The customer journey of a normal traveler will go through 4 stages including Dream, Research, Book and Experience & Sharing. As accommodation providers, you need to understand each of these phases, and know what are the critical touchpoints in order to win the bookers effectively.

Dreaming about trips is what they start with. It is the time when they initially search for ideas of where to go, what to do and it shapes the traveller’s plan for the following stages. The travellers easily get inspired by any compelling stories, articles, videos.

There are some suggestions for hoteliers to get traveller’s attention in the dream stage:

Coming next in the hotel booker journey is doing research.

There are some suggestions for hoteliers to positively influence the traveller’s decision in the research stage:

The book stage is the time you can convert a looker into a booker, make sure that you know what they expect about a convenient booking site.

There are some suggestions for hoteliers to optimize the traveller’s experience in the book stage:

Last but not least, it is time for the guests to arrive at your accommodations, start their stays, and share the experiences with their networks. Many people consider the experience and sharing are two separate phases in the customer journey; however today, people tend to share instantly and continuously on their personal social media about their feelings, status, or check-in new places, posting photos of meals, so we merge these two phases into one.

There are some suggestions for hoteliers to do in the experience & sharing stage:

After the experience and sharing stage, it does not mean to the ending. The past’s guest reviews and sharing becomes another’s the inspiration and a new cycle starts again. Thus, accommodations need to address all these stages continuously and have a suitable digital strategy to cover the journey touchpoints.