What does Mental Health Awareness mean for the future of Hotels?
Hoteliers all over the world are facing unprecedented challenges that none of us has dealt with before.
Today’s hotel premises
The hotel industry today is facing some unique challenges never experienced before. Everyone now has to work together to build a visceral understanding of how digital marketing can create collective confidence.
We are in a situation where we have to implement digital marketing strategies that transform mindsets within hotel teams and consumers.
Imagine a stream of customers you have experienced thousands of times and that your hotel knows by its heart. Suddenly one day it all vanishes overnight.
Revenue streams are disappearing, employees have to be furloughed or laid off, hotel owners are struggling to meet their obligations. Hotels are facing the dire situation of having to close their doors for good.
Your hotel has never been in this unfamiliar territory before, and there is no blueprint telling you how to get out of this challenging situation.
As hoteliers, we have challenged ourselves to think outside the traditional box in ways that allow us to see things we have never seen before and identify customers that were blocked from our view.
We have to bring out new inspirations and confidence and help hotel teams feel enlightened in a new process that embraces value innovation and a growth mindset.
Creating a new high-value stream of customers
This is not the time for hotels to follow their traditional marketing strategies. For many hotels, there is just not enough demand now.
What is critical for hotels now is that the boundaries of the current state of travelers are a product of people’s mental states.
Hotels have to accept that these boundaries are not a law of nature and are open to change.
And the most important change today is that all communication happens within digital channels.
And the first step of creating a digital marketing strategy that reconstructs new markets and inspires confidence is to understand and implement mental health awareness.
Mental health awareness
Hotels have to understand that though it is extremely important and critical today with financial aid from our governments this is still just a band-aid solution.
The whole chain that supports the eco-system and infrastructure of hotels is now broken.
We all support and understand the urgency and importance of financial aid to the hotel industry now. I will continue to send reminders to my state representative in the senate and congress about this.
But financial aid by itself will not fix underlying consumer concerns at the moment.
This is why your hotel funnels now start with understating these mental health states;
- Cognitive perception
- Affective Intent
- Behavioral action
COGNITIVE PERCEPTION
Is linked to the highest possible quality of interaction with a service like a hotel website.
80% of human information is captured through the eyes. Our visual perceptions are impacted by optical impulses.
Information is obtained through these senses;
- Listening
- Seeing
- Smelling
- Tasting
- Feeling
Text, text structure, and -format, pictures, animations, graphics, videos, chatbots are important characteristics of hotel websites and interactive applications.
AFFECTIVE INTENT
Can be a booking experience that is related to the effects of the perceived values of a related product and purchase intention.
VALUES
- Green
- Functional
- Emotional
- Aesthetic
- Social
- Self-expressive
Customer intent gets stronger with a positive attitude toward a product.
Cognitive and affective attitudes are significant predictors of consumers’ online booking intentions.
Key hotel website attributes influence cognitive and affective attitudes.
BEHAVIORAL ACTION
Represents the customer’s attitude and a reflection of their intentions.
If the customer believes that the behavior will make a positive difference in their life, then it’s more likely that they will perform a relevant behavior.
Target (product, content, or whatever the behavior is to be acted upon)
Action (booking (direct), log-in (loyal customer), communicate (chatbot), the act we want our customer to take)
Context (in the car, at their computer, in office, at the airport, the environment of the action)
Time (on Mondays, in the morning, every day, on every visit)
The key for hotels is to get the customer to hold an intention to carry out a specific relevant behavior.
The future will respond to your mindset
For most of my life, I always tended to focus my brain on a fixed mindset. Where I believed that the way things are right now is the way we are always going to be – and there’s no hope to ever changing that.
Over the years I have been more open to learning more about myself and started to dig more into my struggles.
As a result of my fixed mindset, I tended to avoid challenges when they appeared. And I typically gave up very easily. My primary focus was on the outcome never the process.
When I looked at other people, I compared myself with and saw their success I felt more threatened than anything else.
And forget about it I got any negative feedback they could have knocked my conscious it would not make any difference.
As a result of this, I ended up creating my own fixed mindset safe zone. I found myself comfortable in this safe zone. And it was not hard producing any excuses anytime this safe zone was challenged.
I will be the first to admit change is not easy. For years I have been reading self-help books and taking self-help courses.
Growth mindset
It took time but I started discovering that I was getting a much better focus on the processes.
Eventually, I discovered Dr. Carol S. Dweck’s book ‘Mindset – How You Can Fulfill Your Potential’. This book helped me put all the self-help information in a relevant context.
Now I embrace challenges and persevere in the face of failures. And my skills, talent, and abilities can be developed through effort.
I am now working on a growth mindset.
Today as we all are facing one of the most unprecedented challenges ever experienced it is more important than ever that we take time to focus on the processes and not so much the outcome.
S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goals
S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goals are still important and highly relevant.
Today it is very important for me what I learn during the process.
By next year we will have vaccines available that will allow consumers to travel again.
We as hoteliers need to be prepared and ready to provide new unique experience offers both for employees and travelers.
Implementing mental health awareness programs as part of your hotel’s ongoing training will shape a unique relationship with both your employees and travelers.
Whatever you don’t get stuck in your fixed mindset safe zone believing the governments will help you solve your challenges.
Through my journey, I learned that looking for that perfect action often led me to perfect inaction.
Today I am working on implementing more imperfect action into both my personal and business aspects.
A journey towards a growth mindset gives a greater sense of free will. I have finally understood William Ernest Henley’s poem ‘Invictus’.
‘Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods maybe
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.’
Break new digital marketing barriers by implementing mental health awareness
For me, this represents a process to better understand hoteliers and consumers during a very challenging time for all of us.
And we see shifts among hoteliers being more open and willing to utilize digital solutions to become more transparent with both employees and travelers.
If your hotel wants to learn more about this process join us at our Facebook group – Hotel Social Media Community to get life lessons that cover the Future of Digital Marketing for Hotels.
Related article: Digital Hotel Marketing A Paradigm Shift Towards Enabling New Travel Markets
We are in this together!
I need to let you all know that we are in on this together. If you need to vent, talk, cry, or just have some to talk with then I am here listening. Since I am working part-time at the local Kroger, I will to the best of my ability to work it out around my schedule.
But you can reach me here:
Email: hotelblogger@aremorch.com
Also, join us at our Facebook Group – Hotel Social Media Community
We will get through this unprecedented event together! #hotelstrong #hospitalitystrong
For any specific information on COVID-19, I recommend go to CDC, WHO, AHLA, AAHOA, and HSMAI. Also, follow information from your local authorities.
Also, follow information from your local authorities.
NOTE
The hotel industry is still facing some uphill challenges. Make sure you follow their guidelines and say THANK YOU to those that now show a unique spirit to serve and help us all get through this!! #hotelstrong #hospitalitystrong
About Are Morch
Are Morch is a digital transformation coach helping hotels open their digital front door, reimagine their processes and culture, and transform experiences in a fast-paced world!
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