In the last five years, La Manga Club won several accolades. Recently, they won two new titles at the World Travel Awards:
- Its five-star Hotel Principe Felipe was named ‘Europe’s Leading Luxury Resort & Villas 2019’ for the third year;
- Retained its title as ‘Europe’s Leading Sports Resort’.
I don’t want to underestimate the achievements of La Manga Club, but it would be much more important to achieve customers’/guests’ recognition and not just of executives of the industry.
I am telling this because we all know that the empowered customers care much more what their friends and industry experts and influencers are saying.
Furthermore, they are looking for experiences. The available experience(s) will differentiate you from your competitors.
La Manga Club is a frequent participant of the World Travel Awards, but where are those recognitions that are based on guests’ opinions (e.g. Leadingcourses.com (7.7/10), Tripadvisor (4*), J.D. Power’s Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study, etc.)?
Today, customers rarely buy anything without checking reviews or insights from previous buyers. This is how they want to mitigate their risks and uncertainty.
By using customer feedbacks (e.g. testimonial, quotes, etc.) on your website you can even improve the online direct bookings.
Social proofs as on-demand promises
You can consider social proofs as on-demand promises as well.
This is why I was surprised (when I tried to book a golf holiday at La Manga Club) that I could not find:
- ratings & reviews – next to the offers;
- testimonials;
- awards;
- real-time stats (e.g. at this moment 23 people are looking at this offer) — > such insight can motivate people to take action and sometimes more useful than testimonials. If you tell how many people took the offer then they will more likely to book a golf holiday in your resort.
- referral & affiliate programs.
I highlighted all these because I believe social proofs can offer better customer experience.
If you check the major 5-star hotel chains’ websites you will see that many, if not most of them offer a mobile application to provide personalized and seamless guest experience.
Such mobile application can give much control into the hands of the hotel guests and improve not just guest satisfaction but comfort too.
This kind of service could help a lot La Manga Club to improve the guest experience and satisfaction.
La Manga Club – Wi-Fi experience
I only mention in brackets that we should not underestimate the importance of guest Wi-Fi experience in our hotels. Our customers are expecting that your Wi-Fi will be as good as at home.
We must provide instant and secure WiFi access upon guest’s arrival at our hotel and golf club.