Hanga Founder and CEO Nathaniel Milner explains how pre-arrival retail can help hotels personalise the guest experience, unlock new revenue and stay relevant as travellers increasingly expect their preferences to follow them.
For readers discovering Hanga for the first time, what is the platform and what problem does it solve?
Hanga is a pre-arrival retail platform that allows hotel guests to choose what they want waiting for them when they arrive. From stocking the fridge around dietary preferences to having toiletries, wellness or beauty products ready, guests can personalise their stay before they even travel. For hotels, Hanga removes the guesswork from hospitality. No two guests have the same preferences, and hotels cannot realistically cater to everyone. Hanga allows them to offer greater choice without the additional procurement, storage, logistics and waste.
Why do you see pre-arrival retail as such a significant opportunity for hotels?
Research shows that three-quarters of UK consumers who had booked a summer holiday planned to buy new items before travelling, yet hotels currently participate in very little of that spending.
Wellness is a good example of changing expectations. It doesn’t necessarily mean a spa treatment; for many travellers, it is simply maintaining their routine, whether that means electrolytes after a flight, protein bars, vitamins, supplements or beauty and personal care products. Guests have more choice than ever about where they spend, so if a hotel doesn’t offer what they need, they can easily buy elsewhere. Hanga gives hotels a way to offer greater choice at familiar retail prices while participating in that spend.
How does Hanga create both a better guest experience and an additional revenue opportunity?
Hanga allows hotels to become part of the guest’s preparation for their trip, rather than that relationship beginning when they arrive. Guests know what can be waiting for them, instead of buying and travelling with products just in case.
There is also a clear commercial opportunity. Hanga shares revenue with the hotel, allowing it to participate in pre-travel spending that would otherwise go elsewhere, including spending increasingly moving to third-party delivery apps. Rather than being bypassed by those transactions, the hotel remains part of the guest experience and benefits from the revenue.
What does the Hanga experience look like from the guest’s perspective?
Hanga is live today and can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play, while guests can also discover it through their hotel’s pre-arrival communications. They choose their destination and shop for their trip in advance, with Hanga built around where you are going rather than where you are now.
Core sections include wellness, beauty and personal care, minibar, travel essentials and gifts. If a guest cannot find something they want, they can message us and we will do our best to add it to the inventory. Everything is delivered directly to the hotel ready for arrival, so guests can enjoy the welcome they have chosen for themselves.
Looking ahead, how do you see pre-arrival retail evolving?
I think pre-arrival retail will become a normal part of travel. We already plan almost every aspect of a trip before leaving home, yet the products and preferences that make a stay personal are still largely an afterthought. In time, your preferences should travel with you.
Hanga is live in London today, but the model is designed to expand internationally. We see it becoming infrastructure for pre-arrival retail, integrated into hotel websites, airlines and travel-booking platforms. That could enable airlines to extend hospitality beyond the airport, corporate travel bookers to create personalised arrivals, and hotels to recognise the preferences of frequent guests.
Longer term, AI makes this even more interesting. A traveller should be able to say,
I’m staying in Paris next week, have my usual products waiting for me.
Hanga can provide the inventory, hotel relationships and fulfilment network to make that request a reality.