Will artificial intelligence find a place in hotels as an in-room virtual concierge?

A recent article, “Talking Technology: is this what hotel guests really want?” brings to light a potential future hospitality technology trend that is still in its infancy. Voice assistant technology, such as Apple’s Siri and Google Now, has emerged as a next-step development for mobile technology.

The article states:

“In the not too distant future, you will be able to lie on your bed in a hotel room and control room features and services entirely with voice commands. The technology behind this is already available. Many homes already have an Amazon Echo, an Internet-connected voice interface that connects you with Amazon’s Alexa voice service, providing on-demand music, TV, audio books, travel information and many other services through simple voice commands.”

Automation and artificial intelligence in hotels have received a fair amount of attention, especially with the emergence of robot hotels. Having a virtual hotel room assistant takes this current hotel technology trend to the next level, one that could be even more immediately impactful than robots in hotels.

Many hotels have in-room iPads or tablets installed that are capable of providing hotel room automation features, or room controls. From the comfort of their bed, guests can use a hotel room tablet to control the lights, temperature, drapes and more.

Voice technology takes this further. Devices with virtual voice assistants, such as the paired Amazon Echo and Alexa voice command platform, would allow guests to bypass picking up the touchscreen tablets for automated hotel room controls. They could simply say what they wanted aloud.

Available commands could also be expanded. For instance, Amazon’s Alexa can already be asked to give information about news and weather, play music, provide traffic reports. Imagine the possibilities of this talking technology in a hotel room of the future.

It would be like having a virtual concierge in the hotel room at all times available to serve the guest.

The virtual hotel concierge (think Siri or Alexa) would likely be able to improve the guest experience and become central to smart hotel rooms of the future, similar to how the Amazon Echo is being called by some the “Center of the Smart Home.” It could be a key piece of the hotel Internet of Things, providing easy control over numerous devices.

Hotels could personify the virtual hotel concierge for branding purposes instead of using the familiar names of Siri or Alexa. Different hotel brands could have different names for their in-room virtual concierge to create a more personalized experience for their guests.

Commands will be spoken directly to this virtual concierge, placing orders, making requests, or asking for information. There would be no delay in response, similar to the convenience of using in-room touchscreen tablets in hotel rooms now but with voice activations.

Consumer reviews of AI assistants have been very positive so far, but the day when we’ll see this type of talking technology fully embedded into hotel rooms is likely still far off.

Hotel in-room tablets and touchscreen control panels are the most advanced options widely embraced by hospitality as a means of providing guests with the conveniences of hotel room automation. The widespread popularity of touchscreen tablets like the iPad and the falling prices of the hardware have contributed to this hotel technology trend, as well as the improvements to the guest experience in-room tablets carry. They even contribute to the hotel AAA Diamond ratings.

Eccleston Square Hotel, known as one of the world’s most high-tech hotels, boasts a variety of cutting-edge hotel room technology, including in-room tablets with the INTELITY hospitality technology platform. But James Byrne, manager at luxury London hotel Eccleston Square Hotel, is quoted in the EyeforTravel article as being skeptical of how guests would respond to virtual voice assistants in hotels.

“I’m not sure this would work for all guests. Some might even find it frustrating,” Byrne said.

INTELITY CTO Chris Grey echoes the sentiment but believes this might appear on future hospitality technology trend lists. “It’s not hard to imagine a hotel guest speaking their requests aloud with phrases like, ‘Housekeeping, please bring me extra towels,’ or ‘Room Service, I’d like the Caesar salad at 7 o’clock please.’ The only significant unknown is whether guests will have concerns that microphones are present in their room.”

 

Why Pokémon Go could mean the future of augmented and virtual reality in hotels is a promising one.

You’re a rarity if you haven’t yet fallen prey to the addictiveness of the new Pokémon Go app or heard about its effects on the world around you.

The concept behind Pokémon, a media franchise that was created in 1995, is fairly simple. There are creatures in the world called Pokémon that people, called “Trainers,” try to catch. The Pokémon Go app is a game that allows app users to become Trainers and find Pokémon in locations all around them using augmented reality (AR). Their smartphones provide information to the app about the user’s geography, including location and time, which impacts gameplay.

The augmented reality app was released on Android and iPhone in limited countries by The Pokémon Company, (partially owned by Nintendo) and developer Niantic on July 6, and within 5 days it had been downloaded more than 7.5 million times. That’s more than popular dating app Tinder and nearly more than social media platform Twitter. More average time is spent on Pokémon Go than is spent on several other leading mobile apps, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.

Not only did people download it, but early figures are also showing the app has strong user retention (a modern marvel when one in four users abandon an app after only one use). More than 60 percent of people who have downloaded the app in the U.S. use it on a daily basis.

It’s become more than a game for many people. It’s an obsession.

And more than that, it shows just how popular the new technology trend of augmented reality, or if you take it a step further, virtual reality, could become in the near future.

Augmented reality is the mixing of a fabricated, digital world and reality. Unlike virtual reality, which immerses the user completely in a 3-D digital world through the use of hardware such as a headset, augmented reality adds such elements into the real world. For example, with Pokémon Go, users “see” Pokémon around them through their smartphone screen.

Both augmented and virtual reality technology are seen as up-and-coming game changers, and leading technology companies are investing in both, including Facebook, Google, Apple, and Samsung.

Virtual reality in hotels is not a completely new concept either. So far, the application of virtual reality in hospitality has primarily been for the purpose of showcasing guest rooms and other areas of properties to travelers before they arrive.

For instance, the Best Western Virtual Reality Experience provides 360-degree VR views through hardware such as Oculus Rift or Samsung Gear VR. The hotel brand virtual reality feature was created by utilizing 1.7 million property photos and Google Street View.

In an article, Best Western CMO Dorothy Dowling said, “To go that next step before they go, and actually map out a lot of those things in their mind before they arrive, I think is going to be transformative for the business.”

Other hospitality brands with virtual reality projects available include Starwood, Marriott, Shangri-La Hotels, Carlson Rezidor and Holiday Inn Express.

“Virtual reality is on the cusp of becoming more mainstream,” said Steven Taylor, chief marketing officer of Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd.

“Shangri-La is investing significantly in technology and the future of travel content, which is why we are embracing virtual reality on this scale…VR is a revolutionary new sales tool. The technology has evolved so that it is now affordable, light and portable.”

As part of its Travel Brilliantly campaign, Marriott went a step further than virtual reality hotel tours to offer travelers the opportunity to view VR postcards of stories and experiences around the world on Samsung virtual reality hardware.

But the uses of augmented and virtual reality in hotels has great potential for expansion.

Imagine having relaxation sessions added to the list of services available at the spa, where guests could choose to be virtually immersed in a new environment, such as a beach or a hot spring, during a treatment. Or virtual reality fitness classes that guests could watch and participate in from the comfort of their hotel room.

Virtual reality in hotel rooms could mean expanded hotel in-room entertainment options, with guests able to actually feel like they’re part of movies, shows or games rather than just watching on a 2-D hotel TV.

Hotels could also allow guests to use augmented or virtual reality in guest rooms to browse items they’d like to purchase, whether in-room dining items or gift shop souvenirs, before placing orders. The items could appear virtually to the guests using various hardware or even smartphones (similar to how Pokémon “appear” on smartphones using augmented reality) to give them a 3-D, realistic shopping experience in their hotel room without having to go to a different location.

The rise of Pokémon Go could just be the fad of the moment, but it could also foreshadow a future of augmented or virtual reality as mainstream technologies. If AR and VR technology continue to rise in popularity, especially as developers find other creative applications beyond games, they could become commonplace elements within society, in the same way, that smartphones and mobile technology have.

And once that happens, hotels will have to embrace this innovation, as with any other technology that travelers come to expect as part of their daily lives. Augmented and virtual reality technology in hotel rooms as a standard could be just around the corner.

Image courtesy of Twitter account @HyattRegencySA.

There was a record attendance at HITEC 2016, and anyone who was present will tell you it was a flurry of sights and sounds. From awesome robots, like Savioke’s Relay the Robot, to a range of upcoming start-ups in the HITEC Entrepreneur 20X showcase, there were a large number of exhibitors at this hospitality technology conference covering a range of products and services, from hotel WiFi to hotel keyless room entry solutions to hotel staff uniforms. With so much going on, it was hard to pick out the dominant hospitality technology trends this year, but here are a few that stood out.

Guest Engagement Technology

This could be considered a very broad category, but guest engagement is the main focus for hospitality right now due to increased competition and dwindling guest loyalty. Hotel technology has become a key competitive differentiator, and there were a number of HITEC exhibitors showcasing ways hotels could improve appeal with guest-facing technology.

Mobile was the strong underlying theme of the majority of guest engagement technology being showcased, which makes sense given that 9 out of 10 modern travelers around the globe reportedly don’t take a leisure or business trip without at least one mobile device with them. Mobile has become invaluable for business to reach customers, regardless of industry.

Using mobile for direct and text messaging guests was a recurring topic of discussion, with hoteliers taking interest in expanded methods of reaching guests through mobile technology. David Temple, CEO & co-founder of Hello Scout (a HITEC Entrepreneur 20X participant), gave a presentation during this year’s HITEC 2016 Tech Talks focused on the benefits of text messaging hotel guests. According to David, messaging apps now have higher usage than social media apps. One of the benefits of hotel guest messaging is the extreme personal connection this enables hotel staff to have with guests, he added.

In-room technology was also a big focus, as touchscreen tablet technology has evolved to the point where there are now models available specifically for hospitality industry needs. Reduced hardware costs and high rates of guest engagement for these guestroom devices makes them an area of hospitality technology investment that could continue to grow in popularity in the near future.

Interest among hoteliers was also in how these guest-facing technologies could provide insight into guest behavior and preferences through a collection of Big Data in hotels.

Hotel WiFi & Connectivity

Strong WiFi has been one of the most important aspects of hotel technology for years, and that hasn’t changed. But as travelers increasingly pack a wider variety of devices, such as smartphones and tablets, it’s put more demand on hotels when it comes to supporting guest connectivity needs.

Daran Hermans, the senior product manager with Zebra Technologies, said, “It all has to do with the mobile devices that guests bring into the hotels. They’ve changed completely. Not only the devices have changed, but they’ve also changed the way the network and the hotel operators have to respond to that.”

Daran identifies the introduction of the iPad as one example of a new technology that impacted connectivity in hotels by altering WiFi demands. Hotel networks weren’t designed to accommodate the use of tablets and mobile technology. Networks had to become more powerful as guests began carrying more mobile devices.

“The trend line is going toward putting one access point in every single hotel room and getting very personal with wireless,” he said.

Mobile technology and the BYOD trend among hotel guests have created other changes in hotel network needs.

Daran said, “Repeatedly hoteliers are saying I’ve got really bad cellular coverage inside my hotel.’ And we all understand that. Newer LTE phones actually don’t work as well, don’t have as good coverage as the older 3G technology did. So one of the trends that have happened to solve that problem is all the major U.S. based cellular carriers are all supporting voice over wireless LAN.”

“So between [these major carriers], your phone calls are now running over WiFi, they’re not even running over the cellular network anymore. That means now you have great cellular voice coverage inside your hotel. Now that’s a great trend. It’s great for me as a WiFi vendor because it really means that now we get to design products that work really well with those voice over wireless LAN type phones that guests are going to be bringing into hotels.”

Hospitality Cloud Technology

Hospitality has got its head in the clouds, and there are a growing number of hotels currently in the process of or interested in migration to the cloud. There are numerous benefits to the industry that come with the shift, including diminished internal hotel IT support needed to maintain onsite systems.

Tom Cook, the marketing manager of Evolve Guest Controls, said he thinks cloud technology in hotels will be a primary focus moving forward. “Trending in hospitality you’re going to see a lot of reduced onsite infrastructure and a major shift into the cloud.”

“It’s slowly making its way into hospitality. Renovation cycles, new construction, and if there’s a way to reduce onsite infrastructure and offer managed services and cloud services, I believe that’s going to be [a trend] in the next five years, in tandem with the Internet of Things and Big Data.”

Hotel Internet of Things

It’s a phrase you can expect to hear repeatedly this year, and it’s possibly the biggest hospitality technology term being discussed at the moment. It was certainly one of the hottest topics at HITEC 2016, with a number of speakers leading sessions on it.

Dr. Ajay “AJ” Aluri, the assistant professor at West Virginia University, presented a Tech Talk about the hospitality Internet of Things, during which he said surveys show that people are interested in value-added experiences in hospitality as a result of the hotel Internet of Things. In time, this trend will create demand for fast, convenient accessibility of automated functions.

He also said IoT will increase the importance of hotel integration between multiple systems in order to have seamless interaction between various devices and systems. If data can’t be fluidly communicated through these hotel system integrations, it could cause disruptions to the guest experience that would potentially decrease guest satisfaction.

In a corresponding special report for HFTP, Ajay wrote this bit of advice for hoteliers wondering about how to prepare for the coming of IoT: “The first step to the future of IoT among businesses is to embrace the Internet and Wi-Fi as the source of valuable consumer data for creating new customer experiences, no longer just for customer personal use.”

A shift is necessary for the hospitality industry. Hoteliers must embrace all the existing hotel technology trends that are widely available, and also become more open-minded and swift when it comes to adoption of emerging hospitality technologies that hold potential to allow businesses to thrive in a modern, connected age of travel.

Contact us today to learn more about our complete hospitality technology platform.

The benefits of hotel mobile apps are a hot debate throughout the industry. A sampling of those benefits includes Improved guest satisfaction, more efficient staff interactions, and better communication with guests, all of which increase a hotel’s competitive advantage. Yet, while leveraging mobile to result in increasing guest satisfaction and operational efficiency is a top priority when implementing mobile technology in hotels, increasing revenue through the use of mobile apps can also be a major part of justifying the investment. When used correctly, hotel apps can maximize revenue in order to provide significant ROI.

Mobile Booking

This is the most straightforward method to generate revenue from mobile apps. Allowing for mobile hotel room reservations is a primary source where hotels can create profit. With hotel bookings on smartphones rising, mobile reservations are a lucrative and sensible feature to enable when seeking to generate revenue through a hospitality app.

And booking room reservations don’t have to be the end of it. Hoteliers can also generate revenue by allowing for in-app booking for other hotel amenities, such as hotel spa services, golf or sports activities, restaurant reservations, in-room dining, and more.

Mobile Ads and Marketing

The benefit of guests utilizing a hotel app is that it gives hoteliers the opportunity to market directly to guests through a channel that is always on and always in the palm of a guest’s hand.

Push notifications give hoteliers an increased reach to market their services to their guests and the ability to provide consistent reminders and prompts to app users. Implementing advertisements into a hotel app is also an effective and clever way to generate revenue when done in a way that isn’t disruptive to the user experience. Hoteliers can boost revenue through pay-per-click or banner ads embedded in mobile apps.

Enabling guests to act on these prompts and mobile ads through in-app purchasing features can be very lucrative, as 76 percent of profits from apps stem from these types of purchases.

Third-Party Partnerships

Hotels can take advantage of partnering with local companies to maximize available space through a mobile app. Allowing these partners to seamlessly advertise on the hotel app interface for a fee can generate revenue for you and provide guests with information about relevant services, such as local boutiques. It’s important to select partners that enhance the existing brand image or provide significant benefit to a hotel’s most common demographic of guests, though.

As the landscape of the hospitality industry is shifting to focus more on mobile technology in response to guests who are demanding more sophisticated digital engagement during travel, developing apps that are functional on multiple levels and provide an ROI that offsets investment is growing more important as well.

For more information about how to generate revenue with a hotel app and determine the ROI of hospitality mobile technology, explore our mobile solutions or schedule a demo with a member of our team.

 

How can you create a mobile hotel app that meets all your needs?

So you’ve finally decided to take that big step. You’ve decided to proceed with developing a mobile hotel app for your hospitality brand or group in order to take advantage of the many benefits of mobile guest engagement.

The next step is determining how to ensure that you’re going to develop the best hotel app for your organization and your guests. Here are some tips to help you create the best mobile app for a hotel or hospitality business.

Choose the Right Hotel App Developer

It’s hard to stress enough how much the right partner can make a difference in the process of developing a hotel app. If there was a book titled “How to Develop a Hotel App,” this point would probably be chapter one.

Most hoteliers are not app developers and have limited knowledge of the requirements. Therefore, it’s important to surround yourself with experts who know what they’re doing, and who have hopefully gone through the steps before.

Developing a mobile app for hospitality can be entirely different than creating an app for any other industry. Find a third-party hotel app developer or build an internal team that can address your specific needs and answer your questions to give you the confidence you need that you’re creating the best hotel app possible.

Get Input from Multiple Departments

To make the best mobile hotel app, you’ve got to involve the whole team: Sales & Marketing, Hotel IT, Operations, etc. The best hotel apps serve multiple purposes for every aspect of a hospitality business. You aren’t investing money in hospitality app development to end up with something that will just sit in the app stores with your logo on it.

Set meetings to discuss the app development in advance and to gather feedback, set goals and define roles. Who will be responsible for managing what aspects of the development process? For example, who will gather all of the images necessary? Who will upload digital menu content? Who will proofread the copy?

Being extremely organized and getting all hands on deck is a major part of ensuring maximum engagement with all members of hotel management and staff.

Give Yourself Room to Grow

You’ve read all the latest hospitality technology trend headlines, and you want it all. Despite the stars in your eyes, you need to think logically about the scope of the project, your immediate needs, your timeline, and your resources. Have an honest conversation with the team developing your hotel app and get the details on these points.

Oftentimes, a lot more effort goes into certain hotel app features than you would expect. Hotel system integrations are required for specific functionality, such as hotel mobile key to allow guests to use smartphones to open hotel room doors, and these can be time-consuming because of the necessity to coordinate activity between multiple third-party hospitality technology vendors.

Also, keep in mind that your own internal team will be responsible for providing much of the content for the app because they’ll know best what the app should say and which visuals should be used. You will have to manage the entire app development process because no one knows what you want better than you do.

Make sure that even if you’re not going to launch your mobile hospitality app with every single bell and whistle you’ve fantasized about, you’ll be able to scale up as time goes on. You want an app that you can update and expand in the future as you come to learn and understand mobile technology for hotels more completely.

Think Dollar Signs

Mobile hotel apps can be a great source of additional revenue. Generating revenue through hotel technology is of great interest to most hoteliers, and it’s obvious you’d like to think you’ll be able to generate ROI from a hotel app.

But just how do you generate revenue through a hotel app?

There are numerous ways actually, and you have to decide which are best for your hospitality business.

Allowing mobile hotel reservation booking is a primary way to increase revenue with a hotel app. InterContinental Hotels reported increases in mobile room bookings of 1000 percent following the launch of the hotel brand app. Other possible tactics include:

• Direct marketing and advertising via mobile
• Allowing mobile in-room dining orders
• Enabling reservation booking at spas and restaurants

To learn more about how you can create the best mobile app for your hotel, contact us to schedule a demo with a member of our team.

Is a Mobile Hotel App or Mobile Website More Beneficial for Hotel Marketing and Guest Engagement?

One of the most crucial responsibilities for a marketing team is to invest in hotel websites and ensure that sites are mobile optimized. More recently, hotel marketers have also had to consider the importance of a hotel’s mobile app. With a set marketing budget, how is it determined where the emphasis should be in today’s digital landscape? This can be a difficult call to make with technology and user behavior both changing so fast.

The main point that resonates with marketers about creating an optimized and responsive website can be simply summarized. A website should serve as the hardest working sales and marketing employee. It works 24/7 to address the questions that prospects and clients have about a brand. This lends significant value to this channel, with potential for major return on investment.

The discussion about whether to create an app for a hotel or brand is a bit more complex. “Because guests want one” does not seem to be a compelling enough answer for such an investment. So as a marketing professional, if given a choice, why would one invest in a mobile app vs. relying solely on a mobile-optimized website?

FLEXIBILITY

One reason is for flexibility, which is essentially giving guests what they want. Guests are on their smartphones and by offering features such as mobile check-in, check-out, in-room dining orders, direct staff messaging, mobile key room entry, and more innovative mobile capabilities, the guest experience can be elevated. These also work together to increase staff efficiency and opportunity for revenue.

LOYALTY

For hospitality brands, there is also a unique opportunity to encourage hotel loyalty program member acquisition. Eleanor Powers, insight director at business intelligence firm L2, said, “Some brands are promoting features such as keyless room entry through their loyalty programs, requiring guests to become loyalty members in order to access.”

ENGAGEMENT

What appeals to both small and larger brands collectively is customer stickiness. More and more, mobile hotel apps are being used to facilitate communication and service between customers and brands, and now “[mobile users’] engagement with brands is likewise migrating to apps, with 68% of mobile users engaging with brands via apps,” per a post by Fliplet.

Having a guest engage through a brand or hotel app can extend the experience they are able to have while physically on the property, also providing a fun new opportunity for marketers and hoteliers to interact through a new direct, digital channel.

In addition, it’s been stated that “apps running reliably on devices are reported to lead to increases in productivity of between 20% and 40%, creating extra time that can be used to generate additional business and revenue. Apps are also extremely effective at handling and manipulating complex data, producing charts and reports. Mobile sites, on the other hand, are generally slower to load and harder to optimize, particularly when it comes to complex data, which can inhibit productivity and make workflows slower.”

To learn more about Intelity’s solutions for both web and mobile to improve guest satisfaction and increase hotel revenue opportunities, take a look at our suite of guest-facing solutions.