INTELITY’s Andrew Trupia teams with Forbes Travel Guide to discuss how properties can elevate the guest experience using branded mobile apps and smart-room tablets
Recently, Andrew Trupia, INTELITY’s Head of Customer Success, teamed with Forbes Travel Guide to answer the following question:
How can properties elevate the guest experience from your brand’s perspective?
Below are Trupia’s thoughts on how digital offerings, such as a branded mobile app or smart-room tablets, can create the modern guest experience that today’s guests now demand.
Digital access to a property’s services and amenities in a post-COVID environment is now an expectation, and not just a luxury, for modern travelers. As a hotel operator, understanding the full guest journey and having a digital solution to assist with each stage of that journey is key to providing an unparalleled guest experience.
Hotels can elevate their guest’s journey through a proactive approach to addressing their guest’s needs. For example, ask yourself: What are the common pain points of traveling, and how can your property address those pain points digitally?
Today, many guests have a unique blend of stay purposes, particularly with “bleisure” travel becoming hospitality’s newest market segment. The average bleisure traveler is on the move conducting business, but may also partake in leisure activities that a corporate guest may otherwise not. So, as a hotel operator, you need to ask yourself: how can I blend a streamlined experience to save my guests time, but also provide them with full access to the property’s amenities?
For starters, streamlining the check-in process with a digital solution can easily take much of the guesswork out of a busy guest’s schedule. A branded mobile app lets a guest check-in before they even arrive at your property, and with mobile key functionality, they can instantly and securely access their room upon arrival. A branded mobile app also makes the check-out process a breeze by allowing them to check out of their room via the mobile app.
Additionally, as a hotel operator, you must have an understanding of your guests’ needs during their stay and provide them with complete control over their own schedule. Put your guests in the driver’s seat of their own guest journey by allowing them the opportunity to place in-room dining orders, request their car from valet in advance, order additional towels or forgotten toiletries, send a digital postcard to loved ones, view current hotel compendiums, book spa appointments, and/or view local entertainment and activities — all with the tap of a smart-room tablet or mobile app.
Lastly, we already discussed the ease of a mobile check-out experience, but think about your guests’ other post-stay needs and how those can be addressed digitally, as well. Requesting their folio and placing lost-and-found inquiries are common examples of post-stay needs, but who says a guest must call the property in order to get what they need? Streamlining such requests via a mobile app makes it not only easier for the guest, but also for the staff — eliminating the time it takes to email a folio or answer a call about lost items.
A streamlined approach with full access to your property’s services, amenities, and other information is the ideal way to elevate the guest experience. Looking to enhance the guest experience at your property using hospitality technology? Then, request a demo today.
