hi tech hotel

4 Critical Success Factors You Should Keep in Mind If You Own or Manage a Hotel

August 2, 2018
Filippo Frizzi
Customer loyalty, Experiences, Hospitality, Hospitality Trends, Hotels, Reputation Management, Technology

“Finders Keepers, losers weepers”, this old English adage, also a readjustment of an ancient Roman law (the res nullius) concerning the legislation of lost items, should be well kept in mind by the hotel industry operators.

In fact, hosting customers for the first time is, in perspective, a huge opportunity, like finding a diamond box at the edge of the road.

This affirmation is true as much as that offering customers a unique stay experience is equivalent to stimulating them to repeat their pleasant experiences and so to securing their loyalty.

Experiences delivered to customers depend much on the surprise or wow factor that every player of the hotel industry is able to create. To use a love metaphor, without “love at first sight”, conquering the hearts of new customers, and thus seeing them return, is really tough!

So how can hoteliers achieve customer delight and see their guests come back overtime? Below you can read some useful tips on the topic. While reading, always keep in mind that success in hospitality depends on how well a hotelier knows his/her guests and is able to anticipate their requests.

So here are our tips:

Underpromise and overdeliver: take control of your guests’ expectations

It might seem strange to you but there are still lots of hoteliers who keep promising services and experiences they are not able to deliver to their guests hoping that this way they will increase their guests and revenues. This is a huge problem for hoteliers as well as for their guests. For the latter because they arrive full of expectations and then receive a disappointing experience. And for the former because in the best-case scenario they’ll see their guests leave and never come back while in the most realistic scenario they’ll also get bad guest reviews on popular online travel portals. Bad reviews should be avoided at all costs given their enormous impact on travelers’ choices. So keep your guests expectations aligned to what you really can offer them by being transparent, truthful and building trust with them during every preliminary information exchange.

Perform proper targeting: know your guests, be proactive

“Anticipate, be proactive” is what’s written in a passage of the famous book “The Art of War” in which the Chinese philosopher Sun Tsu underlines the importance of studying the enemy in advance to be ready in case of battle. His recipe for success works for the hotel industry too where targeting properly customers by studying their habits and their preferences is very important for understanding their expectations. In every business, different customer groups have different expectations. This is true in the hospitality industry too as its wide variety of target segments like business travelers, leisure travelers, millennial travelers, group travelers, chinese travelers, female travelers, adventure travelers, wellness travelers, just to mention some, represent a wide variety of traveler groups with different accommodation and services needs and expectations. If for example, your target customers are families with children you must offer them kid-friendly facilities and services. If you’re aiming at senior travelers you must prioritize comfort and assistance services. If your customers are business travelers you must keep in mind and offer them convenience. The more you interact with your customers the more you discover about them and the more you understand what your main target clientele expects from you. If you’re wondering how to built interaction with your customers just think how many digital and technological tools are available today: from social networks to advanced crm platforms, from instant messaging tools to advanced digital marketing and advertising platforms.

Embrace technology: smart-up your hotel

While it is true that new technologies represent valuable allies for hoteliers in building engagemet and collecting information about travelers, it is also true that technology and digital tools rank high in travelers’ accommodation service preferences, choices and requests. Modern travelers rely on technology during their everyday life so they also expect ubiquitous digital service continuity during their travel and hotel accommodation experiences. A research report published by Oracle focused on the relationship hotel guest expectations and technology. More than 64% of the interviewees said that it is “extremely or very important” for hotels to continue investing in technology and 71% of them said they expect easy and fast check-in at their arrival. Just think how much keyless smart locks, digital keys and mobile apps can improve check-in experiences creating a positive first impression in hotel guests, influencing their loyalty and future accommodation choices. Two other very important traveler experience factors, host-guest communication and service customization, rely mainly on technological tools today. Just think of chatbots, instant messaging, IoT and smart rooms to get an idea of the diffusion of technology in the hospitality industry. So if you want to attract travelers to your hotel invest in technology!

Focus on service customization: become the genius of the lamp

Thanks to modern digital marketing and crm tools hoteliers can perform extremely accurate profiling of their guests and collect incredible amounts of market data transforming themselves in geniuses of the lamp able to fulfill all their guests’ most profound wishes and desires making their stays unique and extremely pleasant and skyrocketing hotel reputation and customer loyalty. Providing tailor-made services and expriences to hotel guests has never been easy like it is today so sit in front of your personal computer and start mining data about your market’s needs and trends immediately!

In conclusion, knowing your guests, meeting or exceeding their expectations and providing them with hi-tech services and tailor-made experiences is the best way to make sure they’re going to be loyal to your brand and share good comments about you with their peers. “Season” these basic rules with attention to details like, facility cleaniness, staff helpfulness and reception friendliness and your hospitality business’ success is guaranteed!

World’s Most Hi-Tech Hotels: How Technology Improves the Guest Experience

We are not yet travelling on spaceships, we are not yet living on Mars, but our “travelling space” has changed dramatically in the last years and as tourists sometimes we may feel like aliens in strange places called “hi-tech hotels”. A rapid digital revolution and incredible technological innovations have transformed the hospitality landscape. However this wasn’t an unpredictable change as the digital revolution has steadily been pervading all aspects of everyday life – public administration, culture, education, industry etc. – affecting travelling habits as well. Technology and digitalization are changing the way travelers of all kinds travel both in the luxury and in the budget travel segments.

Facts and trends:

According to Europe’s Digital Progress Report 2017, drawn up by the European Commission, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands have the most advanced digital economies in the European Union, followed by Luxembourg, Belgium, the UK – before Brexit – and Ireland. On the other side Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy have the lowest scores on the index.

The world-wide-web, social media, apps and digital maps have given travelers of the world the opportunity to explore any place without moving away from their sofa. This is a huge change compared to the way people used to travel just 20 years ago and things keep changing and evolving fast! So what’s next now? Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence applications are bringing new experiences in the hospitality sector. Expedia is introducing the possibility for its users to experience a room by means of virtual reality applications before booking it.

“Imagine if you could search for flights, walk to the plane to select your seat, book and pay for your trip using Virtual Reality. We live in a 3D world, why shouldn’t we shop for travel that way?” That’s the question Navitaire, the travel technology company asks. The company, which is a subsidiary of Amadeus, created a Virtual Reality simulation in which people can search for global destinations and view airplane’s seats and places where they could travel. For now it’s still in a development phase with a patent pending, but Navitaire’s project could change the whole idea of travel.

Thaks to Virtual Reality, tourists can use their iOS or Android phones to visit places normally closed to the public, destinations that are off-limits, dangerous places or protected heritage sites. Talking about Artificial Intelligence, online players are exploring the possibility of introducing chatbots to aid in trip planning, providing real time and user-tailored information. Furthermore Artificial Intelligence is not only experienced through software anymore but it’s also delivered through smart devices and real robots providing lots of services and assistance to their users.

So let’s see now what some of the most high-tech hotels of the world look like:

Yotel in New York, aims at solving the problem of luggage storage once and for all. No more mess in the room thanks to a hi-tech storage space for luggage: a robot takes care of your suitcase placing it into a glass-walled storage area assigned to guests by typing a pin number. This is just one of the many computerized services offered by the Hotel, services like motorised beds, kiosk check-ins and motion-activated air conditioning.

Aloft Cupertino, in Silicon Valley, United States, in 2014 inaugurated its first hi-tech humanoid Sanbot Hotel Robot Butler called Botlr. Thanks to multiple sensors, 3D cameras and Wi-Fi, this robot is able to move up and down across the hotel floors performing room deliveries. Since then several other hotels started introducing robots used to handle repetitive tasks. Las Vegas luxury hotel Mandarin Oriental, has a humanoid robot that’s called Pepper. It is very similar to a human: thanks to facial recognition technology it can guess guests’ gender, age and even mood! With its lifelike gestures it can also entertain guests by providing directions, telling jokes and posing for selfies. The Sheraton Los Angeles San Gabriel, which opened recently, is a 288-room hotel with eight robots that can deliver luggage and towels, offering also directions to guests.

In the japanese hotel Henn na, Tokyo, guests are welcomed by robots. The real oddity is that they are dinosaur-shaped ones. The Henn na has been the first hotel entirely staffed by robots speaking all the languages needed to satisfy even the most demanding foreigner. These robots greet you at the reception and they carry your luggage to your room where thanks to face recognition capabilities the room keys are not necessary anymore. In Japan again, the Weird Hotel, in the southwestern city of Sasebo, went one step further intruducing humanoid staff members waiting at the front desk to check you in. These robots speak English, Chinese Korean and Japanese.

The hotels mentioned above are mostly high end hotels. However technology goes beyond luxury and is also present in budget hotels! The City Hub, in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, is a valid and new alternative to old-school hostels and an excellent solution for low-cost travel. This innovative hotel has 50 minimalist private cabins, called Hubs, with a double bed, wifi, app-controlled lighting and a personal audio streaming system. You can’t loose your room’s key because you’re given a wristband that electronically unlocks your door. Thanks to the hotel’s custom app, it is also possible to change the lighting color of the rooms according to mood.

Robot Butler

Another technology worth mentioning is Virtual Reality that never ceases to amaze its users. If you order “The Origin”, a whisky cocktail, at the Lobby Bar of the One Aldwych Hotel in London, you will also get an immersive virtual reality experience. “When someone orders it, we give the guest virtual reality goggles and a headset and explain we are taking you to the origin of the drink. You fly to the distillery where the whisky is aged, and then to the fields of barley and to the water source”, said the drink’s creator, bar manager Pedro Paulo. Last but not least, we want to mention a very peculiar technology application in the hospitality business: thanks to Nissan, the ProPILOT Park Ryokan, located in Hakone, Japan, is equipped with self-parking slippers, tables and floor cushions! Yes you read it right! This hotel looks like any other traditional Japanese inn, but these accessories are equipped with a special version of Nissan’s ProPILOT Park autonomous parking technology meaning that when not in use, they automatically return to their designated spots, with the push of a button.

Despite all the hi tech “whistles and bells” and exciting futuristic services described so far in this article, more conventional technologies like social media and phone apps are still strong players on the battlefield of innovation and are always pushing forward.