Managing guest data: profiles, preferences, and recognition

You often know more about a guest than you use. That he wanted the corner room last year, ate a gluten-free breakfast, and arrived by bike. If you don't record that, you start from zero every time.

The problem

Say you have 6 rooms and run 72 percent of your bookings through Booking.com. A couple from Utrecht booked in May last year, chose the theme suite, asked for a late breakfast, and mentioned on departure that they'd be back. A year later they book again. You don't remember.

That's a waste, for two reasons. The first is service. A guest who notices that you recognize him, that the room is already set up, and that you know he drinks tea, not coffee, feels like a guest of someone who knows him. That's exactly the difference a small property has over a chain.

The second reason is money. A guest you recognize and address by name is more likely to book directly next time. And every direct booking is a booking without the Booking commission of 15 to 25 percent. A regular guest you invite personally has no reason left to take the detour through a platform.

Managing guest data sounds like something for big hotels with an IT department. It isn't. At 6 rooms, a shared spreadsheet is often already enough. It's not about the software, it's about the habit: recording at every booking who the guest is and what they want.

The tricky part is that the data is currently scattered. A bit in Booking, a bit in your inbox, a bit in your head. What you knew about that guest from Utrecht last year lived in your memory, and that memory doesn't hold up once a season has passed. Managing guest data is nothing more than bringing those scattered pieces together in one place, so they're still there when you need them.

Worked example

What data do you record, and what do you do with it. You don't need 20 fields. These 5 carry most of the value:

What this is worth in euros. Say a guest books once a year, averaging 120 euros a night for 2 nights, so 240 euros per booking. Through Booking, at 18 percent commission, you pay about 43 euros per booking. Get that guest to book directly, because he recognizes you and you reach out personally once a year, and you save that 43 euros every time.

Add the guests who come back purely because they felt seen, and the value of a well-kept guest list adds up fast. The 430 euros above is only the direct commission savings. The revenue from extra repeat bookings you'd otherwise have missed comes on top of that, and it's usually bigger than the commission saved. What a shift from Booking to direct is worth specifically for your property, you can work out in the savings calculator.

Watch that you don't record more than you use. The temptation is to note everything, but a field you never look back at only costs fill-in time. Diet, allergy, or a special occasion should only be recorded if the guest volunteers it for the sake of service. That's also what privacy law asks of you: record with a purpose, not just in case.

Step by step

1. Open a shared spreadsheet or find the notes field in your booking engine. Use Google Sheets if you want your partner to be able to look along too. If you have a booking engine (the reservation system on your site), check whether it has a guest notes field. Then the note sits right with the booking.

2. Set up 5 columns: name, email address, stay date, room preference, free-text note. You don't need more right now. You can always add a column later, but an empty system you actually keep up is worth more than an elaborate one that falls into disuse.

3. Fill it in at every booking, not afterward. Make it a fixed moment: as soon as a booking comes in, or at checkout if something stood out. Departure is the best moment for the free-text note, because that's when you know how the stay went.

4. Ask for newsletter consent during the stay. A guest who just had a great weekend says yes more easily. Leave a card, or ask at breakfast. That way you build your own list you're allowed to use for repeat bookings, independent of Booking. How to build that without Booking is covered in building a guest list without Booking.com.

5. Review the list before the season starts. Who came around this time last year? Send those people a personal email before they book somewhere else. That's the whole point: you use the data to reach the right guest at the right moment.

6. Check the note on arrival. When a familiar guest returns, take 2 minutes before arrival to check the note. The room he wanted last year, the gluten-free breakfast, the hiking route he asked about. These small things are what make him come back.

Common mistakes

• Trying to record too many fields. A form with 20 columns is one nobody fills in consistently. Start with 5, expand only once you notice you're genuinely missing a field. A large system half filled in is worth less than a small one filled in completely.

• Filling it in afterward. If you put it off until the end of the week, you no longer remember the details. The preference the guest mentioned at breakfast is forgotten by then. Record it in the moment.

• Not using the data. A list you maintain but never open gets you nothing. The value is in looking back: before the season, before arrival, before a newsletter. Collecting data without using it is administration with no return.

• Using Booking email addresses for your own marketing. Booking gives you an anonymized email address and prohibits using it for your own newsletter. Ask the guest for their real email address and consent directly. Then you build a list you're actually allowed to use.

• Not addressing privacy at all. You're recording personal data, so you need a short privacy notice explaining what you keep and why. It doesn't have to be a legal document, but it needs to exist. Don't keep data longer than necessary either: invoice data 7 years for tax purposes, preferences and notes as long as the guest keeps coming back. Why your own guest data is worth so much is covered in first-party data for accommodations.

• Forgetting to let your partner in on it. Often one person handles the bookings and the other handles breakfast. If the note only lives in one person's head, half the value disappears the moment that person isn't there. Put the system somewhere you both have access, like a shared Google Sheet or the guest notes field in the booking engine.

What you can do now

Managing guest data isn't a week-long project, it's a 2-minute habit per booking. The payoff isn't in expensive software but in consistently recording who your guests are and what they want, and then actually using it.

Start small: a spreadsheet with 5 columns, filled in at every booking. Ask for an email address and consent during the stay. Review the list before the season starts and reach out to the guests who came around this time last year.

If your property grows and the spreadsheet gets too tight, that's the moment to look at a real system. What that involves and when it pays off is covered in a CRM for hotels and B&Bs. Want to know how you turn that recognition into a personal pre-arrival email, check out the pre-arrival email and what belongs in it.

Want us to set up guest data management and repeat-booking emails for your property? We discuss that under marketing for hotels.