The hospitality industry, traditionally characterised by person to person interactions, is now turning to contactless technology to address new guest concerns around safety, cleanliness and social distancing. Contactless technology could help reassure guests by actively and visibly minimising risk during their stay, and publishing information about this online can help convince travellers to book.
Hotels need to embrace the technology change necessary to meet these evolving guest expectations, and they need to clearly communicate what they are doing in this area. Those that fail to do so will be at a significant disadvantage.
Empower your guests by offering choice
Contactless technology empowers guests, allowing them to choose the level of physical contact and interaction they are comfortable with by either minimising or even eliminating some of the potential touchpoints with hotel staff and other guests.
As a result of the rising demand for contactless travel solutions, Bookassist has been collaborating with partners to bring our clients the best technology available. One of the core areas of focus is contactless check-in and check-out as an alternative to the traditional physical interaction.
Remote check-in and check-out
Bookassist has partnered with MyStay and with GuestJoy as two leading platforms that in our view best address the challenge of contactless services for hotels. We know that hotels currently offering keyless and/or contactless check-in and check-out are significantly better positioned to attract clients today. Today’s processes can pose unnecessary risk for both staff and guests alike. The exchanging of documents, often after lengthy queueing, does not easily meet today’s cleanliness and safety expectations.
Guests on arrival should not have to provide information that they could have easily provided before arriving at the hotel. With contactless check-in guests can bypass the front desk (or reduce their interaction there) and go directly to their rooms. With contactless check-in, guests receive informative, pre-stay emails which encourage them to check-in ahead of time and direct them to an online check-in form for pre-filling on a smartphone or other device. Upon arrival the guest can then immediately collect their room access card/key without spending time queuing or needlessly interacting with hotel staff or other guests.
Enhance the quality of the guest experience
This growing preference for contactless technology goes beyond just contactless check-in and check-out. Our partners can also facilitate broader solutions which help enhance the contactless guest experience.
Keyless hotel room technology for example is available which will enable guests to open their room doors via their smartphone, again avoiding unnecessary touchpoints.
Virtual concierge enables hotels to provide guests with customised information about the hotel, their destination, local dining options, local events and other services which may be of interest, all from the safety of the guest phone. Customised landing pages can be created to ensure that a hotel can upsell and promote in-house services without the need to visit the front desk.
Dynamic guest communication platforms and channels enable clients to effectively communicate the benefits of the hotel’s contactless initiatives which will serve in protecting guest safety before, during and after stay, enhancing the overall guest experience.
Make the change
As we implement strategies to combat some of the current challenges we must consider technical solutions that help us meet new client expectations. The volume of hotel guests will continue to return and as a result it is crucial that we in the industry adapt to the new reality we are facing.
The option of contactless travel will make a huge difference to your guests and will underpin your hotel’s efforts to safely manage your guests and deliver the experience they will increasingly expect. Embracing digitalisation and leveraging new technologies to adapt to the ‘new normal’ and to shifts in consumer behaviour is paramount. The time to act is now.
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