In recent years, people no longer travel just to discover and explore a new territory, but increasingly travel to experience an emotion.
This year, travelers are placing high expectations on their journeys and hospitality experiences. They will not settle for mere satisfaction from the service they receive, but they will expect to be emotionally engaged through the authenticity of the experience. After all, after months and months of restrictions, we have had time to dream and now we need to get back to appreciating what surrounds us.
The traveller’s question at this point is: what is my next destination?
Unlike in the past, when it profiled trends year by year, this year the tourism magazine Skift has decided to take a longer-term view of the changes we are experiencing. It has therefore compiled the Megatrends 2021-2025[1] report from which we conclude that:
– travellers will increasingly embrace “slow” tourism, introspective discovery of places and authenticity
– the trend towards proximity tourism, which emerged in 2020, will continue in the coming years, as travellers are increasingly aware that by supporting local commerce and small businesses, they can help to revitalise their local areas
On the basis of this data, in order to effectively reach the guest, it is necessary to touch his heart with your uniqueness. Empathy and value are the two key words you need to focus on in order to stand out and emerge. The concept of value is an intangible and subjective variable, and is perceived by the guest when the experience exceeds the expectations created in the pre-stay phase (for example through internet searches or word of mouth). Creating a valuable guest experience means, therefore, finding the right mix between the physical experience (based on the quality of the product, of the additional services, of the staff, of the company’s image) and the emotional experience – based on the guest’s own feelings and on the empathic relationship with the structure and its people.
So how is it possible to show empathy at a time when we are all still and distant?
In recent months, the digital transformation of culture and tourism has had a strong impact on our lives: it has allowed us to enjoy virtual experiences through the use of technology, immersing us in museums, historical centres and cultural itineraries through evocative storyworlds[2]. The result was an emotional involvement at a distance, which allowed us to keep in touch with the outside world. Every sector had to adapt to this new way of using services and experiences. In particular, the world of hospitality has continued to take care of people by demonstrating its closeness through the integration of digital content. Giacomo Battafarano, GM of the Verdura Resort (RoccoForte Hotels) in Sicily, for example, says [3]
that together with his team he has developed a series of creative ideas online, inviting people to dream about their next trip, proposing recipes and typical cocktails, recommending books set in Sicily and suggesting evocative itineraries off the beaten track.
A photo, a video, a story, leaves open different keys to interpretation that allow each of us to identify with the story and make it our own. Showing empathy towards our audience means creating engaging experiences that stimulate curiosity and imagination. This no longer only concerns leisure guests, but also business guests, who are also looking for memorable and authentic experiences. The challenge now is to amplify the power of storytelling to create a personal and lasting bond with the guest. Selling a property means selling a dream, telling a story, and storytelling stimulates the emotional sphere and creates curiosity. So why not tell our story to our public?
To realize it, we can exploit the potential of digital content and virtual reality, projecting our guest inside the walls of our structure. Let’s tell them the story behind those walls, or the story of the area and the people who live there. In short, let’s tell them who we are and what they will find when they come to us.
Giving our audience an experience of this kind is like giving them a map of our world, giving them a few details of our history, and letting them do their own treasure hunting when they come to visit us. As well as giving our future guests the opportunity to enjoy a pre-stay experience that sparks their imagination and stimulates their curiosity, it is also an opportunity to build the loyalty of regular guests who have already stayed with us, awakening in them the memory of their experience and a desire to return. In fact, the question the tourism professional must be able to answer today is not so much “what makes me choose that establishment?”, but rather “why should I return to that establishment?”.
Storytelling creates an evocative bridge between the teller and the listener. It links the experience to the story and turns it into a memory. Villa Pirandello, in Rome, is an example of the value given to the telling of one’s own story, intertwined with the stories of its guests. Each room has a story book[4] in which each guest can leave a mark through a narrative, a piece of advice, a whisper. They imagined their home as “the place where infinite lives meet and brush up against each other, even if only for a moment”[5], thinking of how many things guests share without knowing it. They wanted, therefore, “to draw and make visible all those silky threads that are woven into Villa Pirandello”.
As well as stimulating the curiosity of potential guests, it is important to nurture and maintain the relationship with regular guests over time. For example, for those who during their stay have given their consent to the use of their personal data, such as their e-mail address and telephone number, we can create short personalised videos on the occasion of their birthday, in which we personally talk to them, offering them an exclusive promotion for when they can return. Or, to thank them for choosing us in the past, we can offer them a different type of room from the one they chose last time, at an affordable rate and including personalised services designed especially for them. And if we want to be even closer, why not organise a virtual coffee? Distance and the current situation mean that people want and need to be listened to and that they take advantage of an opportunity like this to talk about themselves, to let off steam and to express their emotions.
These are the moments when empathy manages to shorten distances. It is a question of finding new ways of paying attention to the guest and developing creativity by valuing authenticity. If we can find the right harmony between innovation and emotion, so that guests identify with our stories and are perhaps even stimulated to create their own, we will have succeeded in building an effective relationship that will encourage them to return to us.
To conclude, a quote from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray:
There is only one thing in the world worse than being the object of conversation, and that is not being the object of conversation.
Francesca Capece
Content editor
Hospite – The Italian Hospitality Academy
[1] https://info.skift.com/hubfs/Skift-Megatrends-2025.pdf
[2] The storyworld represents the narrative universe of the main story in which are deposited contents, characters, objects, but also symbols, imaginary, myths, which can belong both to the world of fiction and to the real one (Klastrup e Tosca, 2004; Ryan, 2014)
[3] https://www.mastermeeting.it/mastermeeting/focus-on/il-turismo-post-covid-19
[4] A storybook is defined as a book containing stories, short stories, or short narratives