A Brief History

At Crowne Plaza, our brand promise is to make business travel work by bringing humanity back to business travel.

Business travel is changing. Attitudes towards work trips are changing and how people manage their work/life balance is changing. Work is more digital, flexible, mobile, and also more demanding, than ever before. We want Crowne Plaza Hotels to stand out from our competitors by offering a new and distinct experience for business travellers. The assumption is that business travellers want an efficient, functional service. When actually the reality is they want an emotional service with a real human connection.

Our research shows that if guests have a great connection with our colleagues and feel understood and taken care of, they’re more likely to return. So, we’re focusing not just on what business travellers need from a hotel but how their hotel experience makes them feel, so we are the preferred choice for the guest.

And to do this we use our service experience: DARE TO CONNECT

Dare To Connect is built upon four behaviours which drive everything we do.

Dare To Make The First Move

Examples of making the first move could be:

Introducing yourself to the guest by name

Offering help before you are asked for it

Giving people information you know will be useful to them

Adapt To The Moment

Adapting to the moment is about paying attention to the little things. It could be as simple as noticing a guest in the lounge with a laptop and offering them a table near a plug socket or remembering a guest has an allergy and offering them something suitable before they have to ask.

Relate To Business Needs

Relating to business needs is all about understanding and prioritising things that help our guests get their business done! Especially guests attending a meeting in the hotel. This could include understanding equipment setup, like projectors and speakers, troubleshooting basic IT problems or even just having enough pens handy for your guests!

Enable Quality Downtime

Enabling quality downtime is about understanding that business might be the reason for their stay, but it’s not the only thing in our guest’s life! We should be knowledgeable about our local area and ready to make thoughtful recommendations for great ways for them to spend their downtime, or if they want to relax in the hotel, we must be prepared to offer a relaxing leisure experience with warm and friendly service and great food and drinks.

In Person Training

The comprehensive collection of training materials can be downloaded from Brand Central

Below, you will find:

• The Brand Experience Facilitators Guide which will give you all the information you need to train Dare To Connect to your team in a classroom session.

• The Brand Experience Presentation slides

• The Brand Champion Toolkit with complete guidance on how to launch or maintain Dare To Connect

Comprehensive implementation and sustainment resources can be found in Brand Central.

To download resources, log into IHG Merlin and follow: Brand Central > Crowne Plaza > Brand Warehouse > Dare To Connect > English Assets