Guest involvement
_ _ Christopher Warren

Personalised Guest Activity Suggestions for Small Tourist Accommodations Businesses

Weather is the essential ingredient for a happy holiday, and a happy holiday makes a satisfied guest who will recommend you. So designing great itineraries that best suit the weather and guest type helps boost your business. The key is to match the activity with the right season, best time of day and in the right weather so the guests are not too hot, wet or cold in the process. A beautiful holiday memory is one when the moment is right!

Follow these steps below and My Green Butler will do the rest by delivering personalised itineraries 24/7, 365 days a year, whatever the weather.

First consider all the different types of activities you have, both at your accommodation (inside and outside), and at your destination. Now group them (these are examples you can change titles as you feel appropriate):

  • Onsite inside
  • Onsite outside
  • Food & wine
  • Events
  • Relaxed nature
  • Wildlife
  • Adventure
  • Spiritual
  • Spa
  • Family connecting
  • Shopping & markets
  • Eco activities

Second, think about your guest types and what there is for them to enjoy within the categories you have just identified. Does this change by season and bad weather affect their enjoyment? What ideas do you have for bad weather activities? For example, you would not recommend visiting an old village that has no shade in the height of the day in summer, but you would recommend visiting an excellent local museum when it is raining and cold.

Use the table below to start planning your ideas. Once you have done this you can go to the next step.

Develop your personalised itinerary ideas FIELD2 FIELD3 FIELD4 FIELD5 FIELD6 FIELD7
Type Adults, family, kids Using Precipipation Temperature Activity
Onsite undercover Family in-room wet Cold Borrow the play tent,hot chocolate & marshmallows by the fire
in-room wet Mild Read a book in the room with the windows open to hear the rain
in-room shower Warm Sit on the verandah and listen to the frogs
Adults, family, kids in-room dry Hot Enjoy a siesta
Adults, family, kids Public areas dry Cold Collect pinecones for the fire
Public areas shower Mild Listen to the rain on the roof
Public areas dry Warm Enjoy a spot in the shade to watch nature go by
Adults Public areas rain Hot Sit in the summerhouse with a cool sundowner drink
insert your ideas
insert your ideas
insert your ideas
On site outside Restaurant wet Cold Describe in the way that suits your property
lounge wet Hot
Spa shower Cold
Pool dry Hot
insert your ideas dry Cold
insert your ideas rain Hot
insert your ideas shower Hot
Food & Wine restaurant rain Cold Describe in the way that suits your property
Cafw shower Cold
Breaksfast dry Cold
Afternoon Tea dry Hot
Cooking school shower Cold
insert your ideas dry Cold
insert your ideas rain Hot
insert your ideas shower Hot
insert your ideas dry Hot
insert your ideas dry Cold
insert your ideas dry Cold
insert your ideas rain Hot
insert your ideas shower Hot
Events Local Markets shower Cold Describe in the way that suits your property
Music Festival dry Warm
insert your ideas rain Extreme Cold
insert your ideas shower Extreme Hot
insert your ideas dry Warm
Relaxed nature Nature reserve dry Cold Describe in the way that suits your property
Interpretive centre shower Warm
Sit by the river dry Hot
insert your ideas dry Cold
insert your ideas shower Mild
insert your ideas dry Cold
insert your ideas rain Mild
insert your ideas dry Hot
insert your ideas shower Cold
insert your ideas dry Mild
Wildlife Birdwatching rain Cold Describe in the way that suits your property
insert your ideas shower Mild
insert your ideas dry Warm
insert your ideas dry Hot
insert your ideas rain Mild
insert your ideas shower Warm
insert your ideas dry Hot
Adventure Skydiving dry Cold/Mild Describe in the way that suits your property
Hot air ballooning dry Warm/Hot
insert your ideas shower All
insert your ideas dry Cold/Mild
insert your ideas dry Warm Hot
insert your ideas wet All
insert your ideas wet Cold/Mild
insert your ideas dry Warm Hot
Others insert your ideas dry Cold/Mild Describe in the way that suits your property
insert your ideas rain Warm/Hot
insert your ideas shower All
insert your ideas dry Cold/Mild
insert your ideas dry Warm Hot
insert your ideas rain Cold/Mild
insert your ideas shower Warm/Hot
insert your ideas dry All

Table of contents

Description

I have already prepared a selection of Activity suggestions for guests. They need to be modified to your accommodation and location. Use the weather  and guest type settings to guide you on what to say. Be specific you have to make your point with 88 characters.

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When

The daily sheets provide a whole day programme, but the mobile app is updated hourly so the recommendations appear throughout the day and you can therefore offer time relevant. Like star gazing or visiting jazz clubs for night time.

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Season

Use the season changes to help you fine tune recommendations which work with the climate at that time of year. This allows you to put forward places and things to do that are at their best at that time.

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Who

There are several guest types to choose from so you can be very specific and this helps create a great personalise itinerary. You can duplicate messages and then make minor modifications to save time.

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Outside temperature

You can select from the full range of outside temperature options. From the examples provided you will note that in many cases we have chosen to channel visitors to selective offsite activities when it is not too hot or too cold as they might be an uncomfortable experience in extreme weather, but then we offer alternative in adverse weather. This is because going out in the middle of the day when it is extreme temperatures is obviously not ideal for young families or those who use mobility devices e.g. wheelchairs or pregnant women, older visitors, or international visitors who will find it hard to acclimatise to your local weather.

Use this to your advantage. Think of great things to do in extreme temperatures either in your accommodation, or temperature controlled environments e.g. cinemas or ten pin bowling. This way on very cold or hot days your guests’ itinerary will be nicely customised to the weather conditions enabling guests to have a more pleasant visit. They will appreciate your thoughtfulness.

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Precipitation

Rainy weather can often put a real dampener on a holiday, particularly if it is the annual family vacation or a long planned romantic break. Planning for such events and offering ideas may make the difference of a GREAT holiday or a disappointment. Spending time researching places to go when t is wet or devising great ideas at your accommodation will strongly add to the guest’ experience. Use the ‘Wet’, ‘Dry’ and ‘Showers’ options to stimulate your creatively – your guests will be impressed and thank you for them.

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Day of the week

Not all restaurants, clubs of attractions are open seven days, so use this feature to ensure your recommendation comes up on the right day.

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Accessible

The ‘Accessible’ options give you a great way to really help all your guests.  You can choose to list the activities in three Accessible ways. First as either as both ‘Yes/No’ so that guests identified as requiring or not requiring Accessible tourism can visit these activities. Second as ’Yes’ for Accessibility so that you can personalise the message and highlight any specific amenity which might be useful e.g. wheelchair accessible toilets. Thirdly you can select ‘No’ to promote an activity not suitable for visitors who require special needs e.g. horse riding.

Remember you identify Accessible guests in the check-in page. Use it wisely. If a guests who is 30 weeks pregnant makes a booking  or grandparents in their 80s re visiting you can tick ‘Accessible’ and provided more thoughtful itineraries.

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Diet

Increasing numbers of people are choosing to be vegan or need specific diets for health reasons. Also our multi-cultural and international travelling visitors also have special dietary needs e.g. vegetarian, kosher and halal. A great way to build guest satisfaction is to delight by customising food recommendations. It takes a little research to learn what local cafes and restaurants can offer, but many also want to appeal more to their patrons and are creating more refined menus. They will appreciate your attention to details which I have found very well may mean they give your guests special attention.

You can also use the dietary requirements as a way to further customise some suggestions, for example promoting places where alcohol is a key cultural activity e.g. pubs, select the ‘Halal’ option. This is of course a generalisation and your selection could be based on the atmosphere and tone.

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Rotation

For variety’s sake it is best to have a variety of ideas, and then rotate them, rather than seeing the same idea everyday

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URL

Guests using your mobile app version of My Green Butler can click the URL links to the activities you recommend. This lets them open a new page and learn more. Your analytics will record the number of click throughs and show inform you ow which attractions guests are more interested in. So it helps you refine your itineraries which in tur will increase your guests’ satisfaction.

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Latitude & Longitude

Open a new internet Browser and go to Google Maps and type in your address. Place the cursor over the spot you are located and right click and select ‘What’s Here’. At the bottom of the screen you will see a card with coordinates. Latitude coordinate is between -90 and 90  and Longitude coordinate is between -180 and 180. Enter these details into the My Green Butler boxes. Then save.

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To read more about WISE Sustainability’s My Green Butler service for guest engagement, click here.

Author

Christopher Warren