Personalisation Is Not Adding Champagne to the Same Itinerary

DRAFT — NOT FOR PUBLICATION.

The hospitality industry has a personalisation problem, and it is not what most vendors selling personalisation tools would have you believe.

The problem is not that lodges and operators lack the technology to personalise. The problem is that personalisation has been redefined as "adding something to a standard experience" rather than "designing an experience around what a specific person actually needs."

The champagne-on-arrival example is instructive. A couple arrive for their anniversary safari. The lodge knows it is their anniversary because they ticked a box on the booking form. The champagne is in the room. The staff wish them a happy anniversary. The gesture is kind.

But if the couple are non-drinkers who mentioned this in their dietary requirements form — requirements that somehow did not reach the person who prepared the room — the champagne is now a reminder that the lodge did not read what was written. The personalisation moment becomes a personalisation failure.

Real personalisation is operational before it is gestural. It is making sure the guide knows that this guest has been on many safaris before and does not need basic explanations. It is understanding that the family with a ten-year-old has different needs from the newlyweds in the next suite, and that those needs should shape what each family is offered and how they are guided.

This is harder than adding champagne. It requires information flowing from the booking system to the operations team, which requires good handoff processes, which requires someone being accountable for each step.

The technology layer can help with the information flow. But it cannot substitute for the decision about what information matters and who is responsible for acting on it.