{"id":2918,"date":"2019-12-19T10:35:12","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T09:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/?p=2918"},"modified":"2026-03-11T10:10:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T09:10:40","slug":"methods-capture-guest-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/blog\/hotel-technology\/methods-capture-guest-data\/","title":{"rendered":"What methods can a hotel use to capture guest data?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

There are many methods for capturing guest data, both with their advantages and disadvantages. With the significant technological advances that have taken place within the tourism sector, opting for technology tools for data capture<\/strong> is a very useful method.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Manual data capture upon check-in or check-out<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In this day in age, there are not many modern establishments that continue to solely employ manual data capture methods to gather information about their guests, as they rely on their PMS. However, direct contact with guests is maintained<\/strong>, both during the check-in and check-out process.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

For example, this can be done by carrying out surveys about the personal preferences of each guest at the start of their stay, or satisfaction surveys<\/a> when they leave. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Although\r\nthis enables you to contact your guest directly, you are requesting their\r\npersonal and contact information at a sensitive time.<\/strong> During check-in, your\r\nguests are eager to get to their rooms and upon check-out, they are thinking\r\nabout getting a taxi or catching a bus to take them straight to the airport.\r\nYour guest will feel stressed when they are required to respond and will prefer\r\nto dismiss this option.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

On the\r\nother hand, gathering guest data on paper requires consequent transfer to the\r\nPMS, which ultimately implies time spent by your staff. Additionally, upon\r\ntransferring the data from a physical to a digital format, the parameters may\r\nnot be recorded correctly, resulting in data being recorded prior to being\r\nreviewed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Data capture during the booking process <\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Establishments with their own booking engine<\/strong> can capture data from the basic booking information <\/strong>(verified email address, nationality, age, language, gender, GDPR status) without any issues. However, some booking engines do not have the parameters required to acquire more information regarding companions.<\/strong> <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Your hotel will be able to find out how many accompanying adults and\/or children form part of each booking; however, you do not have access to their information.<\/strong> This information is valuable and taking advantage of it in order to continue to improve the quality of your services is recommended.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Establishments\r\nthat do not have their own booking engine receive bookings via commissioned\r\nchannels<\/strong> (Booking.com, Tripdvisor.com, Expedia.com, etc.). Although these third-party\r\nchannels facilitate a more effective reach to the target group, the information\r\nyour establishment will receive is limited<\/strong>: booking channel, room type,\r\nboard type, number of adults and children, extra costs, etc.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Despite\r\nbeing useful, this information cannot be used for marketing purposes, due to\r\nthe absence of basic booking information<\/strong>, which is normally captured by\r\ncommissioned channels.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Data capture via email marketing <\/strong>     <\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Email marketing campaigns are, without a doubt, one of the most effective methods for building a strong relationship between guests and the hotel brand. Access to guest data facilitates the launch of <\/a>more effective automated campaigns<\/a><\/strong>, as this enables personalised email adaptation, in accordance with the preferences of each segment of the target group. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Sending\r\nemails to \u201cnurture\u201d the guest work not only to obtain feedback following their\r\nstay, by way of satisfaction surveys, <\/strong>but also prior to their arrival at\r\nthe hotel, as is the case in pre-check-in processes.<\/strong> <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

However, it\r\nis essential to ensure that this contact with the guest is both targeted and\r\nappropriate.<\/strong> If a guest provides you with their data, this means that they\r\ntrust you to make good use of them. In other words, the abusive sending of\r\nemails<\/strong> may annoy the customer, or receiving questions regarding their\r\npersonal preferences<\/strong> may, in some cases, be considered invasive. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Recording data on Social Media<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Social networks and reputation management portals are, without a doubt, two means of gathering genuine guest opinions.<\/strong> Upon sharing their satisfaction<\/a> – or dissatisfaction – by way of the different online portals within which your brand is featured, guests want you to know their thoughts, in addition to sharing their experience with other customers. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

As\r\noccasionally these opinions are based on their own personal experiences<\/strong>,\r\nfor example, if they have chosen your hotel to enjoy their honeymoon, or\r\nperhaps for their first family holiday, this is an interesting approach\r\ntowards the profiles of your target group.<\/strong> <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The\r\ndisadvantage of this method is that you cannot be sure that these opinions can\r\nbe related to basic booking information. Some people will share their opinion\r\nanonymously, whereas other will share their opinion based on their own\r\nexperience, without wanting to go into detail regarding their preferences.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Thus, the\r\ninformation obtained via social media and reputation management portals is very\r\npractical, but it does not, however, ensure that quality data is obtained, nor\r\nthat it can be verified with the guest\u2019s personal data.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Automatic data capture via WiFi<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Thanks to\r\ntechnological advances in the hotel sector, technology facilitates internal\r\nhotel management processes, including customer data capture.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

One of the more efficient options is automatic data capture via WiFi<\/a>.<\/strong> That is to stay, installing a software that gathers data from each guest, when connecting to the WiFi network installed in the establishment. This enables the hotel to capture guest data upon arrival at the hotel, during their stay and when leaving the establishment.<\/strong> <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

These data\r\ninclude common characteristics of the booking, but also facilitates the\r\nrecording of guest interactions with the hotel, mobile phone usage and which\r\nmodel they use, additional services requested, etc. This is all carried out\r\nusing a system that complies with the GDPR and consequently, respects guest\r\nprivacy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Data\r\ncapture via WiFi therefore facilitates quality, verified data capture<\/strong>,\r\nin compliance with the GDPR and which enhance the current guest information.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This information may be further enriched upon implementation of the PMS<\/a> data in order to ensure more accurate client profiles, which facilitate a greater understanding of the target audience. At the same time, this facilitates a more accurate segmentation when it comes to marketing campaigns and, ultimately, improves loyalty and direct sales ratios.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Capturing guest data is the strategy which best enables your hotel to get to know the target group and improve your services by adapting them to suit guest preferences. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[49,11,28,59],"class_list":["post-2918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hotel-technology","tag-guestmaker","tag-database","tag-hotel-data","tag-pms"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2918"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14779,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2918\/revisions\/14779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotelinking.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}