Marketing Reveals The Big Opportunity for Elevating The Hotel Guest Experience - Sabrina Cendral

Josiah: You might remember a few weeks ago I published an episode saying I'm going all in on operations as the best way to help you delight your guests, but our guest today pushed back on that. Stay tuned to hear from Sabrina Sandrell, a hospitality advisor and strategist who was previously the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Club Med in North America, explain why I and we need to think a little more comprehensively about this. 

Josiah: I published an episode a little while back about how I'm going to go all in on operations, and you pushed back on it, and I appreciate that because you said it's actually about experience. That's what's magical in hospitality. And I've been thinking a lot about that since because I think you're right. I think you're right. I think I was trying to think about, through the show, Hospitality Daily, how do I help people provide great hospitality and help their businesses and careers thrive in doing that. But you said it really is all about experience. I want to kind of, I guess, maybe frame this through how Club Med was and is doing that because, to make it more specific, you were highlighting the importance of engaging guests before, during, and after the stay. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, because I think that transcends just operations, like you're saying, but gets into marketing and coordination, all that kind of stuff. So, how did you think about engaging people before, during, and after the stay at Club Med?

Sabrina: And yes, indeed, when you're thinking about the guest experience, and especially with a powerful brand, be it Club Med or the many other beautiful brands that we have in hospitality, you know, those brands need to come alive outside of the walls of a hotel or of a resort. And so when we think about experience design, we're really thinking about the customer journey, right? Right from dreaming about their stay to researching their stay to booking. The booking phase is obviously a very important one. But then there's also a very important stage just before travel between the booking and the travel, where you also need to make the guests feel like they made the right choice, you know, because it is a high ticket, high stakes choice. You're often booking for your partner or your whole family, or even your multi-generational family. These are important travel decisions and financial decisions you're making. And so this really interesting phase of building up the excitement after the booking is made and before travel is a really interesting phase to think about and to start getting the guests into the mood of their vacation and into making sure that they have all the information as well to make the most of their vacation once they're there. But it's not just about information for Club Med in particular. It's also about getting them to understand the DNA of Club Med. If they're first-timers, we've worked a lot on first-time guests. Or if there are repeat guests, that recognition, you know, acknowledging that they are loyal guests and maybe some, you know, some perks that come with that. And then of course, there's the whole, there's the whole vacation, the whole vacation process. Even there, we would think very intentionally about the arrival and how to make the arrival feel special. What are the specific needs of the guests upon their arrival? And then all the way through the stay. And pre-departure, departure, and then return home. And that's also a very important one how do you extend the thrill of a stay? How do you get guests to think about their future booking but also just extend a little bit of that magic once you get home and have to go back into the grind?

Josiah: I think if you think about each of these elements, pre-stay, during-stay, and post-stay, it feels like there's a lot of collaboration between marketing and operations to do it successfully. some kind of digital interaction. But hospitality is inherently a physical experience. So, at some point, it has to interface with guests and be that staff-guest interaction. I guess my question for you is, what have you learned about effective collaboration between marketing and the folks who are serving guests and the operations teams?

Sabrina: Yeah, well, I think I've learned that, you know, there's an opportunity to play on all strengths around the table. And I think that what marketing brings to that table is a very deep understanding of motivations and also trends. What we do a lot in marketing is look, you know, at what's happening in different industries and different sectors and how that could translate for guests in the hospitality industry. Really working on that and then looking at data as well, which operations do also because they have a lot of data from onsite behavior and really pulling that together to paint a picture of guest expectations or maybe guests' non-expectations that they don't even know about yet, but where there's space to innovate. And then working together on it, it's really a collaborative process with operations and experience design and even sales teams. I'm also a big believer of the synergies between sales and marketing, which we can talk about after, but really a collaborative workshop, you know, onsite and then listening, a lot of listening to the onsite staff.