Are your attendees wandering around in a daze, heavy-lidded and nodding off during postluncheon breakouts? Your schedule may be partially to blame, especially if your evening receptions run late and include after-parties and after-after-parties followed by sunrise yoga a few hours later. But maybe you can lay part of the responsibility at the door of the hotel, suggests a recent report from J.D. Power.

According to its 2019 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index (NAGSI) Study, quality of sleep is one of the most important components of a hotel guest experience, with the potential to drive overall satisfaction and brand loyalty — and the effectiveness of your meeting, one could assume — but the majority of hotels are not delivering better-than-expected sleeping conditions.

The study found that those who reported a better-than-expected quality of sleep also had overall satisfaction scores more than 10 percent higher than those of their sleepier cohorts. The rub is that just 29 percent of hotel guests said they woke up feeling highly refreshed and invigorated after a good night’s rest.

Jennifer Corwin, senior manager of consumer insights for Travel & Hospitality Intelligence at J.D. Power said, “Of all the discrete variables of the hotel guest experience we measure, a better-than-expected night’s sleep is the one with the potential to drive the highest levels of overall guest satisfaction for those hotels that can deliver.”

Good-Sleep Necessities
Planners should ensure that the items respondents said were top contributors to high-quality sleep are on their site-visit checklists. These include the comfort of the beds, the quietness of the rooms, the comfort/quality of pillows, room temperature and the comfort/quality of linens, according to the report. Respondents said their sleep also benefits when hotels offer beyond-the-basics items, such as white noise/sound machines, earplugs, robes and slippers, and authentic local decor. Other elements that added significantly to overall guest satisfaction were speed and efficiency of the check-in process along with a warm welcome.

Hotels That Deliver
Not surprisingly, more respondents rated their quality of sleep highest in the luxury hotel segment (42 percent), followed by the upper upscale (33 percent), upscale (31 percent), upper midscale (28 percent), midscale (28 percent) and economy (23 percent) segments.

The hotels that scored the highest in overall guest satisfaction for their respective segments were:
Luxury: The Ritz-Carlton (for a fifth consecutive year)
Upper upscale: Hard Rock Hotel
Upscale: Best Western Premier
Upper midscale: Drury Hotels (for a 14th consecutive year)
Midscale: Wingate by Wyndham (for a fifth consecutive year)
Economy: Microtel by Wyndham (for a second consecutive year)

The study analyzed responses from approximately 44,890 guests who stayed at a hotel between June 2018 and May 2019 within 85 ranked brands in six market segments. — Sue Pelletier