The Digital User Experience of Hotels is Still So Pre-Pandemic

For those of you who have never heard of Jade Mountain, your lives are about to change forever. Consistently ranked among the top resorts in the world, this is one of the many hotels around the world whose beauty can literally take your breath away. The images simply can't do it justice. So in 2021, in the age of virtual and augmented reality, 360 degree virtual tours and professional quality user generated content, why are we still providing potential guests with such an un-sexy user experience?

Nick and Karolin Troubetzkoy, creators of Jade Mountain Resort and Anse Chastanet (its sister property), have built paradise on Earth. I had the honor of staying there for one night when Regatta was building a national booking engine for St. Lucia in conjunction with the St. Lucia Hotel & Tourism Association. I'll never forget it.

On Friday July 30th, I was invited to participate in a Cornell University roundtable about revenue management. A suggestion was made to allow consumers to see a layout of the hotel and to choose their room during the booking process to create upsell opportunities.

Hilton broke new ground by allowing guests to do just that since 2014, but surely more can be done to improve this process. Friday's discussion got me thinking that our capabilities to enhance the user experience has been significantly augmented since this functionality was first introduced.

Here is a screenshot of the booking screen on the Jade Mountain website:

Note that a 7-night stay in December costs between $10,000 and $23,000. Can you think of anything else in this world on which you would spend $23,000 based on a 1-inch thumbnail photo and a description that includes "1 King-hairdryer-Robes-Safe"? While the user can click an icon to open a photo gallery to see 2 somewhat larger images of this suite, it simply isn't enough, and Jade Mountain uses one of the most widely used engines on the market.

Now, here are 3 random photos that I easily found on Instagram:

I don't know about you, but I want to be those people! These photos are much more likely to make me want to book than the official photos featured in the booking engine. Why not give the hotel the capability to choose photos from Instagram and incorporate them into the booking process? The idea that guests don't want to see images of other people in the room they are booking may be outdated. Images on social media have become a significant motiving factor for people to choose destinations, specific hotels, or even specific rooms.

11 years ago, an amazing team of people and I set out to provide the industry with better alternative to optimize conversions. While we came a long way with usability and functionality that the industry had never seen before until our acquisition in 2016, a significant opportunity exists today to provide the industry with a new booking platform that provides the user with a much more enhanced experience that would justify a $10,000 to $20,000 price tag. If I were Nick and Karolin Troubetzkoy, I would be extremely frustrated that the technology still simply does not exist to effectively convey to the potential guest just how stunning the experience of staying at Jade Mountain really is at the moment they are considering a click on that "Book Now" button.

I should be able to virtually walk around that room... and I mean, that specific room, not just that room type. I should be able to virtually wade into the infinity pool and see what the view from the edge looks like. The suites at Jade Mountain only have 3 walls, meaning that while laying in your luxurious canopy bed, you are looking at your own personal infinity pool (inside your suite) which looks out over a cliffside with a view of the famous "Pitons" mountain peaks to the left, and the beach to the right. The infinity pool is only half covered by the ceiling, which means that when it rains, it is literally raining in your room. Imagine sleeping in the cool island open air to the sound of rain falling into the water of your infinity pool. I challenge you to find a more romantically stunning experience. Why not have a button that allows me to hear the sounds of the suite? The hummingbirds just outside during the day, or the pitter patter of rainfall in the pool, to convince me to push that book now button.

All of the technology exists today to make this happen. Is it a good idea to provide so much potential distraction during the booking process? Maybe not. But there are tools available that can be used to measure exactly what the effect of these enhancements would have on usability and conversions. Hospitality begins as soon as a user clicks on a hotel's website. It is our responsibility as hoteliers to adopt a philosophy of "Continuous Product Design" in which we are constantly experimenting and enhancing the #UX to improve the exploration, search and booking process. As an industry we tend to focus on cutting cost in times of crisis and that is a prudent approach to surviving the pandemic. But let us not lose site of what we could be doing to drive more inspiration and direct top line revenue.

As travel rages back, do we want the world to return to hotel websites and find the same mediocre user experience that we gave them before the pandemic shook our industry to the core? This is a call to action for booking engine providers to step up and incorporate all of the latest technology to enhance the user experience, or to prepare to be outshined by new entrants who see an opportunity to give both hotels and consumers what they want. For hoteliers, if and when this new technology is available and can empirically lift conversions, be prepared to pay a premium for it. When hotels push vendors to provide technology at rock bottom prices, it leaves the technology provider with little capital to invest into the product to provide a better customer experience for the hotel and its guests. We need to work together to make this happen.

Disclaimer: The views reflected in this article are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Jade Mountain.