Revolutionising Digital Experiences for Multi-Destination Hospitality Brands

With affluent travellers now far broader in terms of demographic and purchasing decisions coming down to the finest of details, hospitality brands need to be able to reach farther afield for their prospective guests. And while innovative modes of travel are becoming rapidly high-speed, none are yet quicker than the internet – making digital a brand's best channel of discovery.

However, when creating a digital experience platform for a luxury hospitality brand, an ‘uncomfortable’ tension is often ignored – the need to balance a brand’s desire for bold creativity and storytelling, with a business need for ‘conversion’ and performance-oriented thinking. The majority prioritise the latter – results over storytelling – making for flat experiences that lack meaning and long-term engagement. For the few focused on the former, tangible effects can be few and far between. For multi-destination hospitality brands, the two must be equal. A balance Matter Of Form’s multi-disciplinary teams strike brilliantly, time and time again.

Balancing The Brand Umbrella and Individual Hotels

Everyone knows The Cadogan, Hotel Cipriani, the Orient Express. Be it through dinner party stories, headlines or experiences firsthand, theirs are names that carry cultural weight and social significance. But it may come as a surprise that Belmond, the master brand behind them wasn’t always as well known – as is often the case with multi-destination hospitality.

Beyond ops and infrastructure, the distinction between brand hotels and independent hotels comes down to perception. And the benefits of the former are manifold: master brand recognition and trust, a standardised quality of service, global marketing and distribution, enhanced customer acquisition, standardised operations, increased revenue, customer retention... The list goes on. But with multiple pros comes the challenge of consistent differentiation.

Digital offers a solution for these expansive hospitality ecosystems, where hierarchical brand lines are blurred and it becomes more challenging for those on the ground – GMs, concierges, etc. But it's about balance.

At the beginning of our partnership with Dorchester Collection, the brand had become over-indexed by the names in its portfolio. Needing to harmonise the properties beneath one overarching and outstanding brand and bring the Collection itself to the forefront, our work had to balance building brand equity in Dorchester Collection whilst celebrating the individuality of each destination.

What resulted is a dynamic and nuanced digital experience that unites nine properties, each uniquely renowned, under an overarching brand with just as much personality, prominence and value as the iconic names within it.

Without storytelling, in whatever form it may take, the links between individual properties and the master brand become tenuous. For every site, no matter how sprawling, we must weave through a red thread.

Direct Bookings vs OTAs: Reclaiming Market Share

In this sector, solely relying on the likes of Expedia, TripAdvisor and Booking.com for guest reservations comes at a price: losing control of brand narrative and perception. The digital real estate given to each brand listed on OTAs (online travel agencies), luxury or otherwise, is fairly equal, meaning a five-star hotel could easily slot next to a budget all-inclusive. Distinction here is scarce.

Exclusive reliance on OTAs is the antithesis of modern luxury. By not owning and controlling a brand’s digital channels, the paradigm of value is easily shattered. But they are a brilliant tool for discovery.

An Expedia Group report found that 51 per cent of customers booked through OTAs for their most recent trip, while only 23 per cent booked directly with their hotel. When researching, the disparity gets wider with 80 per cent of travellers using OTAs in the leadup to a purchase compared to 30 per cent using hotel sites. For brands, a dynamic digital experience platform is an opportunity to balance the scales. See OTAs for what they are – your search platform. Your website is your conversion device, a brand tool too.

In our era of digital default, digital is one of the most essential doorways to brand and experience yet it’s frequently an afterthought, rush job or lacklustre workstream. Sites tend to be flat and clinical, lacking any character or point of distinction.

Within luxury especially, brands forgo digital efforts to rest on the laurels of their names or reputation, resulting in stale websites unlikely to capture the clicks of a new generation, market or audience. Cliché in abundance, even some of the sector's most admired marques have optimised sites to death in the race to conversion. According to the same Expedia Group report, travellers consume an average of 303 minutes of travel content in the 45 days prior to booking a trip, flitting between OTAs, brand umbrellas and individual property sites. By not reflecting the product through content and story on digital platforms, the brand – both overarching and individual – is lost in a sea of sameness, as is any chance of long-term engagement.

Of course, conversion is the goal. All hoteliers want to increase direct bookings – alongside other performance metrics. The issue comes when companies neglect any finesse when defining, designing and developing their digital experiences. Sometimes it's a lack of strategy, more often it's a lack of originality. But regurgitating what already exists not only saturates the sea of sameness, it's a disservice to your brand and your audience.

Digital Challenges Facing Multi-Destination Hospitality Groups

• Differentiation – conveying distinctiveness, not just on behalf of the brand but across every location.
• Consistency – closing the gap between the guest experience at each destination and online while preserving brand integrity end-to-end.
• Scalability – facilitating growth as portfolios expand across more and more properties.
• Reach – attracting new types of affluent guests directly.
• Infrastructure – refining information architecture and creating robust user journeys that encourage engagement, conversion and loyalty.

It’s these obstacles our clients run into time and time again when approaching their digital presence, alongside blanket needs to increase price points and direct bookings.

In response, we built a productised Digital Experience Platform (DXP) that consolidates Matter Of Form’s luxury hospitality and travel expertise into a solution that provides an accelerated approach to digital experience design, luxury hospitality web development and multi-channel content delivery, preserving the high quality of craft intrinsic to timeless brands while heightening conversion metrics.

The DXP is specifically designed for multi-site hospitality groups. Flexible, scalable and suited for growth, it’s built for those seeking to expand their portfolio and their digital experience in kind – an enterprise-level CMS for bespoke purposes and brands; tried, tested and relied upon by brands like Red Carnation Hotels, Maxx Royal, Sani Resort and more.

Join the likes of Belmond, Dorchester Collection, Maxx Royal Resorts, Wilderness Red Carnation Hotels, Sani Resort, Accor and more with custom web development and a digital experience platform designed for scale, story and conversion. Get in touch with one of our consultants to discuss our DXP offering via hello@matterofform.com.