In this article I want to share with you how the Cultural Anthropology, Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience have become necessary elements to take into account when designing holistic positive experiences in the guests.
However, the design of experiences is not an easy task since it requires first and foremost having an in-depth knowledge of each guest in particular, especially from the point of view social-cultural, cognitive-behavioral and rational-emotional. This makes the Experiential Hospitality pays special attention to three sciences in particular, whose concepts and definitions will provide valuable tools to achieve the expected goals.
In this article I want to share with you how the Cultural Anthropology, Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience have become necessary elements to take into account when designing holistic positive experiences in the guests.
The Cultural Anthropology is a branch of the anthropology that studies the characteristics of the behavior learned in the human societies, that is to say, science of the human culture. In general, it is the science that studies the origin, development, structure, characteristics and changes of the human culture so much of the societies of the past as of those of the present.
Knowing about the culture of every guest we serve is of great importance in order to understand their behavior, rational or irrational, within the Hotel and especially their ways of relating to us, hoteliers.
Through the Cultural Anthropology we get to know more deeply the cultural differences of each guest thus adjusting our implementation of proper service strategies to make clients feel identified, respected and differentiated.
The concept of experience is closely linked to the understanding of each guest in particular, i.e. the information acquired that every human being has about the world that surrounds him. Cognitive psychology deals with the study of the mental processes involved in knowledge, such as perception, memory, and learning. One of the fundamental objectives of the design of experiences is that the guest interprets the stay at the Hotel as his own experience, which has features in common with what he recognizes and has an affinity; in such a way that he feels identified and distinguished.
For the Experiential Hospitality, the hotel should be a big stage and transmit enough stimuli to generate excitement and positive feelings among the guests, which will create the need to know which way this sensory information is collected, interpreted, and stored in the mind of every guest in particular.
The study of human brain and its role in significant processes such as attention, generating emotions, feelings formation, decision making, actions to take, construction of memories and memory storage, allow hoteliers to tailor services offered in such a way that they leave an indelible imprint on the mind of each guest. Further knowledge about the mechanisms generating empathy, understanding and connection, will enable the hoteliers to establish lasting rapport links with the guest thus getting their commitment. This means that we should rely on Neuroscience for better perception of the guest as an emotional and rational human being.
I cannot conclude this article without sharing a big concern. According to research I've done on the curricula of many Hospitality schools of international level, I have noticed that they lack training in these three valuable Sciences for our industry.
Let us not forget that the best income that a Hotel can get will appear as a broad insight of its core customer: the guest, who is a social , cultural and emotional human being.
Osvaldo Torres Cruz
Hotel Butler
Hotel Guest Experience Design Advisor
hotel@gmial.com
http://guestexperience.blogspot.com