This article, published on Digitaltrends.com, illustrates the decision of some luxury hotels to be more high-tech, taking the example of The Plaza hotel in NYC which provides each of its guests with an iPad to reinforce their stay and experience the luxury service.Usually, hotel offer their guests common services such as a Wi-Fi access. The Plaza hotel decided to differentiate itself by offering its guests Apple’s top innovation: the iPad.
Indeed, according to Luxist.com, the iPad comes with Intelity’s ICE (Interactive Customer Experience) software. This software allows guests to order room service, request wake-up calls, or look for the city’s travel guides, among other things. Also, customers are able to control their room’s lights and temperature directly from the device.
Far from being a common practice in the hospitality industry, we can easily wonder what reasons motivated the Plaza hotel’s teams in making such a choice. Shane Krige, general manager of The Plaza hotel in NYC, revealed that they decided to adopt the iPad because this is clearly a high-tech equipment which will not disappear in the near future, but mostly because the device is an additional 5-star factor to the hotel.
Obviously, allowing more convenience to the guests was not the only advantage brought by the arrival of the iPad in the hotel’s guest service. Apple’s device enables more efficiency because the client’s request will directly go to the department concerned. More importantly, hotel managers of The Plaza are now able to record the customers’ acts and to better track their business.
Next, M. Krige mentions the guests need a human connection to enjoy their hotel experience, explaining that the device was not adopted in order to replace the hotel’s staff. On the contrary, he underlines the fact that the iPad in rooms was launched so as to offer the guest with additional choice. The Plaza hotel remains a luxury five star hotel, with all the personal care it implies. The iPad is a new way to efficiently answer some specific guests’ needs.Finally, it appears that The Plaza hotel has made an interest
ing strategic choice by introducing the iPad in its rooms. Indeed, it is worth mentioning that the lack of intermediaries when a guest requests a specific service, will undoubtedly avoid problems of communication within the hotel’s staff. As a result, it is a powerful means for the company to improve its customer satisfaction.
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