Adrian Holländer opened with an older kind of guest knowledge. The cashier who recognized a regular. The guide who remembered who forgot their gloves three winters ago. None of it was in a system. It was memory.
Today that memory lives in guest data: what people search for, what they book, what they write in reviews. The session asked three questions. Why does knowing your guests matter? How do you use what you know? And how do you check that it works?
Why it matters
Adrian gave three reasons. Revenue, because you can offer the right thing at the right time. Loyalty, because keeping a guest costs less than finding a new one. And satisfaction, because being remembered feels good. Satisfied guests leave reviews, and those reviews become part of someone else’s discovery.
One guest, one journey
Julia Swahn and Myrta Zemp asked the room to think like guests, and followed one guest through one journey.
Discovery. Many guests now start with an AI assistant, but they still visit your website to check who they are buying from. AI does something similar. It compares your reviews with your website, and trust grows when the two match. So read your reviews, and make sure your site tells the same story.
Search and booking. Some guests have a fixed date and need to see what is on. Others are flexible and want to see everything you offer. Citybreak’s experience list lets guests search your full catalog with real-time availability and filters you choose, in a list or gallery view. The booking flow can be as short or as rich as the product needs. One product can carry time slots, languages and add-ons, instead of eight near-identical products.
Basket upsell, soft launched before the summer, suggests related products based on what is already in the basket. It can offer the same day or nearby days, depending on how your guests usually travel.
Before the trip. By booking, the guest has already told you what they like and when they are coming. A new My Booking page is on the way, where guests can add extras before they travel. The reasoning is simple. The more guests spend before the trip, the more they have left to spend when they arrive.
During the stay. This stage is often underused. You know what the guest booked, so show them what else is on while they are there.
After the trip. Ask for honest reviews. They feed the next guest’s discovery and close the loop. In iTicket you can also send an upgrade email, from a day ticket to a season pass. Improvements for season pass renewals are on the way.
Measuring it
The last step is the one most often skipped. VISIT is investing in a project called Search and Book, which aims to raise conversion by testing single changes and measuring the result instead of guessing. A/B testing and better tracking across the booking journey are part of it. Myrta asked customers to tell her which data points they would like added to the data layer they use.
Beyond the booking flow, the toolbox includes reputation tools, CRM and marketing partners, built-in dashboards and reports, and APIs for data that lives elsewhere.
A three-step ladder
The session closed with three steps to take home. Know your guests: use behavior, bookings and reviews instead of hunches. Use what you know at every touch point. Then check that it works. Keep what does, and change what does not.
A simple place to start: pick one moment where you send nothing today, like the weeks before arrival, and add one offer based on what the guest booked.