How resort operators can help guests find and book more dining, spa, activities, and services across a complex property.
A destination resort can offer more than a guest could reasonably absorb in a single arrival conversation: multiple lodging areas, restaurants, pools, spa services, activities, transportation routes, seasonal programming, and other amenities that are easy to miss unless someone points them out. The property may be full. The restaurant, cabana program, or afternoon activity may still have capacity.
That gap is an operating problem as much as a marketing one. When guests cannot quickly understand what is available, where it is, and whether they can act on it, they default to what is familiar. They ask the front desk. They stay close to their room. Or they leave value on the table without ever knowing it was there.
For resort operators, the opportunity is to make the property easier to use while guests are still deciding what to do next. That takes a connected mobile layer that brings together practical guidance, timely property information, and clear paths to bookable moments.
A resort stay is a series of decisions
Guests do not experience a resort as an organizational chart or a collection of departments. They experience it as a series of small, time-sensitive decisions. Where is breakfast? Is there a shuttle to the activity area? Which pool is closest? Is the spa open? Can we still reserve dinner? What can the family do between checkout and a flight?
Those decisions happen in hallways, by the pool, in a parking area, after a meeting, and while a family is deciding between two plans. A printed directory may be accurate, but it cannot account for a guest’s location, the time of day, or the next step they need to take. A static map can show a destination, but it does not necessarily make the destination discoverable, understandable, or bookable.
The operational consequence is familiar. Guests stop employees for directions. The front desk answers the same questions repeatedly. Dining, recreation, and spa teams depend on staff to explain offerings that should be visible on demand. Meanwhile, property leaders have limited visibility into the questions guests ask most often, the destinations they search for, or where interest builds without becoming a reservation.
This matters as operators balance guest expectations with rising operating costs. The American Hotel & Lodging Association’s 2025 State of the Industry Report also highlights the growing role of generative AI in improving both guest experiences and operational efficiency. At a complex resort, discovery is one practical place where those two goals meet.
Discovery is different from navigation
Wayfinding is important. If a guest needs to find a restaurant, event venue, room, or transportation stop, clear blue-dot navigation reduces uncertainty and prevents a routine question from becoming a staff interruption. But navigation answers only one part of the guest’s need: how to get somewhere after they know it exists.
Discovery begins earlier. It helps a guest understand what is available, why it may be relevant now, and how to move from interest to action. A couple looking for lunch should be able to see nearby dining options and whether a table is available. A parent searching for afternoon plans should be able to find age-appropriate activities, their location, and the next departure time. A guest arriving at the pool should be able to learn about cabana availability or nearby food and beverage without returning to the room or calling the desk.
The distinction is commercially meaningful. A property can have excellent amenities and still leave revenue unrealized when those amenities are not visible at the moment of intent. Guests cannot book what they do not find, and they are less likely to seek out what feels complicated to reach.
More revenue per guest starts with helping guests see more of the property while there is still time to act.
What this looks like at Hershey Resorts
Hershey, Pennsylvania, is a clear example of a complex destination. Hersheypark, four official resorts, restaurants, spas, and seasonal attractions all sit within reach of a single stay, and one guest’s day can move between several of them.
Phunware built the Hershey Resorts mobile experience around that reality. The deployment included indoor and outdoor wayfinding across three of the resort properties (The Hotel Hershey, Hershey Lodge, and Hersheypark Camping Resort), with interactive maps, turn-by-turn directions, and searchable points of interest. Hershey Inn & Suites, the fourth, joined the mobile experience on April 30, 2026.
From March 26, 2025, through May 31, 2026, guests used the app to:
→View dining information nearly 65,000 times
→View shuttle information more than 51,000 times
→Run nearly 20,000 interactive map searches
→Generate more than 23,000 navigation routes
Dining drew the highest volume of any activity measured, and shuttle information reached the broadest audience, across more than 21,000 unique devices. When the details that help guests plan their next move are easy to reach, guests go looking for them. The full Hershey Resorts case study covers the deployment and results in more detail.
Beyond wayfinding: What a full Guest Intelligence Platform adds
The Hershey results above come from wayfinding, interactive maps, property content, and mobile campaigns. The rest of this section looks at Phunware’s broader Guest Intelligence Platform and what it adds for operators.
The strongest approach works with the systems teams already use. Hospitality technology stacks are complex by necessity. Reservations, PMS, POS, spa, activity, transportation, and guest-service systems each support a real part of the stay. The goal is to give guests a useful front door to the information and actions that already sit across those systems.
A Guest Intelligence Platform provides that layer. It brings Concierge + Data + Bookings together so a guest can ask a practical question, receive property-specific guidance, and take the next step without unnecessary handoffs. For the operator, guest movement, questions, searches, and booking activity can inform a clearer view of how the property is being used.
Concierge: answer the question in the moment
An AI Concierge can help guests find answers about dining hours, amenities, activities, transportation, and routes across the property. Faster answers help guests, and they also free up staff for the high-touch moments that require judgment, recovery, and personal attention.
For example, rather than calling the front desk to ask where an activity starts, a guest can receive the relevant details and directions in the same interaction. That helps the guest move with confidence and allows the front desk to focus on arrivals, special requests, and situations where a person can make a meaningful difference.
Data: understand what guests are trying to do
Every route request, amenity search, and concierge question is a signal. When location, PMS, and transactional data are fused into a unified property model, operators can begin to see patterns that are hard to spot in separate systems. Which amenities are being searched for most? Where do guests need the most help? Which areas receive interest without a completed booking?
The aim is practical context for operations, revenue, and guest-facing teams. If guests repeatedly search for a restaurant but do not convert, the issue may be availability, booking flow, hours, or how the offering is presented. If a destination generates frequent navigation requests, signage or service coverage may need attention. These are operating questions that become easier to investigate when property behavior is visible.
Bookings: reduce the distance between interest and action
Interest has a short shelf life. A guest considering a massage, dinner reservation, tee time, cabana, or activity is most valuable when they can take the next step immediately. The shorter the path from a relevant recommendation to a confirmed booking, the more likely the property is to capture the opportunity.
A few useful options, presented in context, work better than a flood of offers. A guest looking for a family activity needs different information from someone looking for a late dinner. Relevance and timing matter as much as the offer itself.
Make discovery an operating discipline
Resort leaders should treat guest discovery as a cross-functional discipline shared by operations, revenue, and guest services along with digital and marketing. The questions are operational: What do guests struggle to find? Which moments create repeat questions for staff? Where is ancillary demand being missed? What can a guest discover and book without changing channels or waiting for help?
Start with the property moments where confusion and commercial opportunity overlap. Arrival and first-day planning. The walk from lodging to dining or recreation. The hours between a morning activity and dinner. Weather changes. Seasonal events. Transportation transitions. Each moment is an opportunity to provide useful direction and surface something the guest may want next.
Then measure more than downloads or page views. Look at the questions guests ask, destinations they search for, paths they take, amenities they explore, and booking actions they complete. Those signals help teams improve the guest journey and identify what the property should make easier to find.
The property has more to offer than guests can find alone
Complexity is part of what makes a destination resort valuable. Multiple places to stay, dine, relax, and explore can create a richer visit. But that value only reaches the guest when the property makes it practical to discover.
The right mobile experience supports the human side of hospitality. It removes routine uncertainty, reduces repetitive questions, and helps guests make better use of the time they already have on property. In turn, teams gain more capacity to serve guests where personal attention matters most.
For operators, that is the larger opportunity: help guests find more of what is already available, understand how they move through the property, and create more bookable moments across the stay.
Schedule a Strategy Session to explore how a Guest Intelligence Platform can help your resort reduce front-desk volume, surface more bookable moments, and turn guest activity into actionable operational insight.
