Hospit-ai-lity: Walt Learns Top Guest Service Skills

By Author: D Edward Levy
Total Articles: 58
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The travel industry has officially returned to growth in 2024 as demand for leisure and business travel surpasses pre-lockdown levels. Travel providers understand the value of each guest interaction and ensuring frontline teams have the skills and habits they need is critical for success in guest services and brand equity. One of the ongoing challenges for travel businesses is training guest facing teams in a fast and practical manner. Traditional methods of training, such as binder based or static online based platforms, are too slow for the fast paced travel industry and effectiveness of older methods can be debated. hospit-AI-lity is a new training platform from TTS that aims to fill the skills gap and ensure that entry level new hires, as well as existing team members, have the tools and knowledge they need to maximize each guest interaction. Introduce yourself to Walt, hospit-AI-lity’s RAG powered training agent and the face of the platform. Currently in his initial training phase, Walt’s knowledge base focuses on core guest service skills and understanding the importance of guest interactions.

It Starts With ...
... Communication

Walt uses a Large Language Model when interacting with human users and has his own set of protocols for communication. But for actual guest services, communication skills are critical for positive engagement and maximized opportunities. In the first stage of his training, Walt is focusing on basic communication skills such as:

Mastering tonality
Appropriate use of vocabulary
Controlling speed and pace of conversations
Understanding verbal and physical cues
Active listening and understanding

These skills and concepts will form the base knowledge for Walt’s communication training content and are essential for frontline guest facing teams and individuals. In a highly competitive travel marketplace, maximizing the value of each guest visit is priority one for travel businesses and building value starts with effective communication and engagement. Increasing value through appropriate and guest friendly methods will elevate the experience, benefiting the brand and increasing future marketing opportunities.

Asking the Right Questions

The travel business is driven by individual preferences and is highly dependent on the feelings and perspectives of guests and / or patrons. Beyond basic communication and interaction skills, Walt is learning about questions and what makes up effective questions in the travel business. Travel businesses understand that every guest interaction is an opportunity to elevate the experience and increase the value of the stay. Guest service representatives that know what questions to ask and when, are better equipped at positively impacting experience and value. Concepts such as asking open-ended questions, tuning vocabulary for the specific conversation instances and closing sales are key priorities for Walt’s training agenda and evaluation resources. The dynamic nature of Walt’s knowledge base allows for efficient updating of question optimization content to suit the brand’s own product, service or mission agenda. Asking questions is important, asking the right questions is essential when attempting to maximize each guest opportunity.

Organizational and Time Management Habits

Anyone who works in the travel industry recognizes the frenetic pace of the business. Staying organized and maintaining details are foundational skills for guest facing travel workers. Walt will be learning the ‘tricks of the trade’ when it comes to organizational habits, time management and the importance of productivity. From key skills to the impacts on the business, Walt will have a working knowledge of travel worker productivity, efficiency and performance. Concepts such as identifying tasks, prioritizing actions and goal setting and achievement will make up the core of Walt’s organizational training. New hires and those that are new to the industry will need effective organizational and time management habits when exposed to the fast pace of travel and tourism. Walt will build confidence in the trainee by delivering these needed skills and expectations.

Walt’s Resource Package

Walt’s training and knowledge base continues to evolve as improvements to data loaders and analyzers are made. An initial sample training package will cover two days worth of foundational material with the goal of full worker onboarding after the two day cycle. 6 intensive learning units will deliver core and advanced guest services skills, organizational habits and business expectations alongside evaluations and quizzes to ensure understanding. The modular nature of RAG frameworks allows for upgrades and additions to the knowledge base to cover job specific and brand specific duties and expectations. Walt’s resource package can be optimized for different business priorities such as upselling or sustainability and can be geared towards specific classes of providers, ie: luxury resorts versus tourist destinations. Walt is available online for evaluation in a public call for feedback. Access the evaluation here: https://traveltechnologysolutions.net/EvalPortal/#haiy