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July 18, 2023 by INTELITY

Smart Hotels: How to Create a High-Tech Guest Experience

Smart hotels are in — Here are a few ways to create a high-tech guest experience at your property

Technology is the new luxury, and it’s the type of luxury travelers are currently craving. Today’s consumers are accustomed to being able to have anything they desire with just the tap of their mobile phone. Whether it’s a three-course dinner from their favorite restaurant or an early morning ride to the airport, mobile phones have completely improved the convenience of everyday life. So, why should the hotel stay be any different?

Convenience, personalization, and a memorable guest journey are all possible thanks to hospitality technology. So, what are some ways you can offer a high-tech guest experience at your hotel? Here are three ideas.

A Branded Mobile App

Turn your property into a smart hotel instantly by deploying a branded mobile app that brings convenience and customization to the guest experience.

Take the arrival process, for instance. Using a branded mobile app, guests can check-in ahead before arriving at the hotel and access their mobile key so they can bypass the front desk — and long check-in lines — and head straight to their rooms. Check-out is also a breeze through the app and allows guests to review their final bill and any other details of their stay all in one easily accessible place. Doesn’t get much smarter than that — until it comes to the digital dining process, that is. Using a mobile app, guests can view up-to-date dining menus, place in-room dining orders and track the order’s progress in real-time — just like they would an order on their favorite food delivery app. Additionally, they can book spa appointments and request additional services or forgotten items, such as towels or toothbrushes. Finally, an app lets guests explore hotel compendiums and offers hotel operators the ability to target guests when they are most active with on-site promotions and specials, helping to drive non-room revenue.

Smart-Room Tablets

Another way to offer a high-tech guest experience and achieve smart hotel status is through the deployment of bedside smart-room tablets. These in-room tablets can offer guests many of the same features as a mobile app, such as the ability to place in-room dining orders and review hotel compendiums, with the added convenience of allowing them to adjust in-room features. With smart-room tablets, guests can control not only the temperature of their hotel room but they can also control the temperature of their hotel bed. Additionally, guests can adjust the lights and curtains with a tap of the finger on the in-room tablets.

TV Casting

Nothing says personalization like allowing your guests the ability to unwind after a long day with the entertainment of their choosing. With Google Chromecast, guests can cast streamed content directly to their hotel room’s television from their own device with no additional log-ins required. This allows them to pick up where they left off on their favorite television program.

A branded mobile app, smart-room tablet, and TV casting are three easy ways to turn your property into a smart hotel and offer a high-tech guest experience.

Want to learn more about how to improve the guest experience through technology at your property? Request a demo today.

July 11, 2023 by INTELITY

Hotel Technology 101: How Hotels Are Using Technology to Gain a Competitive Advantage

A few examples of how hotels are using technology to gain a competitive advantage

The hospitality industry can be inherently competitive — especially with the recent increase in summer travel. This means it’s imperative to woo consumers by leaning into what they want and finding ways to make those things happen seamlessly. Hotels that invest in delivering on consumer expectations will see an increase in brand loyalty, which leads to an increase in revenue.

When a guest stays at a hotel, they’re looking for a place where they feel comfortable and have access to the conveniences they’re accustomed to in their daily lives, and hotels are in a race to perfect this.

Hotel technology has become a key component in giving one hotel an edge over another, especially with the increasing popularity of a digital-first approach among travelers. By implementing the right tech, hotels can impress guests, streamline operations, and drive non-room revenue. It’s critical for hoteliers to stay current with technological advancements, so they can keep pace with expectations.

Mobile devices are the easiest and best way to reach guests, especially as the average hotel guest checks in with at least three mobile devices. Today’s travelers depend on them to provide information and easy access to essential features in their lives. Using mobile technology allows hoteliers to meet their guests where they’re already engaged.

Here are five examples of how hotels are using technology to gain a competitive advantage:

1. Branded Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are an ideal way to engage with guests before, during, and after their stay, especially when integrated with an existing loyalty program. Mobile app technology can also be beneficial in gaining insight into guest satisfaction and guest preferences, which can be used to improve the quality or types of services offered.

An app can track the most common types of guest requests, dining metrics and which menu items are the most popular, and how often they’re using the app to communicate with hotel staff. Management teams can use this information as a framework for making better business decisions and taking guest service to the next level.

2. Mobile Check-In

Mobile check-in is highly sought after by today’s self-service driven travelers. Giving your guests the ability to bypass the front desk not only enhances the guest experience, but it also frees up staff’s time, allowing them to provide more personalized guest service. Offering mobile check-in also incentivizes guests to download your property’s mobile app, which creates a further opportunity for upselling, pre-arrival communication, and to generally craft exceptional experiences.

3. Mobile Key

Implementing mobile key to your hotel technology provides guests with the convenience of reducing time at the front desk and prevents guests from ever losing or forgetting their room key. Mobile key also saves hotels money on plastic keycard costs and increases efficiency as staff doesn’t have to spend time programming keycards or replacing lost room keys.

4. Smart-Room Tablets

Smart-room tablets provide guests with easy access to hotel information and the ability to place service requests, order room service, control the in-room environment, book spa appointments, shop the hotel’s gift shop, and communicate directly with hotel staff. These digital compendiums can also be used to create upselling opportunities and promote upgrades and other special offers targeted to a guest’s preferences.

5. Voice-Controlled Rooms

Another example of how hotels are using technology to gain a competitive advantage is by embracing voice control. Guests can use this hotel technology to turn on lights, control the TV, adjust the thermostat, and more. Voice technology can also be used to submit guest requests, make reservations, and provide guests with information about the local area. While voice technology may not be as necessary as some of the mobile technologies available, it plays a large role in enhancing the guest experience.

Staying ahead of the competition by deploying the latest hotel technology in the hospitality industry is important to maintaining a competitive edge. Successfully implementing the right technologies is an easy way to distinguish yourself from your competitors and cater to today’s tech-savvy travelers. Hotel technology can change how guests experience a their stay and lead to repeat guests, positive reviews, and word-of-mouth referrals.

To learn more about how you can use hotel technology to gain a competitive advantage at your property, request a demo today.

July 6, 2023 by INTELITY

HITEC Toronto Recap: 3 Key Takeaways We Learned

Discover the hottest insights from hospitality and technology leaders who hosted sessions at HITEC Toronto on AI, data science, and technology upgrades

During last week’s HITEC Toronto 2023 convention, hoteliers, managers, operators and hospitality leaders descended upon Canada for three days of exhibits, mixers, and education sessions that highlighted the hottest topics in hospitality technology. As travel continues to ramp up to pre-pandemic levels, hoteliers must use AI advancements and data science to their advantage to streamline workflow and drive additional revenue. Additionally, panelists discussed the important factors to consider when transitioning from a legacy system to the latest platform. The following are takeaways from the top three sessions we attended at HITEC Toronto 2023.

AI is The Hot Topic

With Open AI’s ChatGPT coming up on its one-year anniversary this fall, AI is still fresh on the minds of nearly everyone — including hoteliers, hotel managers, and operators. During the session, “The Rise of AI-Powered Language Generation: How ChatGPT and Its Competitors are Changing Hospitality,” AI hospitality expert Michael Levie and Intelligent Adaptive Interventions Lab’s Joseph Jay Williams discussed how programs like ChatGPT can transform guest service, a hotel’s marketing efforts and other aspects of the hospitality business. They also discussed how ethical and censorship implications could come into play down the road and advocated for hoteliers to develop critical thinking skills around these potential ethical implications. These implications included issues relating to censorship, bias, and the potential displacement of human labor.

Using Data Can Help Increase Profit

During a session, titled “Things You Didn’t Know About RevPar: Leveraging Data Science to Boost Profit,” HFTP’s Ira Vouk, Cornell School of Hotel Administration’s Klaus Kohlmayr, Sonder’s Shruti Challa and HotStats’ Tanya Venegas encouraged hoteliers to embrace the power of data science when running their hotel business. They shared the potential dangers of relying solely on KPIs like RevPAR, or revenue generated per available room, as a profitability indicator. Instead, they encouraged the session’s listeners to use business intelligence tools, such as a guest experience management system that can digitally track when guests are most likely to interact with a hotel’s promotion, what upgrades guests gravitate towards, and more. Understanding guest behavior and offering targeted marketing, pricing, and customization options is key to driving organization-wide decision-making.

The Time For Upgrades Is Now

With so many digital offerings on the market today, the time to upgrade your technology offerings is now. During “Bridging the Gap Between Legacy and Cutting-Edge Technology,” speakers Gina Johnston, Leonel Domingues, and Matt Schwartz shared advice on how to navigate the decision-making process when it comes to deploying a new digital platform at your property. They advised that, before signing on to a new tech platform, hoteliers must fully understand the costs associated with staying up-to-date with the system, the ROI of the software, the total cost of ownership (TOC), and determine whether or not the technology has staying power.

Overall, the main HITEC Toronto message was clear — now is the time to embrace hospitality technology and harness it for the betterment of your property. To learn more about how INTELITY can help your property streamline workflow, optimize the guest experience, and drive profit through guest behavior, request a demo today.

June 22, 2023 by INTELITY

Maximizing Revenue: 4 Ways Hotel Technology Can Increase ROI

Discover how you can increase your hotel ROI, while you’re maximizing revenue by choosing the right hotel technology

Maximizing revenue and increasing ROI — it’s every business owner’s dream. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Thankfully, if hoteliers select the right hospitality technology for their property, they can not only increase their hotel’s ROI, but they can also drive additional non-room revenue, provide a more personalized guest experience and create a positive buzz around their property.

Here are four ways hotel technology can offer a profitable return on investment, while maximizing revenue.

Optimize Dining Expenses

By deploying a guest management operations platform that analyzes hotel guest data, managers can determine which guests prefer which food items during which periods of time throughout a day or week. This allows your team to ensure they’re ordering the right resources in the right quantity and eliminates overspending on wasted food.

Additionally, taking orders via phone and placing physical menus in hotel rooms creates the need for hiring additional personnel and increases printing costs. Using hotel technology, such as a mobile app or bedside smart-room tablet, allows guests to digitally view menus that have been updated in real-time, eliminating printing costs and saving staff time from having to make a call if the item they selected is no longer available.

Speaking of saving staff time, when a guest orders their meal from a mobile app or smart-room tablet, that order can get sent directly to the kitchen and the food prep team. This eliminates the need to staff an employee to answer room service phone calls, improving the hotel’s ROI.

Increase Non-Room Revenue

In a similar vein, branded mobile apps and smart-room tablets are the perfect way to drive non-room revenue by suggesting additional items when a guest is ordering in-room dining. Did the guest order the filet mignon? Then, suggest a glass of red wine to accompany their meal. Did they select the pub burger? Then, allow them the option to upgrade their house fries to sweet potato fries for an extra $5. Hotel employees may forget to upsell customers when taking their order over the phone, but through a digital order system, forced modifiers can easily be integrated to increase the guest’s dining check, maximizing revenue.

Improve Your Guest Engagement

Deploying a guest management operations platform that analyzes hotel guest data can also enable hoteliers to identify where guests are most likely to spend money at your hotel and allow you to create more accurate promotions and offers. Does the data show that guests are more interactive with your in-room tablets between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. and 11 p.m.? Then set up a promotion to go out between these hours when they are most likely to interact with it.

Elevate the Guest Experience

With hotel technology, a property can ensure that guests have a customized and comfortable experience throughout their stay. Allowing them to skip lobby lines and check-in and access their secure room key through a mobile app or communicate with hotel staff at any time from anywhere using guest messaging radically increases their experience, and, in turn, will lead to positive word-of-mouth and online reviews — and most likely a return visit.

Want to learn more on how to find revenue opportunities by using hotel technology? Then, request a demo today.

June 15, 2023 by INTELITY

Travel Tech 101: How to Meet Guest Expectations

In today’s digital landscape, travelers expect technology to be integrated into every experience — including their hotel stay — here’s how to meet guest expectations

Want to order dinner from your favorite restaurant, but don’t feel like leaving your couch? There’s an app for that. Need to get to the airport at 5 a.m. and don’t want to wake up your spouse? There’s an app for that. Have to get a car wash, but don’t have time? Don’t worry, there’s an app for that, too. In fact, there’s an app for just about everything today — and customers have come to expect technology integrations in all facets of their daily lives, including travel.

Curious about how to meet guest expectations when it comes to incorporating technology into the hotel stay? Then you’ve come to the right place. We have a few easy ways to fulfill guests’ travel tech expectations, even if you aren’t a “high-tech hotel.” But, first let’s answer the question: What is travel technology?

What is Travel Technology?

In simplest terms, travel technology means using tech to plan trips. There are many broad examples of this type of tech, from flight advisor apps that tell a user when to book a flight to travel-specific smartphones that allow a traveler to easily communicate when in other countries. Here, we’re going to focus on technology that seamlessly provides hotel guests with a digital experience — making their hotel stay easier and more relaxing.

The Hotel Tech Guests Expect

Today’s hotel guests, especially Millennial and Gen Z travelers, expect their hotel stay to be customized, seamless, and smart — and hotel technology, such as branded mobile apps and in-room tablets do just this. With more and more hotels offering mobile check-in and keyless entry, an increase of travelers are now expecting to have the option to bypass long lobby lines by checking in on their mobile device and heading straight to their rooms with a mobile key upon arrival.

Additionally, food delivery apps, such as DoorDash, have allowed today’s consumer to be accustomed to ordering and tracking their food orders from a smart device. Branded mobile apps and smart-room tablets incorporate this experience seamlessly into the hotel stay, letting guests order their meal digitally whenever, wherever they are on the property.

How to Incorporate Hotel Tech at Your Property

You don’t need to be a high-tech hotel in order to meet guests’ tech requirements. Starting with simple integrations like allowing guests to cast their favorite Netflix show to their in-room smart TV puts them in the driver’s seat of their in-room entertainment, while also allowing your property to save money by cutting expensive cable bills. In-room QR codes that allow guests to order in-room dining digitally from their mobile phone saves both your guests and your staff time from waiting on a phone call.

If you’re looking to take your hotel tech offerings a step further, well, there’s an app for that, too. Branded hotel mobile apps allow guests to seamlessly request additional towels, order and track in-room dining, review hotel compendiums, book spa appointments, digitally shop the gift shop, and more. Smart-room tablets placed bedside are another easy way for guests who don’t want to download an app to still interact with your property seamlessly. From digital in-room dining to adjusting room temperature and lighting controls, a smart-room tablet can make your property feel like it’s a high-tech hotel with just one additional item.

Interested in learning more about how to meet guest expectations with hotel technology? Request a demo today.

June 13, 2023 by INTELITY

Benefits of Hotel Tech: How Technology Keeps Productivity Up & Costs Down

Operating seamlessly with less staff is one of the many benefits of hotel tech

Every business operator’s dream scenario comes down to keeping costs low and productivity high. But what if that was actually possible for hotel managers? Enter hotel technology. From mobile apps to smart-room tablets, one of the many benefits of hotel tech, outside of improving the guest experience, is streamlining operations and eliminating extraneous expenses, such as printing costs for daily menus and compendiums, cable bills, and more.

How to Reduce Costs

When it comes to figuring out how to reduce costs at your property, eliminating unnecessary expenses is always first and foremost, and, one of the benefits of hotel tech, is that it can help hoteliers do just that. Branded mobile apps and smart-room tablets allow property staff to digitally update all dining menus, onsite event schedules and compendiums, thus eliminating the need for daily print-outs. Mobile devices also provide casting capabilities, which let hotel guests stream their favorite TV shows and movies directly to the in-room TV. Not only does this put the guest in the driver’s seat of their own entertainment, but it allows hotels to cancel costly cable bills.

In addition to cutting extraneous expenses, hotel technology can help lower operating costs by reducing human error during guest interactions, such as in-room dining. Allowing guests to place their room service order directly from a mobile app or smart-room tablet will reduce the frequency of a staff member miss-typing or miss-hearing a guest’s order and therefore lower the amount of refires the kitchen has to make.

Finally, streamlining operations through hotel technology reduces the amount of “middle-men” a hotel needs, thus saving on labor costs. Take in-room dining, for example. With a mobile app or smart-room tablet, a guest can digitally place a food order that will travel directly to the kitchen’s line cooks — eliminating the need for someone to monitor the phones and answer in-room dining calls. This is not only a good example of how to reduce costs at your property, but it’s also a great way to increase productivity with the team you do have on staff — which brings us to our next point.

How to Increase Productivity

For hotels operating with a trimmed down staff, hotel technology is a must. As mentioned above, branded mobile apps and smart-room tablets help streamline the in-room dining process — but that’s not all. Using a mobile app, hotel guests can access mobile check-in and secure, keyless entry to their hotel room, which allows them to bypass the front desk all together. This frees up the front desk staff’s time to accomplish other tasks.

When a guest needs additional towels, pillowcases or a tube of toothpaste, they no longer need to tie up a team member’s time by placing a phone call. Making a digital request via the in-room tablet or mobile app, which is then sent directly to housekeeping keeps all wheels moving.

Want to share a special onsite event with guests but tired of waiting for the housekeeping staff to drop off the latest compendiums in their room? Updating these materials digitally and keeping them on mobile apps and smart-room tablets allow guests to access all up-to-date information without having to wait for staff to deliver the latest version.

To learn more about the benefits of hotel tech on a property’s operations, request a demo today.

A Blog by INTELITY

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