Ep. 14: Branding in crisis and the new guest experience, with Eve Dreher.

TravelHotels

Jun 30

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Brand building in 2020, where do we even begin? With all the talk of contactless experiences, we started wondering what was left of hospitality:

Contactless check in.
Movie nights cancelled and concerts postponed.
Telling guests where they can (and can't) stand.

What's left? Actually, a lot. Dining in a place that’s not your kitchen table. Mood lighting and music. Small get togethers with people you care about and haven’t seen in a while. A glimpse of the world through fresh eyes. Most of all, an escape from home…

On today’s episode, Eve Dreher joins me to talk through brand building in 2020. We think about the new guest experience within the context of two pandemics we’re facing as a country: COVID-19 and systemic racism.

Eve Dreher is an expert in travel and hotel branding with eight years experience leading communications for Starwood Hotels & Resorts as they led the charge on building ten lifestyle brands and innovating the guest experience. Before Starwood, Eve led brand, PR and crisis communications for Coors Brewing Company. Her experience also includes leading local companies here in Oregon, most recently she was the VP of Oregon Media, the publishers of Bend Magazine. Today, Eve works as a strategy and content consultant and is the founder of RELATE.

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My key takeaways were:

The idea that in these moments of crisis, brands have an opportunity to evaluate what they’re doing well—and what they could be doing better. Hotels strive to be a safe space, a welcoming space, and with a bit of creative thinking, hotels can emerge as leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic, and as true allies to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Eve focused on hotels being inclusive. In Eve’s words “we’re at a crossroads and no industry is going to get a pass at taking a long hard look about how they operate…and that’s going to really matter in hospitality, in the weeks and months ahead.”
The simple notion of leading with kindness. This ties into the traveler’s mindset. The weariness that comes along with planning a first outing from the home after lockdown, and the new factors that come into play like safety, cleanliness, modes of transportation. If hotels can lead with kindness, and even wear their hearts on their sleeves, there’s a chance to create real loyalty as a brand. Eve and I talked about this too—the idea of guest loyalty in 2020—it’s about so much more than collecting points. Travelers aren’t looking to jet set across the world right now, they’re planning road trips. They’re looking for safety and comfort close to home, but far enough away. If you can provide this, guests will likely return again and again, until the world really opens up again. It seems like these are the seeds of a new kind of guest loyalty, where you'll reap what you sow.

One more thing I want to add, when we talk about travel trends like road trips, hotels in certain smaller communities, and when we talk about travelers feeling safe—this is really nuanced. This is something I’m learning more about every day. Not everyone can jump in their cars and go on a trip to a new city, or show up late in a hotel lobby and ask for the keys to their room. Damon Lawrence and I talked through some of this on Episode 13. To Eve’s point, as hotels, we really should be leading with a double dose of empathy. The hospitality industry is uniquely situated to do exactly that.

As always, keep sharing your stories.