Improve guest experience through the use of hotel technology
The guest experience doesn’t only begin once they arrive at your hotel. It starts at the first touchpoint a potential guest interacts with your hotel. Many hotels started paying attention to the pre-arrival experience as it is the most important period in terms of a memorable stay. Furthermore, some hotels have already implemented some form of hotel technology to improve their guest experience. But after COVID-19, what technologies should hotels adopt to improve guest experience?
As COVID-19 continues to spread, hoteliers have instituted new health and safety protocols as a part of their hotel operational procedures to meet country regulations and safeguard their guests. From this perspective, to cut off unnecessary touchpoints will become a project for hotels to rethink their procedures and technology solutions to be implemented.
The check-in process has great potential for digitalisation and optimisation. Hotels could either use manual processes or implement technologies to move some check-in tasks online during the pre-arrival stage. Registration Form, Passport Scanning and Credit Card Pre-authorization are the easiest parts to be digitised at little to no cost. Here are some tips on how you can use technology or manually perform some check-in tasks during the pre-arrival stage.
1. Digitise your Check-in Registration Form by using Google Forms
Google Forms allows you to create a customised form with multiple questions. Based on your own requirements, you may fully digitise the registration form. File Upload is an option for you to capture a copy of the guest’s passport. Once the form is created, you may enclose the link in the email sent to your guests.
Pros: easy to implement, no-cost
Cons: too much manual work, difficult to track responses and mapping to reservations
2. Pre-arrival Check-in Automation
Some CRM systems or Upselling solutions provide such a function as one of their modules. These systems will automatically engage pre-arrival guests and collect guest’s information for registration. This includes copies of your guests’ passport which are tagged with the respective reservation. Hotels can always log in to download the information and passport copy. Some systems such as KAI also provides a credit card pre-authorization feature. That means hotels will only need to issue a key card for guests to pick up upon arrival.
Pros: easy to implement, semi-automated
Cons: manually download and print guest information and passport copy
3. Implement a Full Keyless Online Check-in Solution
Hotel keyless solution is an upcoming trend in hotel technology. It allows guests to use their own smart devices to unlock their rooms instead of physical keys/cards. By using the fingerprint scanner and facial recognition technology, it can verify the guests and issue a mobile key to the guest mobile device after online check-in. One such leading keyless check-in solution provider is GTRIIP.
Pros: fully automated from online self check-in to self check-out
Cons: additional cost for PMS integration and key card system
Conclusion
Post pandemic, more and more travellers would still adopt social distancing during their travels. By using any one of the above methods, you would be able to reduce some unnecessary contact between guests and your staff. It will not only reduce health risks but more importantly increase your hotel’s guest experience.
Speak to our hotel consultant to learn more about how you can implement a contactless guest experience for your hotel.
