How is beacon technology customizing the guest experience?

Beacon technology, one of the most disruptive innovations of 2014, could exist thanks to the geofencing system, which is the ability to put a virtual fence around a location and enable mobile devices such as smartphones to react when they cross it.

Companies use corresponding apps (e.g. the LocalPerk app, of the Marriott hotels), allowing guests to access special offers, view maps, request services and many other services. LocalPerks, for instance, provides guests tailored localized offers, ranging from food and beverages to spa and golf deals.

In the hospitality industry, this appears as an opportunity to offer better services, special and customized offers and a lot of hotels such as the Marriott chain understood the need to adopt this new technology.

     

Image source : http://www.adweek.com

As Kim Adams highlighted in his article, How beacons change hotels and hospitality, « hotels seek to deliver the right message, to the right person, through the right channel, at the right time – and in merchandising cases - for the right price. »

Beacons are used during the in-stay period of each traveler and enables hotels to better meet customer needs before the end of their stay, the moment they usually have to fill in the traditional guest survey. Guests could be pleasantly surprised to benefit from good deals and extra services at the hotel (all kinds of information about the hotel, the property itself, its area) but on the other hand, it could be awkward for some of them to be disturbed by their smartphones at any time during the day. Not to mention the importance of human interaction in the service industry.

This brought us to think of the real added value of the beacon technology in the guest experience. According to us, hotels have to be careful when using this new technology. In order to better satisfy guests, boost their experiences and create more upsell opportunities, hotels have to target their customers and to differentiate beacons into two categories:  

•         Beacons that could please everyone and which would be offered to all guests
•        Beacons that could bother some guests, which should be optional

For example, you enter your room and it’s at perfect temperature, the lights are dimmed to your liking and your favorite playlist is playing in the background. Isn’t it a real customized service to make your experience more enjoyable? But similarly, who couldn’t understand that receiving special deals at any moment of a journey could bother some guests trying to enjoy a peaceful stay?

Taking this into account, hoteliers should consider adopting this trendy and innovative technology to be up-to-date and to better face competition. Improving guest experiences while respecting their wants and privacy at the same time is possible!

Cécile ROUX & Margaux SCHERER

Source: http://blog.estimote.com/post/129215375430/how-beacons-change-hotels-and-hospitality

Innovation is great, but to what extent?

The Henn-na Hotel, the world's first hotel to be staffed by humanoid robots, opened in Nagasaki, Japan, on Friday, July 16. Henn-na hotel, translated into the « weird hotel », describes the human experience of a place almost exclusively run by robots.

                         Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FogiE8_3fPE

The hotel opened its doors in the Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Sasebo, a strategic location choice, where attractions and innovative experiences are part of the game.
After interviewing Hideo Sawada, the hotel owner, Monisha Rajesh learned that 90% of Henn-na hotel staff are robots. From robot receptionists to robot porters, everything is handled by machines from check-in to check-out through the concierge service. Guests can open their hotel rooms using facial recognition and thanks to Chu-Ri-Chan, a cute and small robot disposed in place of the awakening, lights are turned on and off using voice commands. Chu-Ri-Chan can also help guests to check the weather forecasts and provide wake-up calls!

Hideo Sawada’s aim is to equip the hotel with robots only, doing actual jobs. The owner decided to put a low rate policy in place and benefits from it. Mr. Sawada highlighted that robots, in fact, are not asking for any salary or paid leave and are exploitable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The price of a room as well as hospitality services are accordingly less expensive than in traditional hotels. The journalist gives the example of the baggage room robot, which stores luggage in individual drawers for only 2.5 £ (approx. 3€). In traditional hotels, this amount is not even an employee tip! And yet, this service is a significant added value for any hotel!

From our perspective, there are significant limits regarding employment but as Japan is not suffering much from unemployment, with an unemployment rate of 3.3%, why not try to implement this new concept? As Monisha Rajesh points out, the importance of human interactions is critical in the hospitality industry and we think that guests are not ready to be welcomed by non-human beings at the front desk of a hotel yet. As people are more and more willing to benefit from customized and tailor-made services, we are afraid that robots are not as attractive as Hideo Sawada would like them to be for the moment.

However, this service is still in progress and needs to improve in order to perfectly meet the needs and thoughts of the customer, who wishes for fast care, personalized services and interaction.

Being welcomed by robots in hotels seems a bit weird today as human contact remains a priority in the service industry. But what a performance to have created such a machine in the hospitality industry!

Cécile ROUX & Margaux SCHERER

How Big Data And Analytics Are Changing Hotels And The Hospitality Industry

© shutterstock_217868887

    Travels needs and expectations are ever changing and evolving. With an industry that caters to millions a day, the hospitality and hotel industry continue to require ways to keep up with shifting customer demands in order to keep up with expectations and satisfy their clients. Bernard Marr, a Forbes contributor, talks about how Big Data and Analytics can and do play a large role in helping the hospitality industry to predict customer demand and shifting trends.

      Big data is a new step for the hospitality industry, though one they can adapt to with ease, as with today’s technology there is now an infinite ‘volume and variety’ of data available. As Marr points out, from reservation to check out customers will leave a data trail through their stay and analysts are starting to understand the importance of turning ‘data into actionable insights’.

   

     One of the first ways that analytics and Big Data have aided the hospitality industry is helping them to observe their customers and identify clients that will give them ‘a higher life time value’. Marr identifies two types of hotel clientele – those whose stay will be simple and hassle free and second, those who will spend a lot of money on fine dining, entertainment, sports activities and spa treatments. Observing clients allows hotels to help meet the needs of the each of their segments separately. Those that tend to stay for a short amount of time (business travels) tend to return if the hotel meets all their requirements, creating a higher lifetime value.

    Big Data and analytics is leading the hospitality industry to help improve their marketing reach and yield/revenue management. With the new technological age, hotels (and others in the hospitality industry) must be aware of changing technology that can help them ‘roll with the times’, in order to identify modern customer demand. Hotels must change with the times in order to properly satisfy and attract the modern business and leisure traveler.

    An American hotel chain, Red Roof Inn is an example of the positive use of an analytics system. In the winter of 2013/2014 they had experienced a 10% increase in business after running a new marketing campaign. The company realized the value of having a hotel near an airport. The hotel’s marketing and analytics team worked together, using public database and weather reports, and found out that a large percentage of airline passengers use mobile devices to search for nearby hotel when their flights were cancelled. After discovering this the company held a marketing campaign which was targeted at mobile using passengers.

    Denihan Hospitality, another American hotel brand uses Big Data not just for marketing but in the physical operation of their properties by putting analytics in the hands of their front of house staff. “Armed with dashboards on their smartphones” front of house staff was able to predict guests needs and desires in advance, such as restaurant meals, concierge services or outside activities. Housekeeping staff were able to receive ‘real-time updates’ on whether certain rooms would require an extra pillow or who was more likely to room service for a midnight snack.

    With large data collections which can identify customer segments, the hospitality industry can better coordinate itself to optimize its room occupancy and revenue. Marriott uses analytics and Big data to observe (Unstructured and semi-structured datasets) weather reports and local events schedules that are use to determine the demand and value for “each individual room throughout the year”. It enables Marriot to precisely optimize their room prices. As Marr states this is “vital in an age where customers are used to saving pennies by scanning price comparison services for the best deals.”

    Marr states that once the hospitality gets use to analytics that there will be a large increase in innovation that ‘should result in more satisfying stays for us as customers’. We firmly believe that this new and ever increasing analytics technology is the future, for helping not just the hospitality industry but every industry in staying a step ahead of changing trends and client expectation in order to boost sales and revenue.

                                                                                                                                                                                            Alexa Bailey and Sakshi Bheda

Article reviewed: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/01/26/how-big-data-and-analytics-changing-hotels-and-the-hospitality-industry/#2fcfb8b64b39