Zsuzsa Deli-Gray (ed.)

Cases in Tourism Marketing III

Digital Reality – experience already before arrival

Pál Géza, the managing director of the “Lágy Hullámok” boutique hotel, was enthusiastically sharing this with the marketing team during an early morning meeting: “Just imagine – our guest can already feel the Balaton breeze before they even get up from their office chair. This is no longer just a booking; it’s stepping into a story.”

Géza was particularly proud that the hotel used digital reality technology not merely as an attraction, but as a conscious tool for designing the guest experience – fully in line with the Personalised Digital Tourism (PDT) concept. The goal was for guests to connect with the place days before their arrival – in space, time, and experience alike.

The new digital platform allowed guests, after their booking was confirmed, to automatically access an AR- and VR-based pre-experience module. In this system:

Using AR navigation, they could explore the rooms, bathrooms, and communal areas. By pointing their phone camera at the floor of their living room, the guest could “open” the Balaton room: the app displayed the furnishings, the view, and the mood lighting in full-scale 3D.
With a VR headset – or even on their phone screen via 360° videos – they could virtually participate in local experiences: strolling through a lavender field in Tihany, boating at sunset, or attending a Balaton wine tasting – all from the comfort of their armchair.
The system also offered experience filtering based on personal preferences: for example, guests seeking tranquillity saw relaxation-focused options, while more active travellers were shown extreme sports or hiking opportunities in the virtual preview.

Anna and Dávid began their weekend trip this way. On a rainy Wednesday evening, while having tea on their balcony in Budapest, Dávid opened the hotel’s app. Sitting on the couch, with the help of a VR headset, they “walked through” the hotel’s cozy, warm-toned rooms, listened to the softly playing relaxation music in the background, and saw the view from the deluxe balcony on the second floor.

“This isn’t just beautiful… it’s exactly what we were looking for,” Anna remarked as the VR tour “transported” them into the interior of a quiet local wine cellar.

“And there’s no asking, no searching – everything is right here, just the way we like it,” Dávid replied.

This experience visualisation was not only a technical marvel but also a psychological preparation: according to the SZDT model, the cognitive journey of travel already begins during the planning phase. Using digital reality tools, travellers form an emotional connection with the destination at the moment of booking – this emotional pre-tuning contributes to a higher subjective quality of the travel experience.

User statistics confirmed this as well: guests who used the AR/VR features rated their stay as “above average” 28% more often than those who relied only on web images and descriptions. Guest experience, therefore, no longer happens just there and then – it can begin here and now.

Géza summarised their philosophy in an internal presentation: “We’re not trying to show how beautiful the hotel is. Our goal is for the guest to feel like they’re already here. And once they’ve ‘been here’ – even just in their mind – it becomes much harder for them to say no.”

One of the most distinctive – and often underestimated – aspects of the “Lágy Hullámok” digital guest experience strategy is the post-departure experience, also known as the digital after-experience. In this model, the guest experience does not end at checkout; on the contrary, this is when the transformation into lasting memories begins – a process explicitly supported by the SZDT concept. The goal is not merely to archive memories, but to actively and personally reinterpret them in digital form.

On the last morning of their weekend, as Anna and Dávid were packing in their room, the hotel app sent a new notification: “Your experience video is ready – are you ready to relive these moments?”

The system automatically generated a 90-second, visually enriched video that provided a narrative arc for their time at the hotel.

This summary of their experience was far from a generic slideshow: the AI followed a personalised editing logic based on the couple’s interactions, choice of locations, and behavioural patterns. The video included:

GPS-based movement maps that vividly showed where they had been over the weekend and which programme locations they visited at what times.
Recordings of AR experiences, such as moments with the nature guide on the educational trail, which the system had automatically saved and now replayed on a dynamic timeline.
Photos taken by the guests, previously synced by the app, seamlessly integrated into the visual story, with the musical background selected from their Spotify profile.
Interaction memories, such as dinner reservation confirmations or wellness voucher activations, which appeared as individual “moments” to complete the narrative arc of the experience.

At the end of the video, a short, personalised message appeared: “Thank you for being with us, Anna and Dávid. We look forward to welcoming you back for a new story. 💙 – The Lágy Hullámok Team”

The system also offered an option for guests to share the experience video with a single click on their social media – Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook – or to save it as a private memory in a password-protected online album. In this way, the digital ecosystem not only supported personal memory preservation but also organically strengthened the hotel’s brand communication, as the shared videos presented the hotel’s services as visually consistent yet personally tailored stories, conveyed through authentic guest experiences.

Later, Anna wrote in her review on the booking site: “Not only were we guests, but we were the main characters. Everything was perfectly about us – and we didn’t even have to ask for anything. The video we received felt like a short-film memory – personal, precise, and beautiful. For the first time, I truly felt that a hotel was paying attention to us.”

This post-experience did more than evoke nostalgia; it created an emotional bond with the brand – a key element of the SZDT concept: strengthening the cognitive-emotional connection between guest and provider through technological mediation.

The digital post-experience is therefore not merely a marketing tool, but both the closing and opening act of the guest experience cycle – because a well-preserved memory is more than just a memory: it becomes the basis for recall, rebooking, recommendation, and brand loyalty.

By the end of the first half-year of implementing the digital strategy, the hotel was able to report significant results. Guest satisfaction metrics had risen by 17%, and the proportion of returning guests reached 36% – more than double the industry average. The AI-based recommendation system reduced the number of underbooked events by 22%, improving capacity utilisation and optimising operational costs.

Pál Géza didn’t just focus on the numbers: when a guest personally thanked him, saying the hotel had “felt what I needed,” he knew they were on the right path.

And there was no longer any doubt: the SZDT framework outlined by Grotte (2025) was not a distant vision, but a strategy functioning here and now. “Lágy Hullámok” hadn’t become “smarter” – it had become more attentive, and that was what truly made the difference.

Pál Géza – after reviewing the latest monthly report, which highlighted the hotel’s outstanding guest satisfaction scores and a series of positive feedback – leaned back in his office chair. Rain tapped gently against the window, soft music played in the lobby, and Anna was preparing to check out with Dávid. Outside, a few guests lingered on the terrace, steaming cups of coffee in hand, while a quiet AR device displayed nearby sights for them. Géza smiled: “It works.”

The example of the “Soft Waves” boutique hotel clearly demonstrated that personalised digital tourism (SZDT) is not just a theoretical model, but a practical, economically viable, and genuinely human-centred approach. Technology did not replace human connections; rather, it created opportunities to deepen them. Every interaction, every recommendation, and every service became a conscious response to the unique needs of each guest.

The three pillars – AI-driven data management, cognitive infocommunication, and digital reality – did not operate as separate modules but formed a single, coherent ecosystem, centred on the cognitive and emotional experience of the guest. Through this system, the hotel was able to not only respond to the expectations of younger generations (especially Millennials and Gen Z) but proactively anticipate them.

Géza knew the path had not been easy. There had been dilemmas – could the service become too digital? Would “real hospitality” be lost? Yet some answers had arrived: in the form of data, experiences, and the smiles of the guests.

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2026

ISBN: 978 963 664 217 4

Marketing Turizmus

The publication of the third volume of Cases in Tourism Marketing is truly welcome news from both an educational and a professional perspective. Through real-world, timely, and thought-provoking cases, this collection helps readers – students and practitioners alike – gain a deeper understanding of the complex world of decision-making in tourism marketing. The case studies not only convey professional knowledge but also develop analytical skills, problem-solving abilities, and critical thinking. One of the volume’s key strengths is its focus on issues that define contemporary tourism, including the role of digitalization, artificial intelligence, destination branding, and stakeholder collaboration in tourism marketing. Long-awaited and highly relevant, this third volume is a worthy continuation of the previous collections and will undoubtedly serve as a valuable resource in higher education in tourism, while also being highly recommended to professionals who enjoy reflecting on challenges and opportunities beyond their own immediate field of expertise.

Tamara Ratz PhD

Director, Centre for International Relations, Kodolányi János University

Head of Tourism Department, Professor of Tourism

It is an honor for me to recommend this volume to everyone who wishes to understand tourism marketing not only in theory, but also through its real business and human dimensions. The worlds of tourism and hospitality have undergone fundamental changes in recent years, which makes case studies based on real market situations, decision-making dilemmas and current challenges especially valuable in supporting both learning and critical thinking. This book provides not only professional knowledge, but also encourages a complex mindset, creative problem-solving and the ability to think in connections — exactly the skills today’s tourism professionals need most. I wholeheartedly recommend this volume to students, educators and tourism professionals alike.

Judit Fodor (Liptai)

Group Director of Sales and Marketing, Danubius Hotels

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/deli-gray-cases-in-toursim-marketing-iii//

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