Introducing excellent greeting practices at your hotel is an integral part of creating an outstanding guest experience. To make each of your clients feel special, remember that a greeting is their first impression of your brand. HotelFriend’s clients are pushing the limits of what is possible in hospitality – their passion for technological innovation enhances customer loyalty.
In a customer-oriented environment, a flexible approach to greeting styles and technical innovations underscores your hotel's authenticity. Due to this approach, your destination’s values will impress your tourism ambassadors. In this article, we highlight 13 best practices for welcoming and greeting guests to make their hospitality experience memorable.
1. Make Sure Your Lobby Design is Eye-Catching
Floristry is essential for defining your hotel’s brand identity. Fresh flowers in rich textures, vibrant colours, and soothing fragrance bring an exclusive sense of welcome that other details can’t match. They silently speak of care and warmth, becoming an integral part of the hospitality experience. By introducing a natural element into their lobbies, hotels offer tourists a sense of relaxation. Floral arrangements in a hotel lobby, guest room, or spa enhance air quality, boost guest satisfaction and make them happy.
2. Smile at Your Guests
According to Hospitalitynet.org, a friendly smile can enhance your guests’ experience by 22%, make it more memorable, and increase the feeling of being welcome by 51%. Your warmth is likely to extend guest stay and boost their experience — even by making food taste better. Treating your guests like personal visitors will make your facial expression natural and welcoming.
3. Offer a Welcome Refreshment
Greet your guests with a snack and a drink upon arrival, taking their dietary preferences into account. By offering food in HotelFriend PMS, clients can indicate their food preferences before arrival, so you can surprise them with it. Offer your clients a comforting beverage upon their arrival. This small treat will help them unwind after their journey.
4. Foster a Welcoming Culture at Your Destination
To wow your tourism ambassadors, make continuous staff training your top priority. By responding quickly to clients’ needs and offering personalised service, you will turn your hotel into an ambassador of high cultural standards. Receiving and assigning guest requests and managing HotelFriend Employees Management System saves your staff time. In particular, this platform gives a hotel admin access to all system modules. Reception can manage daily operations and room reservations, including employee records, room rates, and documents. The tool also informs staff of the room's readiness status so that guests can feel comfortable at your facility.
5. Engaged Sincerely with Your Guests
Communicating with your guest is the best way to touch their hearts. People like talking about themselves, so your staff should hear them attentively. By devoting time to communication, your staff may lack time to do their administrative work. HotelFriend Property Management software will save your staff significant time by monitoring hotel operations through the Booking Engine, Channel Manager, OTA MessageHub, and Guest Communication via Email and Messages. This software will bring new opportunities for the further development of your hotel.
6. Explain Hotel Special Policies and Procedures
To ensure a stress-free stay for your guests, you should walk them through the hotel's policies and procedures. Hotel rules enhance a comfortable stay through strict quiet hours (e.g., 21:00–07:00), in-room ergonomic workspaces, and high-speed Wi-Fi, among other measures. Studies show that tourists feel more comfortable when special policies are transparent. Communicating policies and procedures upfront helps clients manage their expectations during their stay.
7. Mobile Councierge App for Personalised Service
Anticipating your tourists’ questions even before they ask them is a secret of success in the hospitality industry. Your arrivals may hesitate to ask their questions while you’re welcoming new guests. The HotelFriend Mobile Concierge app can reassure tourists that support is always within their reach. Since this app integrates with the Booking Engine, guests can take complete control of their experience even before they arrive. They can also check in and check out via their laptops and cell phones without standing in lines at the hotel front desk. This Guest app will become a good investment in the development of your hospitality facility.
8. Digital Registration & ID Scan for Identity Verification
Digital registration and ID scanning are operationally intensive stages in a guest journey. With the Mobile Hotel Check-In app, visitors can enjoy a contactless check-in by scanning their passports or IDs and completing documents digitally. Hotels also benefit from using this app by reducing queues, eliminating paperwork, and speeding up check-in. Visitors enjoy a safer and faster check-in experience and create a positive impression from the moment they arrive.
9. Empower Ecosystem at Your Destination
Culinary tourism has become an integral part of the global hospitality industry. It goes beyond merely enjoying local dishes. Food has become an expression of your hotel’s cultural identity. Tourists want to learn the traditions and stories behind what they eat. In fact, gastro-tourism is not just about flavour. It is about cultural richness.
Empowering your hotel and restaurant with the HotelFriend POS Ecosystem allows you to boost your catering service at your destination. The system seamlessly gathers all orders and guests’ food preferences into the cloud and connects them. Visitors may order room delivery, restaurant dining, or takeout just from their rooms. They can also choose their preferred ingredients and the level of roasting to have an enjoyable experience. Catering service has never been so flexible!
10. Train Your Staff Cultural Sensitivity
To enhance client loyalty, you should train your team in cultural sensitivity. Cooking dishes from world cuisines at your hotel is the first step toward making your facility a centre of a positive guest experience. Recognising and respecting your guests' cultural differences is essential for understanding and meeting their needs.
Training in cultural sensitivity in hospitality offers significant benefits to guests. It ensures a more personalised and respectful experience, making them feel appreciated and valued. This positive experience leads to higher satisfaction and more positive reviews.
11. Celebrate Special Occasions at Your Facility
When your visitors celebrate a special occasion - an anniversary, birthday, or wedding - make sure to make their event memorable. Offering a romantic dinner, private excursion, or spa treatment will make your guests feel cared for. HotelFriend Event Management Solutions are designed to create unforgettable memories for hotel visitors. Through a chat within HotelFriend’s Booking Engine, clients can offer what they want - a private tour, a signature spa treatment, or a romantic dinner. This app unites the wealth of experience of event planners to bring your vision to life.
12. Automated Payments for Fast Check-Out
Modern hotel payment UX prioritises secure, smooth, and flexible transactions by integrating guests’ digital wallets, such as Google Pay and Apple Pay, with contactless payment technologies and automated systems. Clients can pay for hotel services just from their rooms via their tablets or smartphones. HotelFriend Payments supports over 50 payment methods, including Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, DEAL, etc., making transactions easier than ever. This app enables seamless transactions during check-in and at points of sale. Integrated with your PMS, it simplifies payments, boosts upselling and creates an enjoyable guest journey.
13. Guest Profiles: Personalised Service for Every Guest
Modern hospitality facilities can enhance the guest experience by creating digital guest profiles that include key information to meet their needs. It includes:
● Booking and payment: storage of guests’ booking history and payments
● Service preferences: dietary habits, gym, spa, and other amenities to ensure a memorable stay
● Spending analysis: tracking how much each client spends at the hotel.
Based on this data, hotels plan personalised offers:
● Guests with higher spending can enjoy exclusive premium services.
● Lower-spending guests can enjoy discounts and promotions to encourage extra purchases.
By creating a guest profile, the hotel increases customer loyalty and develops its flexible pricing policy.
Conclusion
Human connection is the heart of guest hospitality. Apps streamline processes while the personal touch leaves a sweet impression. Technology enhances processes, but only staff can welcome guests warmly to make every check-in memorable. This way, a mixture of a human-centric approach with technological advances is the best way to attract new customers.
