The hype around hyper-personalization is making your vacation unique. The barista’s eyes light up as you come into the Starbucks in your neighbourhood.
She is aware that you prefer an extra-dark, sugar-free cappuccino in a takeout cup for your morning brew. You know your morning looks fantastic because it didn’t come with the headache of one more set of instructions because she wrote your name on it and doodled a smile.
It’s uniquely your coffee. precisely as you desire it.
Customization is pervasive. Bespoke is the word of the moment for everything from vacations to wardrobes, and personalization in travel has existed for as long as people have traveled.
Consider an urban legend that all tour guides in Kashmir vouch for being accurate. When visiting Kashmir, former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was so enamored of Chashme Shahi’s pristine spring water that she ordered a delivery and stayed with nothing but it.
She reportedly had Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, fly the spring water to Delhi once she returned home!
In 2024, you don’t have to be India’s prime minister to obtain water from a particular spring for drinking while on the road. Every day, your vacation gets more and more customized, and this year, hyper-personalization is a major trend that will dominate the tourism sector.
French spring water in a bathtub
The founder and chief empowerment officer of OneRep Global, a firm that represents ultra-luxury and luxury hotels and tourism boards, Hemant Mendiratta, talks about a trend he has observed among the top 1% of clients: they want experiences that are genuinely one-of-a-kind and customized.
“In the context of travel hyper-personalization, the top 1% of customers has changed from being picky to expressing a desire for genuinely one-of-a-kind and customized experiences.
In contrast to the general travel population, this select group has developed a taste for exclusivity due to their frequent global travels.
According to Mendiratta, the focus of demand nowadays is on personalized experiences that meet each person’s unique goals and interests rather than predetermined choices.
Every person has a unique identity.
Travel agencies are being forced to go beyond traditional visitor segmentation by hyper-personalization. Every person present here has a unique identity.
This ultimately translates into an understanding of each person’s distinct preferences and needs, around which the travel industry then designs an experience.
Breakfast on Everest, eschewing airport formalities
One of the requests fulfilled by Bhangay’s team in 2023 was organizing a brunch atop Mount Everest. Enjoy booked a helicopter journey to the base camp of Mount Everest, where they served a couple a proper breakfast!
Karan receives requests for hyper-personalization from guests frequently, one of which is to bypass airport formality.
Adjust or lapse in knowledge
Hyper-personalization appears to be the only viable strategy for the travel sector.
Personalization in a hotel setting could include knowing a guest’s preferred name or the type of room they would want to be placed in.
Hyper-personalization now goes above and beyond that. Customizing these small details—such as the guest’s favorite food, desired room temperature, alarm for their typical wake-up time, and maybe Hermès toiletries—represents hyper-personalization in the hotel and hospitality industries.
We all have access to more information and options than ever before in the twenty-first century. This indicates that we’re not content to settle for the bare minimum. Service loses out to experience, and we want our experiences to be tailored to our preferences.
This has a three-tiered mantra for businesses:
- Take
- Modify
- Provide.
Anticipation as opposed to luxury
According to a McKinsey survey, 71% of consumers anticipate personalized interactions from all businesses, including those in the travel industry. The hyper-personalization trend is quickly moving from being a luxury to a need.Creating memories is the ultimate goal of travel. Who wouldn’t want their experiences to live on in their memories?
