What we found
One amenity, two opposite reactions, and an average that hid both.
A sticker on the door confirming the room was COVID clean scored +11 with one guest mindset and −10 with another. Across all 108 respondents it scored −2, near enough to zero to look unimportant. It was one of the strongest signals in the study, in two directions at once.
Fielded 16 November 2020. The attributes tested belong to that stage of the pandemic; the reason we still cite the study is what it shows about averaging.
Method
How the study was run
Each respondent saw and rated 24 vignettes, each built from two to four attributes. The purpose was to give the HTNG community evidence on how COVID-19 was affecting hotel selection, which guest mindsets were in play, and which amenities and experiences would attract or deter them. The study deliberately covered only measures hoteliers could deliver in the short term without large investment.
- Instrument
- ProspX.ai Optimize
- Respondents
- 108 U.S. consumers, from panel
- Vignettes per respondent
- 24, each a different combination
- Total vignettes, as published
- Approximately 2,400
- Attributes
- 16, across amenities, safety, services and enhancements
- Survey length
- 5 minutes on average
- Fielding
- 16 November 2020, completed in 60 minutes
These figures describe different things: 108 is the number of people, 24 is the number of vignettes each of them rated, and the total is the volume of ratings collected. The original report gives that total as approximate, and it is reproduced here as published rather than recalculated.
Finding one
Three mindsets, nearly equal in size
How guests divided
Base sizes within a sample of 108
- Full Service · 34%
- Home Sweet Room · 33%
- Simple Needs · 32%
Home Sweet Room · Stay safe
Very interested in safety. Does not want to interact with others.
Rated highly
- Thermal cameras checking temperature on entry
- A sticker confirming the room is COVID clean
- Stickers showing neighbouring rooms are blocked
- Smart elevators that respond to how many guests are waiting
- Free Peloton app access; personalize the room in advance
Rated poorly
- Brand-name cleaning products
- Exercise equipment in the room instead of the gym
- Room service through the app
Simple Needs · Just need a bed
Likes touchless interaction. Does not want to be scanned.
Rated highly
- Digital key for the room and common areas
- Check in and out through the app without staff contact
Rated poorly
- Thermal cameras checking temperature on entry
Full Service · More is better
Does not want to be reminded of COVID. Wants to schedule services. Likes every enhancement.
Rated highly
- Book the gym or pool exclusively for an hour
- Free Peloton app access
- In-room printer, monitor and speakers
- Personalize the stay in advance; stream to the room TV
Rated poorly
- A COVID-clean sticker on the door
- Thermal cameras checking temperature on entry
Finding two
Two measures split the mindsets more sharply than anything else tested
Positive numbers mean the attribute raised a respondent’s rating of the stay; negative numbers mean it lowered it.
A COVID-clean sticker on the room door
Effect on rating, by mindset
- Raised the rating
- Lowered the rating
Thermal cameras checking temperature on entry
Effect on rating, by mindset
- Raised the rating
- Lowered the rating
Averaged across all 108 respondents, both measures look neutral and would be dropped from a brief as unimportant. Split by mindset, each is among the strongest effects in the data.
Why it matters
An average near zero can mean nobody cares, or that two groups care in opposite directions
Those two possibilities look identical in a whole-sample score, and they call for opposite decisions. A hotel reading the −2 on the door sticker would conclude that guests are indifferent to visible cleaning signals and stop paying for them. The mindset view says something different: one group in three treated that signal as among the best things about the stay, and another treated it as among the worst. Indifference was never the finding.
That has a direct cost attached. A hotel that put safety signalling into the message everyone sees was reassuring roughly a third of its guests and irritating roughly a third, and had no way of seeing the trade in its overall satisfaction numbers, because the two effects net out. The same logic applies to every element tested on an average: an amenity, an advert, a subject line, a page headline.
The difference is usually cheaper to act on than it looks. These three groups did not want different hotels. They wanted the same hotel described differently, and the choice of how to experience it.
How to apply it · ProspX.ai recommendations
How a hotel could use the differences rather than average them away
These are our recommendations, drawn from the findings above. They are actions to consider, not outcomes the study measured.
- Separate the measure from the message about it. Keep enhanced cleaning in place for the guests who want evidence of it, and stop putting that evidence in the communications that reach everyone. The sticker was a service feature and a marketing liability at the same time.
- Let the guest self-select at booking. Offering a contactless stay alongside a full-service stay sorts these groups by their own stated preference instead of a guess, and records which one each guest picked.
- Match the on-property detail to the choice. Blocked neighbouring rooms and in-room equipment for the safety-first group; digital key and app check-in with no staff contact for the touchless group; bookable gym and pool slots, in-room tech and scheduled services for the full-service group.
- Vary the pre-arrival email by that choice, not by loyalty tier. The same stay, described in the terms each group rated highly.
- Keep thermal scanning out of broad advertising. It was the single most polarizing item tested: strongest positive for one mindset, strong negative for the other two.
- Stop reading whole-sample averages as verdicts. When a score lands near zero, split it before deciding. That is the test this study exists to demonstrate.
- Hold the mindset against the guest record, so the second stay starts from what the first one showed rather than from a segment average.
From the original report
What the 2020 study concluded
The implications stated in the original report, in its own terms.
- A paradigm shift was occurring in what matters to the guest experience.
- A one-size-fits-all strategy will not be effective.
- Specific messaging and experiences are required for each mindset: what to say, and what not to say.
- Hoteliers would benefit from quantifying how buying decisions change over time.
- Each hotelier needs to understand how its brands, products and services fit within the spectrum of consumer mindsets.
- Customer databases can then be tagged with mindset for personalized communication across touchpoints.