Mapping the Guest Journey

How and why mapping the guest journey can help you deliver stellar personalized service.

A guest starts planning a vacation by looking at photos and browsing online. They learn about your hotel for the first time and spot the stellar reviews. Many months later, they enter your lobby and chat with your friendly front desk staff while checking in. Days later, they sit in your hotel restaurant enjoying appetizers and sipping on your signature cocktail.

All of these vastly different experiences make up different parts of the guest journey. And putting yourself in a guest’s shoes and mapping this journey can help you improve your guest service and increase guest satisfaction, which is a big issue in the industry.

Hotel guest satisfaction is falling, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Travel Study for 2021-2022. In fact, over half of major hotels saw guest satisfaction drop by 4% or more. Hospitality Net calls this a “free fall.”

Mapping the guest journey is one way to look for areas where satisfaction might be taking a hit and areas where you’re doing an amazing job but there may be room to do better. This exercise can help you to:

• Clearly understand what a guest sees and experiences at different “touchpoints” during their interaction with your hotel.
• Get a better idea of any confusion or friction that may pop up during any of the points in the journey, from booking to checkout and beyond.
• Learn more about your strengths and weaknesses at different stages of the journey, showing you where to make improvements.
• Gain deeper psychological insights into your guests and increase empathy for their concerns, frustrations and desires.
• Help you see more opportunities throughout the journey to excel in personalized customer service.

So how do you map the guest journey? Here are 6 tips:

1. Choose a tool for mapping the journey. You can go old school, using a pen and paper or a whiteboard. Or you can use a spreadsheet, an online organizing or whiteboard tool or even sophisticated software. Use the tool that works best for you and your team.
2. Include the right team members. Make sure to include everyone who’s a part of all stages of the guest journey so you can create the fullest picture possible of the journey. Each of these “stakeholders” will have a different view of the guest experience to contribute.
3. List the steps of the journey. Put yourself in the place of a guest and list all of the steps to the journey. These might include: trip research, booking, getting ready for the trip, check-in, settling in, the stay, extra services like spa treatments, dining or drinking at the hotel, getting advice on local attractions and travel, checkout and after checkout.
4. Get into the minds of your guests. It’s key to get honest feedback from your guests about their experiences with your brand. You can use a variety of tools: read online reviews, talk to individual guests, use your virtual concierge to ask for feedback at different steps along the way or conduct guest surveys.
5. Focus on feelings. Try to ascertain how guests think and feel when they’re at various stages of the guest journey. How do you want them to think and feel during their journey? Content, happy, relaxed, surprised, delighted? List the emotions and brainstorm what you can change to increase those feelings throughout the journey.
6. Pay attention to the pain. It can be tough to take a hard look at issues and shortcomings, but pay special attention to where guests experienced any problems or “pain points” throughout their journey, from trouble booking to a crowded lobby to internet issues while trying to work. Look for patterns and begin putting in place ways to turn pain to delight.

Mapping your guest journey requires some effort, but it can offer great insights on how to improve and personalize your guest service.