069 – James Nannos of Stay Wanderful – Surprise, Delight, Return

Travel Is Your Business

Acquiring and retaining hospitality customers with surprise-and-delight rewards…

James Nannos, Director of Hotel Sales & Partnerships for Stay Wanderful (a direct booking tool to increase guest conversion and provide surprise- and-delight rewards) joins John Matson and Bess Chapman in the MouthMedia Network studio powered by Sennheiser.

In this episode:

• How independent hospitality brands should think about retaining customers
• Independent hospitality chains don’t have a powerful distribution network
• Tangible guest rewards, differentiated experiences to guests, and then continuing conversation after the fact
• How can independents get in there and make a difference
• Most prefer experiences and benefits to points, most won’t get value out of points
• Personalizing small but highly perceived value rewards
• Most want to choose rewards
• If Stay Wanderful is in many properties, how that helps still customers choose a specific property
• Raising the bar of service won’t dilute the opportunity
• Stay Wanderful makes it look like a hotel is giving you the rewards, like a white label solution for that hotel
• The only business where customers are sleeping in palace of business—you must capture them while they are there
• Independent properties fighting uphill battle
• A fee-for-success model
• The importance of fining out the real decision-maker of a hospitality property or brand
• Why hotels are operating off of antiquating systems, integrating into an old tech stack
• The helpfulness of the Cornell network
• The impact of military methodology and experience on entrepreneurialism and how it connects with hotel business

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