Hotel neuromarketing to accelerate hotel recovery in a post pandemic period

Starting by the end: does it work?. Yes, it does.

Neuromarketing is an emerging marketing concept that uses neurosciences techniques to know how our brain reacts to marketing stimuli.

The term of neuromarketing was initially coined by the Nobel Prize winner, Ale Smidts, in 2002 and defines it as“the study of the cerebral mechanism to understand the consumer’s behaviour in order to improve the marketing strategies”.

Top hotel chains as SWIS?TEL, part of Accor Group, are already using neuromarketing techniques to optimize their guest experience.

It is proven that these tools improve RevPar and brand value.

In other areas, such as politics, neuromarketing is widely used having a decisory weight. Just remember Obama or Biden campaigns.

Neuromarketing is located right at the middle in this Economics + Neuroscience + Psychology Triangle. (Source Thomas Zoega Ramsey)

As I mentioned in a recent University speech,

"a growing sustainability hotel demand and a more sensible tourist are two key drivers for the current tourism industry and the future hospitality stakeholders".

A few companies as HOTELNEUROMARKETING develop specialized solutions to optimize tourist mind stimuli and taking the best actions for your hotel marketing and operations. This is highly relevant and necessary to understand what is happening in a post pandemic context, how this has affected to tourists priorities, hotel operations and future generations.

The tourist decision making process

By looking at brain activity while making a decision,?researchers could predict?what choice people would make 7-10 seconds before they themselves were even aware of having made a decision. This means that even when people think they are making a conscious, logical, decision, chances are that they aren’t aware that they’ve already made a decision and that it was unconscious. So, does this mean that we a tourist is making an online booking or buying an extra service, decision was already taking before even thinking about it?.

Neuromarketing gives the answer. But it is a fact: we aren’t even aware of our own process.

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People need to feel in order to decide

If tourist can’t feel emotions, then he won′t make decisions - thanks to the?ventro-medial pre-frontal cortex?(or ‘vmPFC’).

The vmPFC is part of the prefrontal cortex, i.e. the front of the brain. It is important in regulating fear, a key point in a post pandemic period. Other parts of the brain (in particular the amygdala) tell us when we should be afraid and what we should be afraid of. The amygdala is where “conditioned” fear responses are born and perpetuated.?The vmPFC, in contrast, has an opposite role. It mitigates conditioned fear. It stops us from continuing to be afraid in certain situations. When the vmPFC is active then we are able to let go of conditioned fears. As a result, we will be able to make a decision.

At this point we should just assume that all decisions involve emotions. Rather than just making logical arguments to persuade, tourists, and people in general, are more likely to persuade to take an action if we understand how they are feeling about the decision and feed their feeling.

Why are we using neuromarketing to understand hotel consumers??

Well, it's pretty simple actually.?Traditional methods are using surveys, interviews, focus groups, where people?are overtly and consciously reporting on their experiences and thoughts.?On the other side, the unconscious side of tourist behaviour?is largely unmeasured in traditional methods.

Neuromarketing applied to tourism and hospitality has the potential to understand the unconscious?drivers of choice in a tourist.

For example, unconscious mind can reveal important details about the hotel booking process and consumer behaviour in a digital environment.

Neuromarketing techniques applied to hotel industry:

-fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) is measuring the tourist brain’s activity by detecting the oxygen level in blood flow;

-EEG (Electroencephalography) measures and records the electrical activity of the tourist brain;

-SST (Steady State Topography) measures and records the brain’s activity during digital ads, website campaigns, etc;

-MEG (Magneto Encephalography) offer information about the tourist brain activity by using a magnetic field. It has high temporal and spatial resolution;

-Respiratory Rate means the number of breaths usually taken during one minute;

-Heart Rate means the number of heartbeats usually taken during one minute;

-Galvanic Skin Response or Skin Conductance measures the changes in the electrical properties of the skin, depending on the level of moisture;

-Eye Tracking Method, which tracks where the eyes are looking at. Highly relevant when analizing the digital booking process, or the real impact of a physical advertisement.

All the above neuromarketing techniques increase bookings and brand value by optimizing digital hotel guest experience so that in-house guest experience.

Companies as EcohotelProjects, whose origins come from the ECO engineering, sustainability & FF&E, and Hotelneuromarketing, focused on the tourist mind to optimize hotel marketing actions, don't forget that key points in the hotel value chain show that guest experience does not start at the hotel main entrance but at home, from the very booking decision process at their PCs or TTOOs. And knowing the tourist key decision drivers and delivering the right experiences from the hotel website to the hotel facilities are the keys to increase the Client Life Value so that the Hotel Brand Value.

There are numerous studies that show that brand memory is a really crucial?component in how we perceive brands, but also how they imbue value and?affect the way in which a tourist will perceive and enjoy a product and their relation with a hotel brand.

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Takeaways:

• We, at hotels and tourism industry, are already in the path towards recovery at international level.
• Neurosciences have advanced dramatically last decade.
• Digital channels have been accelerated by the pandemic and younger generations are used to them.
• Younger generations, the basis of the tourism for the future are willing to pay more for solutions which protect the environment. They are more sensible towards nature.
• Main hotel and tourism companies are already investing in sustainable hotels and engineering solutions to move towards a net zero carbon print.
• Sustainability and design can work together
• At hotels and tourism we need to deal with a new tourist mindset, building trust and managing emotions

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Hector De Castro is an experienced executive and University professor with entrepreneurial mindset whose goal is innovating to add a different value to eco luxury hotel industry, always promoting sustainability and social values.

19+ years experience making hospitality companies grow in The Caribbean, Europe and SE Asia. PhD cand. in Strategic Marketing and Hotel Neuromarketing, Global EMBA from top?IE Business School, BA (Hons) in Legal Trans., Dipl. in Business Admin, PMP, Ms in Hotel Management.

Founder at EcoHotelProjects and HotelNeuromarketing; co founder of Exener Group; President at International Luxury Eco Hotel Association (ILEHA); professor at Hotel & Tourism University (Cancun, Mexico). Traveller.

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