sure that you have clean profiles.
 
And then secondly, it's about building real information that we have. So where ÐßÐßÊÓƵ comes in is we drive huge amounts of efficiency.
 
We're like, let us take care of some of the the really boring data entry parts because that's what we do really well so that you as a customer can focus on engaging with the customer. The question we always ask, checkouts, it's, was everything okay with your stay? And from the words used in that question, we intend to say, we I don't I'm not looking for a a real response. I just want you to say yes so that I can move on with the checkout and give you the bill and then have you leave the hotel.
 
As a hotelier, that is one of the most powerful moments. When we say, was everything okay with your stay?
 
We're looking for a yes, preferably.
 
And if they do say yes, that's a great moment to ask a follow-up question saying, next time you stay with us, what could we do better?
 
And I think that's a really powerful question because you're not asking for a yes, no answer. We're asking for real input. One, you're implying saying, I'm hoping you're gonna come back, next time, and they might say this.
 
And then secondly, you're asking for real feedback, and that information needs to go into the system because we now can use that information to help tailor the experience that the moment they walk through the door or the moment we start targeting them through our CRMs, that information becomes incredibly powerful, especially with AI accelerating.
 
While some of your CRMs might not yet be able to leverage that information, they will very soon because this is moving at a pace, that we can't comprehend. So the more information we start to capture, the more valuable it becomes for an independent hotel.
 
I want to briefly show you inside our system what this looks like so that you get a sense, of of how, how this works. So let me open, a demo system. This is a demo hotel, so it's pretty empty, not running great occupancies.
 
But I think the most important thing I want to show you is this is a hotel that has multiple services. So this is, the parking that I've just logged into, but they also have a stay service, a meeting room, bicycle rental, co-working.
 
And why I wanna show you this is because, a PMS, a modern PMS, is no longer just bedrooms. A modern hotels has lots of facilities, and they shouldn't be sitting in disjointed systems. They should all be sitting in one singular system. So let me start to capture the data. Because if I know that, for example, I saw this parking lot, I had a guest.
 
Let's see.
 
Here you've got Matt Welle. And I instantly saw these two icons saying, this is a returning customer, and he was a previous complaint. So the icons help trigger me to to know exactly, hey. Returning customer, VIP, complaints, disabled customer.
 
So that's, from a service point of view, really helpful.
 
At the same time, I know that he's booked a parking lot. That's valuable information because if my CRM knows this, I can target this customer because I know that they're in driving distance. So they could come for weekend. They could come for the different, school holidays. If I know that Matt Welle has children of a certain age and I know when their holidays are, I can target campaigns. So the more information we capture about these guests, the more the more valuable the database becomes. Let's have a look at his profile.
 
So, what you see is it's loading an AI note on the profile smart tip, and it does this every time you open the profile. So it starts to scrape through all of the information we have from this customer. And you see here, for example, notable background, previously complained about not getting an upgrade, expressed dissatisfaction about the speed of check-in, spoke to a manager.
 
He was promised a complimentary upgrade. That's important information.
 
And today he has an early check-in, so make sure that the room is ready for that time.
 
All of this information is coming from a number of sources. So it would come from the the general profile that's here.
 
You have some car information in here, but also you can go into the internal section. So here you see previous complaints, returning customer, the notes of the complaints, that's physically there. You see the loyalty code. So if you have a loyalty program, we will start to track it automatically there. He's lactose intolerant, and then also all of the history. So if he stayed with us before, for the notes said, hey. He stayed with us before, and it knows that because, he had historic reservations here.
 
And I think, all of these little pieces of reservation notes, profile notes, preserver previous bills, all of that feeds into this AI notes.
 
And we start to surface this, very shortly in all parts of the system. So the more information you and your team start to capture from your customers, the more valuable the database becomes so that you can really change the way that customers experience your hotel.
 
And and that's really the key point of all of this. We have to capture information because we now want to drive the customer to book directly. And you only do that through creating these remarkable moments where you've really recognized that particular person

Chapter
Key takeways to drive success
 
and get them to book directly, with you.
 
Let me stop sharing.
 
So one, making sure you've got clean profiles. Two, making sure that you start capturing information that you have a CRM that connects with the data points that you have. And this is an important conversation to have with your CRM partner. What data points of news are you able to connect with, and and how do you leverage those information? Then build your campaigns based on the segmentation, what you know about the customer, and and help drive continuous campaigns, to make sure that you capture these guests to come and book directly with you. And then when they check-in, acknowledge that you've recognized them coming into the hotel, that you've already anticipated that they are allergic to feathers or that they, are lactose intolerant. So make that reservation in the restaurant and already inform them so that you really build a customized personalized experience.
 
And that's ultimately the thing that will get loyalty for independent hotels really standing out from from all of these big brands. You have the power to buy the most modern system, the most modern tech stack that connects all the data points that uses AI to create these campaigns to get customers back in. And I think that's ultimately what will help drive success for your hotel.
 
I hope you've enjoyed this. This was a long session, but, obviously, as you can tell, I'm very passionate about this. I don't wanna lose, track of how we will leverage AI in our industry. I think it is very, very powerful.
 
But we do have to talk to customers to capture this information, and we then do have to build workflows on top of it. And I think the most successful hotels in the future will actually be the ones that are allowed to use all these modern tech stacks. And that won't be the big brands because the big brands wanna control all of that narrative. I actually think that independent hotels or small groups could be incredibly powerful in driving some of the best hotel experiences, and I'm hoping that this in some way contributes to that. Thank you.