World�s Top Destination Health Resort Consolidates
Guest Data to Develop Unique Services for
Discriminating �Happy� People
.
Canyon Ranch Fine-tunes �Formulas for Joy� for 60% Repeat Guests, New Devotees of Healthful Living

September 10, 2003 - When guests arrive at Canyon Ranch, their lives change for the better, and not just because the two Canyon Ranch properties are beautifully designed, full service vacation resorts where busy people can relax.  Canyon Ranch goes much further by providing a true life-giving experience complete with on-property physicians � that include the author of a book many Americans are reading; What Happy People Know -- and nutritionists, exercise and neuromuscular therapists, herbalists and other health specialists who are there to restore guests� well-being and teach them the principles of healthy, happy living. 

While the Spa industry is growing in the United States with nearly every full service destination resort claiming to offer some form of spa activity, Canyon Ranch is in a class by itself.  With properties set in the pristine, cactus studded Sonoran desert near Tucson, Arizona, and the lush Berkshire Mountains in Lenox, Massachusetts, Canyon Ranch carries the �Best Luxury Resort,� �World�s Best Overseas Destination Spa,� and �Top Destination Spa� awards from the Conde� Nast Traveler and Departures magazines, and has been honored with the �World�s Best Food,� and �World�s Best Service� awards by Travel + Leisure Magazine. 
 

Canyon Ranch offers over 200 different personalized guest services that include medical examinations and counseling by its staff of physicians, exercise physiologists, nutritionists, and innovative holistic healing arts offered by a team of licensed professionals.  �Over 40 percent of our guests use our medical services.  We have a spa, but it is only a small part of what we offer,� said Morey Brown, Canyon Ranch�s director of marketing and data analysis. �We are the largest and top rated luxury resort in many categories, but with the glory comes certain responsibilities.  We are always pushing the envelope and trying new things.�  This includes efficiently managing true one-to-one relationships with guests through an engine that drives new program offerings through the ability to mine a rich, consolidated customer database that pulls data from various property systems. 

First-time guests to Canyon Ranch are impressed with the high level of staff training and attention to their needs, but repeat guests are also surprised at the new services they find when they return to the resorts.  �We are constantly 


Canyon Ranch Health Resort
Tucson, Arizona
--

Canyon Ranch
Berkshires Health Resort
Lenox, Massachusetts
expanding our repertoire of offerings,� continued Brown.  �I spend a portion of each day working with our database solutions provider, The IDT Group, examining the services our guests utilize, as well as their favorite activities and other preferences so we can offer them the most popular amenities.  Being able to fully explore our data is relatively new for us.  We use a highly customized CLS property management system (PMS) for reservations, guest accounting, packages, and housekeeping.  We have made many changes to the system to customize it for our operation, but it was always a challenge to extract select guest data from the system.  A year ago we brought in The IDT Group to create and maintain a database we could use to understand who our guests really are so we can meet their needs and market to them more effectively.  We have easy access to all our information now, and we are putting it to work for us.

�Database analysis guides our marketing plan.  We make decisions based on the information all the time.  We transfer our PMS information into The IDT Group�s database over an Internet connection, and they organize it for us so we have a better feel for our guests� needs and how to communicate with them,� explained Brown. �The IDT Group also cleaned up our mailing lists; there is no waste in our mailings now because our addresses are current, and we can effortlessly, seamlessly target mailings to any segment of our guests and inform them about new offerings.�  With a 60 percent rate of repeat business, Canyon Ranch also tracks which of its activities are most valued by guests to understand how to keep them coming back.

One piece of new information Canyon Ranch learned from analyzing historical data was that repeat guests are more likely than first-timers to take advantage of the properties� healthcare facilities. Morey Brown explained, �With our vendor�s help, we went through our database and matched up which of our guests preferred one property over the other, and which stayed at both.  Most of our guests favor one property over the other. For instance, we were pretty sure our Lenox property attracted more of a drive-up market than our Tucson property, which is used more as a destination getaway for longer stays.  The IDT Group confirmed this, but they went deeper to deliver information on what metropolitan statistical areas were home to most of our guests. Now we understand what areas of the country are stronger in specific seasons, and this helps us invest our marketing dollars more wisely.�

Both Canyon Ranch properties are sensitive to the use their guests make of specialized activities. Focusing on guests� interests guides management�s choice of programs that they expect to be most popular.  For example, Canyon Ranch recently learned by analyzing their data that many female guests took advantage of the Women�s Wellness programs.  This knowledge guided them to provide a special program on Women�s Health Issues at their Lenox property. �We saw that many of our female guests were seeing certain health practitioners and taking advantage of specific services in the past; this led us to create the new program and market it to a list of guests that showed an interest in these services before,� added Brown. �Targeted mailing lists are very simple for The IDT Group to provide.  Canyon Ranch is regularly challenging them on new ways to cut and extract guest information; researching specific types of repeat guests, when they return, how often; and which promotional packages generate more returns.�

For many guests, visiting Canyon Ranch is a way of life, but to others it is the fulfillment of their dream. Some families save for years to visit the properties and afterwards report it was an important experience that lasts a lifetime.   Both Canyon Ranch properties have a mission of wellness and healing for their guests that takes shape as a motivational experience about personal health.  �We take our guests beyond recreation to wellness,� said Brown. �One of our challenges is educating people on the difference between a spa and a true health resort.  We are a place of education that integrates many levels of physical and emotional health and wellness practice into each guest�s stay.  Our guests have a high level of expectation and trust in Canyon Ranch, and that what we provide is serious and does work. The IDT Group has helped us understand more about our guests and helped us meet their needs.�

About Canyon Ranch
Canyon Ranch is an environment entirely dedicated to relaxation, recreation and total health and well-being.  Guests find everything they need and want at Canyon Ranch where they are free to create a vacation that is unique.  Canyon Ranch changes the way guests live forever, and lets them discover a passion for healthy living.  Canyon Ranch properties include Canyon Ranch Tucson, Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires, Canyon Ranch SpaClub at The Venetian in Las Vegas, Canyon Ranch SpaClub at Gaylord Palms in Orlando, and Canyon Ranch ClubSpa on the Queen Mary 2.  For more information call  800-742-9000, or visit www.canyonranch.com
 

About IDT Group

The IDT Group is a solutions provider that cleans, organizes, consolidates and enriches data from various systems - such as PMS, point of sale, sales and catering, club management, spa, and other applications - into one customer database, and generates custom, client-configured reports from the database.  Through a Web interface, The IDT Group provides utilities for combining duplicate guest history records and editing data fields.   The company also provides an array of data mining and consulting services to support marketing, sales, revenue management, planning, reporting and CRM activities.  The IDT Group is the leader in the hospitality industry's growing commitment to integrate operational systems - and the data locked within them - by providing solutions that bridge the gap between "silos" and exploit the profit potential of untapped information assets. 

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Contact:

Canyon Ranch Health Resorts
Morey Brown
Director of Marketing and Data Analysis
Tuscon, Arizona
[email protected]
(520) 749-9655 x 4451
www.canyonranch.com/

The IDT Group
Harry Rivkin
President
161 Leverington Ave.
Philadelphia, PA  19127
[email protected]
(215) 487-4420
www.idthospitality.com



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