Hotel Guest Journey: 7 Stages, Touchpoints & Feedback

The hotel guest journey, often called the hotel customer journey, is every interaction a guest has with your property, from the first search for a room to the email they receive after they leave. Mapping it stage by stage shows where each touchpoint sits, which team owns it, and where to ask for feedback so problems are caught while the guest is still on property instead of in an online review.

This guide covers the seven stages of the hotel guest journey, the touchpoints in each one, the best feedback collector for every touchpoint, and how issues route to the right team. It then walks through how the fictional Shargo Hotels team planned their own touchpoints.

The 7 Stages of the Hotel Guest Journey

1. Inspiration and research

• Touchpoints: search results, the hotel website, OTA listings, social media and review sites.
• Owner: marketing and revenue teams.
• Where to collect feedback: a short website feedback prompt on key pages, asking whether visitors found what they needed.

2. Booking

• Touchpoints: the booking engine, the reservations team, the confirmation email.
• Owner: reservations and e-commerce.
• Where to collect feedback: a one-question prompt on the booking confirmation page about how easy it was to book. Keep it out of the booking flow itself so it never gets in the way of a reservation.

3. Pre-arrival

• Touchpoints: confirmation and pre-arrival messages, upgrade offers, special requests, transfers.
• Owner: reservations and front office.
• Where to collect feedback: a quick question in the pre-arrival email or an SMS survey invite asking whether the guest has everything they need for their stay.

4. Arrival and check-in

• Touchpoints: parking or transfer, the doorman, the lobby, the front desk, the first impression of the room.
• Owner: front office.
• Where to collect feedback: a smiley terminal or tablet survey app near (not on top of) the front desk, asking one question about check-in and welcome. A QR code on the key card holder can ask about the first impression of the room.

5. In-stay

The in-stay stage has the most touchpoints and the most chances to recover a stay.

• Room and housekeeping: QR codes in the room or on the in-room directory let guests report a cleanliness or maintenance issue in seconds.
• Restaurant, bar and room service: a smiley terminal at the restaurant exit, or a QR code on tables and the room service menu.
• Spa, pool and gym: a smiley terminal or tablet at the reception counter of each amenity.
• Public areas and restrooms: QR codes or smiley terminals in lifts, corridors and restrooms to flag cleanliness issues as they happen.
• Mid-stay check: an SMS or WhatsApp survey invite on the first morning ("How is your stay so far?") catches issues a guest would not walk to the front desk to report.

6. Check-out

• Touchpoints: the front desk or express check-out, the final bill, luggage and transport.
• Owner: front office and finance.
• Where to collect feedback: a smiley terminal or tablet at the desk, plus an SMS or WhatsApp invite after express check-out asking about the overall stay and whether the bill was clear.

7. Post-stay

• Touchpoints: the final bill email, the post-stay survey, review requests, loyalty and re-booking offers.
• Owner: guest relations and marketing.
• Where to collect feedback: a short post-stay email survey with a Net Promoter Score question and an open comment field. This is the one stage where a slightly longer survey is acceptable, because the guest has the whole stay to reflect on.

Routing Guest Feedback to the Right Team

Collecting feedback at every touchpoint only helps if someone acts on it. Each touchpoint above has an owner, and negative feedback should reach that owner automatically rather than waiting for a weekly report.

With Press'nXPress Action Hub, a low score or a tagged issue (for example "room not clean" from the QR code in room 412) creates a ticket for the right manager, alerts them by email, SMS or WhatsApp, and tracks the issue until it is resolved. Front desk, housekeeping, F&B and spa managers each see the issues for their own touchpoints, and the analytics dashboard shows which stage of the guest journey is pulling satisfaction down at a property or across a portfolio. For multi-property groups, see how hotel groups standardize guest recovery.

Choosing the Right Collector for Each Touchpoint

• Smiley terminal: high-traffic, shared spaces such as the front desk, restaurant exit and spa reception, where a guest can tap once on the way past.
• Tablet survey app: staffed counters where you want a follow-up question, an issue tag or an optional comment.
• QR code and tap: private spaces such as rooms, tables, lifts and restrooms, where guests use their own phone.
• SMS and WhatsApp invites: mid-stay and post-check-out check-ins sent to the guest's phone.
• Email and website: the booking, pre-arrival and post-stay stages, before and after the guest is on property.

For a deeper comparison, read feedback kiosks vs. QR vs. SMS vs. voice.

Example: How Shargo Hotels Planned Their Guest Touchpoints

Before Andrea and her team launched their new customer experience platform in the Hotel Shargo locations, they knew they had to take time to plan the "where" and "how" they would collect guest feedback. As they discussed all the different locations they could put guest feedback kiosks or how they could embed feedback modules into their website, Andrea realized they were missing an important piece of their planning, "why".

As everyone around the table came up with ideas for the placement and methods of collection for guest feedback, Andrea challenged her team to explain why that feedback was important to the overall guest experience journey. She wanted to ensure that the amount of customer feedback they collected was what they needed as a company but without affecting the guest experience.

Out of their discussion, Andrea and her team came up with an agreed-upon view of how they will evaluate what a touchpoint should do for them before they plan to use it.

• Where: A location with high guest traffic or that offers a unique service and interaction point.
• How: The method that best seamlessly fits into the guest experience. When possible, use existing technology the guests will already be using.
• Why: To gather guest feedback about important areas of the guest experience or connected to value add/additional cost services.
• Guest Experience Impact: Minimal. Make sure we are not interrupting their experience to gather feedback whenever possible. Seamlessly integrate it.

Below is how they identified their initial touchpoints:

Website

• Where: On the reservation and contact pages of the website.
• How: A website slider module appears in the screen's bottom right-hand.
• Why: To gather feedback about the booking experience.
• Guest Experience Impact: Minimal. The goal of the slider placement is to ensure the guest can continue their reservation experience without the slide interfering.

Reception

• Where: On the main counter
• How: Touchless Customer Feedback Terminal
• Why: To gather feedback about the check-in process and their initial reaction to entering our hotel.
• Guest Experience Impact: Slight. Some guests may not choose to provide their feedback or not feel comfortable doing so too close to the front desk stand. We should ensure the placement allows for comfort while not interfering with their normal check-in process.

Restaurant

• Where: Near the primary exit point of the restaurant
• How: Touchless Customer Feedback Terminal
• Why: To understand if they enjoyed their meal services
• Guest Experience Impact: Minimal. We will place the terminal to not interfere with the guest's restaurant exit.

Pool & Spa Area

• Where: On the main counter
• How: Touchless Customer Feedback Terminal
• Why: To understand if our value-add services meet what the guests are looking for.
• Guest Experience Impact: Minimal. Similar to the front desk experience, we want to ensure we give our guests the space to respond in a comfortable environment.

Billing Email

• Where: Final Billing Email
• How: Embedded Email
• Why: To get a final review of the guests' stay, understand if they had any issues and get a sense if they would recommend our hotel to others.
• Guest Experience Impact: Moderate. This is the one location where we will make the feedback option more prominent to the guest since it's an area where the feedback has a crucial impact on the guest returning or referring to our hotels. Additionally, we want to ensure we respond to any complaints they provide us within 24 - 48 hours — this is exactly where a tool like Action Hub helps, routing each complaint to the right person automatically so nothing slips through.

While this was just the initial framework Andrea and her team created, it was a critical first step to give them the foundation for building a solid guest experience journey. This built on Andrea's search for the right guest experience solution. In their next strategy meeting, they planned to discuss the operational impacts of responding to guest feedback and what these touchpoints would provide them for analysis data.

Shargo's first plan covered five touchpoints. Measured against the seven stages above, the obvious next additions are the in-room experience (a QR code for housekeeping and maintenance issues) and a mid-stay SMS or WhatsApp check-in: the two places where an unhappy guest can still be won back before check-out. To see how in-stay feedback connects to your online reputation, read from check-in to check-out: real-time guest feedback that protects your review score.

Key Takeaways

• The hotel guest journey has seven stages: inspiration, booking, pre-arrival, arrival and check-in, in-stay, check-out and post-stay.
• Every stage has its own touchpoints and an owner; collect feedback at the touchpoint, not only after the stay.
• Match the collector to the space: smiley terminals and tablets for shared counters, QR codes for rooms and tables, SMS and WhatsApp invites for mid-stay and check-out, email and web before and after.
• Route negative feedback to the touchpoint owner in real time so issues are fixed while the guest is still on property.

Shargo Hotels is a fictional company that helps to illustrate how Press'nXPress can be used in hospitality applications.

Ready to map and monitor your own hotel guest journey? Book a demo to see the PXP Hospitality Guest Feedback Solution in action. You can also follow our LinkedIn page for more hospitality CX tips.