For companies in the hospitality industry, nothing matters more than delivering a customer-centric experience. Expectations have changed, and guests are seeking a more authentic, personalized interactions from the moment they place a reservation, and throughout their entire visit. Hotels, cruise lines, and other destinations understand that digital transformation is the key to making guests feel engaged, heard, and delighted-while keeping them coming back.

Every guest encounter matters, and even mistakes are an opportunity to improve their satisfaction. According to Deloitte, guests are 40 percent more likely to share positive reviews when a problem is fixed quickly.

Serving guests with a more proactive company culture

To elevate every guest experience, technology teams need more than just the latest technology. They need visibility into how well it's functioning every minute of every day-and fully understand how that performance affects their guests. Royal Caribbean International is one hospitality company that is transforming its operations with Cisco Full-Stack Observability.

With exciting itineraries sailing to more than 60 countries on six continents, Royal Caribbean has been delivering innovative vacation experiences since 1969. The cruise line relies on its technology to support its most important guest-facing applications and services, from web servers to contact centers. With so much riding on its infrastructure, the company understands that even a brief issue might mean a negative guest experience.

To spot and fix issues before guests notice them, Royal Caribbean put Cisco Full-Stack Observability in place. With Cisco AppDynamics and Cisco ThousandEyes providing visibility into its services and user experiences, the company has gone from being a reactive to being proactive and even preventing issues.

Data is helping Royal Caribbean work better and faster

"Since bringing on the full-stack observability solutions, we are data driven," says Alice McElroy. "We have reduced mean time to resolution and critical incidents. We know in advance if we're going to have a problem and can prevent it."

Cisco Full-Stack Observability is also helping Royal Caribbean build on its tradition of innovation by helping its developers work better and faster.

"Full stack observability has helped developer productivity at Royal Caribbean almost 100 percent," said McElroy. "It tells us in advance how a system is going to perform, so when we go live, they get to spend more time developing and less time supporting a broken system."

With improved agility for new service creation and better insights into its systems, Royal Caribbean is demonstrating its commitment to guests today, and for years to come.

Partnering with NTT to drive business outcomes

The fact that Royal Caribbean had an appetite to truly understand the analytics piece of its network puzzle was music to the ears to long-time Cisco partner, NTT, the global services provider on the project. 

"We were pleased that Royal Caribbean paid such close attention to the analytics piece," says Joe Maissel from NTT. "When they were able to see exactly what was happening with a view into critical business functionality, it provided real value to them." 

McElroy is not only pleased with Cisco Full-Stack Observability, but she also says she values how the partnership with NTT and Cisco helped Royal Caribbean improve the guest experience for its customers.

"We focused together on our challenges and on the solutions that would mean positive changes for our customers. Because of this shared commitment, I believe in the solution we implemented, but most importantly, I believe in our partnership."

Maissel agrees, saying, "Through our deployment and managed services with Cisco Full-Stack Observability, our goal is to empower our customers to be successful with the investments they've made. It's been rewarding helping Royal Caribbean get to where they are and partnering with them on where they want to go."

Learn more about Royal Caribbean's success with Cisco Full-Stack Observability.