The boom of technology is changing the face of the hospitality industry, too. It is gradually becoming a must for hotels to be able to connect to their more and more tech-savvy guests at all times. The hospitality industry is prompted to offer higher levels of personalised experience like never before and meet the growing expectations for value, quality, flexibility and responsiveness.
"It is gradually becoming a must for hotels to be able to be connected to their more and more tech-savvy guests at all times."
Some hoteliers have even taken a step further. Now there are unmanned hotels, or at least the only people there are the guests. You may say it isn't possible, but it is – at the Henn-na Hotel in Japan, guests are serviced by robots, and at the Buddy Hotel in Munich, guests are met by a hotel kiosk instead of a receptionist to assist them in their check-in, getting a room key, etc.
Is this the future? Is it already here? Arguably it may be, but the question is “What is it?”. Can a hotel app replace the human factor in the hospitality industry?
We can surely say that this new type of hotels is an example of extreme digitalisation in the search for competitive differentiation or a low-cost business model. But the fact remains that use of various hotel apps and hotel kiosks is on the rise across the hospitality industry. Similarly, with the launch of our new hotel self-service check-in kiosk, we shipped the first few beta machines in just a week, such high demand already exists. Recent surveys show the main driving force behind this phenomenon is the strive for boosting guest service and satisfaction. With a hotel kiosk or a mobile hotel app, the options for guest engagement can now encompass every aspect of a guest’s journey from booking a room and checking in to the use of various extra services and checkout.
And all this hotel self-service technology doesn't necessarily replace the manned front desk. On the contrary, it can supplement it.
Guests not only have a greater direct control over their stay at their fingertips, but can effectively skip all tiresome queuing in line at the front desk, and that's not all. Nowadays guests can use a mobile hotel app or hotel kiosk to:
When all the boring formalities of a check-in are addressed in a few clicks by the guest themselves, a receptionist can have much more time to properly attend to the various other needs, with more ‘human touch' too. The result of this teamwork between hotel personnel and technology is more than positive – it is a success story of elevated guest experience and greater than ever sense of customer loyalty to the brand. So the face of the hospitality industry is rapidly changing for the better as it retains one of its key components – the unique personal touch of the various hospitality brands.