Today I would like to discuss how hospitality industry players could collect and use information about their customers more efficiently while maintaining and respecting customer privacy. Today in the tough competitive environment it is hard to imagine any hotel, restaurant, or casino which does not want to know what their customers needs are and how to satisfy them. The rapid IT growth in the last decade enabled companies to collect and store huge amounts of data about customers through the appropriate IS implementation. Moreover modern database technology allows companies to go even further: combine their data about customers, collected through in-house CRM (Customer Relationship Management), with other databases widely available online and create a “full” picture of the customer. But the relevant questions arise:
· How realistic is this “full” picture of the customer?
· How to deal with customer’s privacy issues?

Most hospitality organizations collect the data about their customers through CRM applications based on the actual transactions. Despite CRM applications being the most effective way of managing the relationship with the customer today, they have some serious limitations. First, with the help of CRM, hospitality players collect data only about the existing customer segments based on the real transactions and ignore new potential customer segments. Second, customers are usually asked to provide information only about their particular and often one-time experience with the hotel, restaurant, or casino. This limits the available data about the customer and reduces the possibility to know their other interests and future plans to analyze the data, in order to offer a truly unique experience next time. Third, how much information customers are willing to provide and what is the quality of this information (how reliable and useful is it)? Customers are becoming more and more cautious about sharing their private information because IT tracking and data mining capabilities are growing at much faster pace than its regulation and its ability to protect customers’ privacy. Customers want to have control over their personal life and information and share only information they want to share. But unfortunately it cannot be 100% guaranteed today and there are many examples of “function creep” when the data is used for a purpose other than originally intended. For example, I received so much useless “junk” mail in my old e-mail address that I just gave up to clean it and closed it. Also I am receiving phone calls offering some stuff which I never will buy. But I do not have any idea how and where these people got my personal information. Therefore I’ve become very reluctant to share my personal data.

Thus to gain a substantial competitive advantage today and maintain it in the future, hospitality managers should search for more efficient and effective ways of collecting information and maintaining relationship with their customers. In my opinion one of the promising options for hospitality companies could be advanced CRM applications combined with CMI (Customer Managed Interactions). CMI is an emerging concept in the customer relationship management today. It could be mutually beneficial for both hospitality companies and customers. CMI would enable companies to collect much broader information about their customers’ interests, future plans, lifestyle, needs and tastes, which they would use to conduct a very detailed analysis to find hidden patterns about existing and potential customers. Moreover by using CMI data, companies can gather and analyze the data about new potential customer segments. Customers on the other side would have total control over what data to provide and with whom they would like to share it. Therefore the privacy of their personal data will be protected. Also the further development of the KMS (Knowledge Management System) databases could make the process of creating and maintaining the personal CMI files a fast, easy, and fun process for the customer, because they would be able to submit personal data in any encoded form, even in a simple Word text file, picture, or video. However there has not been enough research conducted on CMI so far and its full potential is not yet known. Also it is time-consuming for the customer and many do not see a real value in CMI for them. But despite the fact CMI is only an emerging trend today and the hospitality industry has not yet embraced it, I think it definitely has huge potential for creating and maintaining the most efficient and effective way of interacting with customers–crucial hospitality companies’ success in the future. Also it provides customers with total control over their personal data and safeguards their privacy.