Virgin set its sights on disrupting the mid-market business hotel. But with the market crowded and commoditised, Virgin Hotels needed to do more than launch a stylish new property; it had to redefine what a hotel stay could feel like.
Virgin set its sights on disrupting the mid-market business hotel. But with the market crowded and commoditised, Virgin Hotels needed to do more than launch a stylish new property; it had to redefine what a hotel stay could feel like.
Working together with Engine, Virgin Hotels developed a distinctive guest-centred experience that would fix what we all hate about short stay hotels and reimagine this in an unmistakably Virgin way.
For Virgin Hotels being unmistakenly Virgin meant three things:
Our challenge was to translate this into a meaningful experience for guests across every moment of their stay.
The first step was to understand the guests Virgin Hotels wanted to attract - what frustrated them, what they valued and what would keep them coming back.
Engine worked with Virgin Hotels to explore guest behaviours and identify the moments that didn’t work well to reimagine how they might make a huge difference.
As well as fixing what other hotels miss, Virgin needed to operationalise the improvements in a ‘Virgin’ way.
We defined what the three core attributes would mean in practice across all the touchpoints and used them to guide the design of an end-to-end guest journey for different guest types.
Working closely with the leadership team, we mapped the full guest experience, drawing out the common set of products, services and features needed to deliver consistently across digital, physical and human channels.
Whether a guest was staying for one night on business, or returning regularly, the experience had to feel recognisably Virgin from beginning to end.
Integrating technology into the experience was essential, but only if it enhanced the experience, never getting in the way.
Together, we defined how technology could be used that felt intuitive and on-brand.
The result was ‘Lucy’ - a cheeky, digital, personal assistant that let guests book their favourite room at the tap of a button, control lighting, temperature and entertainment, order room service and concierge support, view and manage a running tab and connect with other guests.
Lucy was able to build a personal profile for every guest, remembering preferences to inform more personalised marketing between stays.
The guest experience was implemented and delivered for the first time in Chicago. It has since been rolled out across nine cities across the US, earning industry recognition and customer loyalty along the way, and we are proud to have played a small part in that success.
“In classic Virgin style, their hotel experience takes the assumed ordinary details and makes them something extraordinary and unexpected”
‘A peak at the first ever Virgin Hotels Property in Chicago’ Forbes Magazine