The digital economy offers many opportunities to connect better with guests. In this TV show Riko van Santen discusses three areas to improve relationships with guests.

Digital economy and communication

Working with partnerships, the distribution channels, that's been about for a while now. So we are there and we are working with many channels of distribution in order to partner to make reaches into the markets where we perhaps couldn’t establish ourselves. So we use the internet to extend our reach in terms of the distribution channels, that's the first area. Another area is to understand also the behaviour of the guests on the internet. So not only through the existing booking channels but also how do they search? How do they read about hotels? How do they understand experiences that hotel companies are offering? There are different kinds of portals, there are different kinds of platform and search behaviours that we try to tap into to ensure we can anticipate the guest’s behaviour and to be there with our brands to provide solutions for their travel experiences. Finally the third area is to connect to say once we have made that connection and we establish the relationships with the guests, both before, during and after the stays, we can actually use that information from those 3 touch points to better serve the guests in the future or during the stay. How do we find them, where do they come, where were they searching from. What is their experience or what are they wanting to have during their stay in our hotels and post-stay after they check out, how do we make sure that we can keep the relationships with the guests without being - you know, without spamming them with emails. It’s not just a question of just sending them an email to remind them, oh thank you for staying in the hotel, come again, it’s to really understand how did they enjoy the stay, what can we do to make sure that we can anticipate their stay next time to make it even better and to grow our data base of the profile and the understanding of our guests.

The Hospitality Channel features many TV shows and briefings discussing the digital economy. Browse all the hospitality briefings here.

Innovative technology and finding better ways to reach guest are the main focus points for developments at Kempinski as Riko van Santen explains in this TV show.

Welcoming innovative technology

Well one of the things we want to ensure and one of our pivotal focuses in the company is innovation. So although we have heritage of the company we want to make sure that we are innovative and we offer solutions whether it be in the hotels, whether it be in distribution and the marketing to reach the guests, cutting edge technology solutions. So innovation is invested very much within Kempinski and one of the focuses we have within innovation obviously is the digital marketing aspects; how do we reach the guests, how are the guests reaching us as a brand, how can we make sure that our hotels and how we operate within and understand our guests, can take the maximum advantages of where the technology falls today.

The Hospitality Channel will continue to discuss innovative technology and how it is affecting the hospitality industry.

Disruptive innovation is changing the way the world does business and this is particularly evident in the hospitality industry as Riko van Santen explains in this TV show.

Disruptive innovation is changing business

I think there's disruptive forces, obviously new players coming on to the market, how people, guests are using the internet, how they are doing their research to find hotels, we need to understand and embrace that and also throughout the whole company. So it’s also a mindset change to understand that, you know; how do we do business, is it changing and are we ready to embrace that change. So it’s also the human factor and this is also an area we take a lot of focus on within Kempinski in talent and development, in training, providing trainings, providing seminars within our team members to make sure that we can embrace the changes and whatever initiative we have a at a brand level, that this also goes throughout the company to all our executives.

The Hospitality Channel is very interested in how disruptive innovation is changing the industry. Look out for the next 10 industry experts to be announced as part of Hospitality250.