OverviewThis article provides an overview of what facilities are most important to those booking on Agoda today. By learning the priorities of current travelers, you can design or improve your property to meet these needs and attract more bookings.
ContentThis article includes
|
The facilities most guests look for
With millions of daily travelers visiting and booking on Agoda’s website and app, we’ve acquired a huge amount of data that can tell us a lot about what kinds of properties get booked the most.
According to our data, the most important facilities to offer to travelers are the following. Make sure that your property offers all or most of them!
Fast & free Wi-Fi access
Whether on a business trip or on vacation, wi-fi that works is the by far the most important thing to the greatest number of modern travelers. Staying connected with loved ones, uploading and downloading work, and accessing social media and news is so important that poor Wi-Fi is one of the biggest causes of negative reviews. Travelers also use the internet to research their next day trip or meal while traveling.
- Wi-Fi should be fast and able to work perfectly even at maximum hotel capacity when almost every single guest is connected to the network. Your system needs to scale to handle full capacity or more – such as when you have events with guests who may not even be staying in your rooms.
- The signal must be strong in all public areas, as well as in all rooms, whether they are located on the ground floor or on the top floor of the hotel. Travelers now use social media networks for video calls and phone calls, and might be moving around your property while doing so. A dropped signal or call at an important time creates a very bad guest experience.
- Wi-Fi should be free to those who eat in your restaurants as well, even if they are staying in rooms.
Free breakfast
Breakfast is not only the most important meal of the day, but it is also one the most important services for guests when staying at a hotel because it saves them time and effort on their precious travel days.
Consider offering a complimentary breakfast for your guests, and make it as tasty and varied as possible. Even if you have to raise your room prices slightly to cover your costs, the perceived value of a free breakfast is usually greater than that of a slightly cheaper room.
Wellness facilities
Wellness travel, or travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one’s personal well-being, is a fast-growing segment that creates $639 billion for the tourism industry.*
As more consumers adopt wellness as part of their value system, they will increasingly filter their travel experiences through a holistic wellness lens. While traveling, they want to relax, but also to be able to maintain their daily routines, which may require certain facilities:
- Workout facilities such as a pool or fitness center.
- Relaxation and beauty facilities such as massage, spa, salon, or sauna.
- Mind and body facilities such as yoga room or a space for quiet meditation.
- Healthy eating food options such as vegan, gluten-free, low-sugar, or plant-based.
- Eco and adventure activities such as surfing lessons, canoeing, skiing, hiking, or other activities that engage the local environment.
To help you promote your offerings, key wellness activities that you offer will be prominently displayed under your property name on the Agoda property page.
*Global Wellness Tourism Economy research by the Global Wellness Institute
Smart entertainment devices
- Smart TV: Netflix and other digital platforms have become a daily habit for a big part of the world, especially for millennials. Allowing guests to connect their devices and watch the rest of the movie they began watching during their flight or catch the latest episode from their favorite series is a plus. Make sure your TVs have either built-in apps like Netflix, or HDMI and USB ports that allow guests to play their own content from their laptops or USB drives.
- Bluetooth speakers that allow guests to connect to their playlist from smartphones using iTunes or Spotify or other music services. By allowing guests to create their own musical ambience, they can customize their stay. Make sure that your Wi-Fi can handle many guests at once using music streaming services!
In-room food and beverages
- Coffee/Tea maker: Offer your guests a cup of quality coffee from the comfort of their room to start their day, without having to order it via room service. For a truly boutique touch, a sleek capsule espresso machine adds a quality impression, with a certain number of free capsules provided per day. A lower cost option is to offer a drip coffee machine, or just hot water makers that can be poured over one-serving coffee drip packets. Whatever you do, don’t offer only instant coffee packets. For most coffee drinkers, instant coffee is so unpalatable that they would rather have nothing at all.
Cleanliness facilities
Prioritizing cleanliness has become the “new normal” way of travel for everyone due to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Guests want to know about the cleanliness measures you take before booking your property.
To improve guest confidence in your property when booking, you should provide cleanliness and hygiene facilities at your hotels that can be displayed prominently in your property content.
Read more about cleanliness facilities and how you can display them HERE.