Geotargeting in Hospitality: How Hotels Are Offering Hyper-Personalized Experiences

With geotargeting in hospitality, hotels can deliver personalized travel experiences to guests that extend far outside traditional customer service. No more generic promotions or one-size-fits-all deals – hotels are using geofencing in hotels to engage guests by their physical location at the moment. Be it sending a special offer as a guest walks into the lobby providing location-based marketing for hotels (or helping them navigate through a resort that takes all day to walk through) this technology is making hospitality smarter and more salient.

With more and more companies in the hotel business leveraging AI for a more personalized guest and customer experience, it is clear that geotargeting is a trend that is going nowhere.

What Is Hyper-Personalization in Hospitality?

The first step to understanding geotargeting in hospitality is to know what is hyper-personalization in hospitality and its importance. From basic personalization, we evolve to hyper-personalization—utilizing real-time data, artificial intelligence and intelligent hospitality tech to cater to guests at all touchpoints.

A hotel that just recalls a guest’s preference for a king-sized bed provides standard personalization. However, a hotel that sends a spa discount to a guest as soon as they enter the wellness area is using geofencing in hotels to create ultra-personalized experiences. Now, this sort of AI for hotels is transforming guest engagement.

Smart hospitality technology is ushering in a new wave of adoption. The global geofencing market in 2023 is expected to be fairly modest, despite an overall current-year projection of USD 912.14 million value.

Geotargeting in hospitality is proving very effective; businesses practicing geofencing have seen an 86% growth in the clientele base as location-based marketing gets more precise.

How Geotargeting Is Transforming the Hospitality Industry

Smart Geotargeting in Hospitality: Revolutionizing Guest Satisfaction & Revenue Generation.

Here are some of the ways they’re doing it:

1. Location-Based Marketing for Hotels

One of the significant advantages of geotargeting in the field of hospitality is embedding this action in real time. Instead of bombarding guests with promotions that may not interest them, smart hospitality technology helps hotels send relevant offerings based on a guest’s exact location.

For example:

• A guest walking by the spa gets a push offer for 20% off a massage in exchange for a personalized travel experience.
• A customer checks into a new city and receives a message about an exclusive room upgrade deal at a local hotel.
• A recently checked-in guest receives a discount on a future reservation.
• This segmented promotion also increases engagement and more direct bookings.

2. Geofencing in Hotels for Seamless Check-Ins

No one wants the queue at the front desk. For instance, geofencing can enable automated hotel check-ins. When guests arrive, they can be notified on their mobile devices to check in and instantly get a digital room key.

It also aids in reducing operational costs while improving the personalized travel experience. And in the case of the hotel industry, when they are using AI in the hospitality industry, those hotels that have automated check-ins are already a step towards enhanced guest satisfaction and efficiency.

3. Smart Hospitality Technology for Safety and Restricted Access

Geofencing in hotels isn’t just about marketing—it’s also about smart hospitality technology that enhances safety. Hotels can use geofencing to:

• Keep off-limits areas where only staff have access like kitchens or maintenance rooms.
• Send real-time safety notifications to guests during emergencies.
• If necessary, direct guests to the nearest emergency exit.

For example, Mapsted provides geofencing solutions to ensure guests don’t stray into off-limits regions, as well as immediate indoor navigation in emergencies.

4. AI in the Hotel Industry for Indoor Navigation

Big resorts, casinos and conference hotels can be confusing to navigate. AI-driven indoor navigation uses smart hospitality technology to enable guests to navigate inside the building via blue-dot step-by-step directions—just like Google Maps, but on the inside.

So with geotargeting (in hospitality) hotels can:

• Assist guests in finding their way from room to the pool, spa or gym with minimal effort.
• Help business travellers locate their booths inside a conference venue in the hotel.
• Free up guests’ time by making it clear where amenities, meeting rooms and dining locations are.

5. “Where’s My Car?” – Making Parking Hassle-Free

One of the most interesting uses of geofencing in hotels is helping guests find their parked cars. While a big hotel’s parking garage can be intimidating, Mapsted’s “Where’s My Car?” feature allows guests to find their vehicle within seconds. This is a specific type of smart hospitality technology that helps you solve a less-than-ideal Airbnb experience that guests commonly encounter.

Hospitality Industry Trends: How Hotels Are Using Geotargeting to Stay Ahead

In Hospitality geotargeting need not be an added luxury anymore but will soon become a necessity. AI in hotel industry and location-based marketing for hotels become one of vital hospitality industry trends as hotels are already battling for guests.

The major hotel brands are already adopting these strategies. 

Real-World Examples of Geofencing in Hospitality and Retail

Geofencing isn’t a theory — it’s already delivering value across the hospitality and retail sectors. Below are three examples of these businesses leveraging geotargeting in hospitality — and successful, location-based marketing for hotels to boost engagement and revenue.

Domino’s Pizza: Local Offers for Hotel Guests

Domino’s Pizza used geofencing in hotels by creating virtual boundaries around several hotel properties. When visitors crossed the threshold of these zones, they were given tailored travel experiences in the form of pizza deals based on their location. This strategy, in turn, helped Domino’s earn the attention of travellers in search of convenient dining options, working to drive sales while taking advantage of guest needs for quick and convenient food. It’s a classic example of taking hotel location-based marketing outside the hotel to its neighbours.

HotelTonight: How to Spontaneously Book with Geofencing

HotelTonight, a popular last-minute hotel booking platform, has rolled out a geofencing option, dubbed “Rate Drop.” After 3 p.m., travellers within a specified radius of participating hotels would get immediate alerts about special discounts, with savings of 10 percent to 40 percent on the rooms offered. In operating geotargeting in hospitality, HotelTonight not only prompted spontaneous bookings but assisted hotels in filling empty hotel rooms, affordably producing higher occupancy rates. This was an excellent illustration of AI in the hotel industry to maximize revenue without compromising guest convenience.

Example of Reverse Geofencing: The North Face: Fueling Foot traffic

Although The North Face is not in the hospitality industry, they successfully utilized geofencing technology to increase retail sales, a method hotels could adopt. The company also implemented geotargeting — setting virtual perimeters around its store locations and sending targeted ads to mobile devices when they were within a 1.5-mile radius of a store. Proximity-based marketing helps increase footfall like never before and that’s the best example of how hospitality technology and retail strategies can seamlessly blend to give the experience of a lifetime.

The Future of Geotargeting in Hospitality

The hospitality industry is changing and geotargeting in hospitality is right at the foreground of that change. Location-driven marketing for hotels based on geofencing, leveraging geofencing in hotels for security and even artificial intelligence-based indoor navigation have become new benchmarks with this technology.

As guests are seeking smarter and more personalized travel experiences, those hotels that will offer smart hospitality technology will stand out from their competitors. Artificial Intelligence in the hotel industry isn’t just about automating for efficiency — it’s about ensuring each guest feels that the hotel experience has been created specifically for them.

Geo-boundaries are one of the newest and fastest-growing hospitality industry trends, where experts say the geofencing market is projected to reach $3.55 billion by 2031. With businesses that are using location-based marketing reporting an 86% increase in customer base, it is evident that this technology is transforming the guest experience.

Geotargeting in hospitality isn’t ahead of the hospitality industry trends — it’s driving the future of travel. If you found this blog helpful, please read our blog on “The Perks of Using Geotargeting Technology” or watch our video on What Is Geofencing? to learn more.