Client / sector
Upscale hotel group / Hospitality
Services
Customer journey research · Service experience evaluation · Mixed-methods research
Key outputs
Guest journey evaluation framework · Cross-property comparison · Recurring pain points · Service improvement priorities
Project goal
Identify where the guest experience was underperforming across properties and determine which service issues required operational change.
Outcome
Hotel management received a cross-property view of where the guest experience was repeatedly falling short and which issues required operational intervention. The findings led to changes in queue management, a dedicated staff training programme, and a structured feedback loop to monitor service performance over time.
/challenge
An upscale hotel group with 4- and 5-star properties across Germany and Austria faced a disconnect between the experience it wanted to deliver and the experience some guests were actually having.
While certain properties performed well, others struggled with guest retention and low satisfaction ratings.
How do you make a premium promise hold up across every touchpoint?
This wasn’t simply a question of improving service scores. The client needed to understand the root causes behind underperforming locations and give hotel management a clearer basis for deciding where service and operational improvements would have the greatest impact.
/process
I designed and led an end-to-end research study to evaluate the guest journey from booking to post-stay, looking at both sides of the hotel experience: the tangible quality of the property and the human interactions that can elevate, or undermine, a stay.
Working with hotel management, we mapped the moments that shaped the guest experience and created an evaluation framework spanning arrival, rooms and facilities, staff interactions, responsiveness, problem resolution and departure.
/result
From guest feedback to operational change
Comparing experiences across properties revealed where the same problems kept resurfacing, while the interviews showed how individual moments accumulated to shape guests’ overall perception of the stay. Together, the findings distinguished isolated incidents from recurring service and operational problems, giving management clear priorities for improvement.
Long waits when guests needed assistance led to a more efficient queue management process. Dissatisfaction with staff interactions prompted a dedicated training programme.
The project led to setting up a structured feedback loop, giving management an ongoing way to monitor service performance and identify where further improvements were needed.
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