Hotels and the personalisation challenge

Major hotel chains face a growing challenge in delivering the sort of personalisation that technology has enabled as that same tech becomes a target for cyber criminals. 

Why it matters

Personalisation activity rests in marketing departments, which need to have a keen grasp of the niceties of data protection and to consider just how much information they really need to gather – hotels can collect as many as 15 different types of data during a guest’s stay, for example – and whether technology is always a good option to replace traditional face-to-face services such as check-in and on-site payments.

Context 

• Hospitality is only just behind the retail and finance & insurance sectors when it comes to data compromises, according to Trustwave. 
• Reservation systems, loyalty schemes and hotel wifi networks are all potential targets for hackers.
• As well as the volume of transactional data handled by hotel chains, the information contained in loyalty schemes is hugely valuable; back in 2020, as countries were locking down at the start of the pandemic, for example, Hilton raised $1 billion from an advance sale of loyalty points to its co-brand credit card partner, American Express.

Key quote

“You wouldn’t dream of appointing an executive head chef who didn’t understand hygiene, so why would I appoint a head of marketing who didn’t have an acute understanding of data protection?” – Sean McKeown, company secretary and head of risk and compliance at Irish hotel group Dalata.

Sourced from Financial Times, Hotel Management, Trustwave