A XXIst century hotel: can you do without mobile technologies?

Just imagine the situation: you arrive at a hotel, pass the reception desk and go to your room straight ahead — you needn’t stand in a queue, fill in a form, show your documents or printed booking. This is because you have a modern phone with a NFC module, and there is information about you, the new guest, in the electronic door lock. A very convenient innovation, isn’t it?

And let’s imagine that the phone has switched off during the flight to another continent because of low battery. It is not good at all — the registration desk is inevitable. Besides, there are travellers who do not use smart gadgets. We can take, for example, the famous Stephen King, who refuses to use mobile devices out of principle and who has written the post apocalyptic novel «Cell», where this terrible device turns everyone into zombies. If all the hotels switched to mobile keys, the King of Horror just would not be able to attend conferences for writers and editors.

Self registration

Many hotel chains have introduced self registration stands lately, like those that have long been used to get a boarding pass in the airport. But hotels have to attract additional investment to ensure registration with the help of mobile devices. As a matter of fact, it goes about a fully autonomous check in process for the traveller, where receptionists do not participate at all.

Michael Koetting, executive director of Concur, that develops travel industry solutions, stressed, that the more hotels technologically improved their facilities, the sooner the time came when it was enough for a business traveller to get a barcode next to the lift in order to check in. According to Mr Koetting, a check in desk will soon come to you itself.

Even now some software companies and software developers can offer hotels a number of interesting innovations.

Thus, Marriott hotel chain is planning to launch new alternative registration by mobile phone in its hotels all over the world in the first half of 2014. In any case, this privilege will definitely be available for participants of its frequent guest program, Marriott Rewards. Travellers will only have to check in through Marriott mobile application starting from 16:00 of the day that precedes their check in. Upon arrival at the hotel Marriott Rewards participants will only have to take their card lock at the check in desk stipulated in advance.

Systems for those who have booked their rooms through a mobile device are already available in some Hyatt hotels. Travellers have to come up to the self service terminal, print their name or order number, after which they get an electronic key. According to guests’ reviews, the system is unfinished yet — it does not always find the necessary surname, and if it finds the traveller by its booking number, it ... asks him to proceed to the registration desk, which it should replace. Chicago hotel giant already includes 549 hotels of various levels — this is a huge potential for Hyatt Kiosk Check In development.

A mobile key

Starwood Hotels & Resorts has offered Smart Check-In program. On the day of his arrival to any Aloft hotel that participates in the program, the traveller gets a message with his room number on his phone. The guest may go to his room straight ahead without coming up to the check in desk. All you have to do is to put your phone with the SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) application installed into it to the door lock, and the door will open.

It should be noted that Starwood initially planned to support only Apple smart phones, but according to The Wall Street Journal, the service will be available not only for iOS device owners, but also for the owners of the phones with the latest Android versions. The fact that Starwood decided to use Bluetooth technology instead of NFC (Near Field Communication) just proves the fact, that it is trying to take into consideration interests of Android users, and not all devices with this operational system have NFC modules.

Nevertheless, the use of NFC would be a much more convenient solution in many respects. NFC technology was worked out by NXP Semiconductors and Sony in 2002, and already in 2003 it became a standard approved by the International Standardization Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). NFC connects to another device much quicker (in this case the mobile device communicates with the electronic door lock) — in 0,1 second, which is literally instantaneous by human measures, when this time for Bluetooth can be as long as 6 seconds.

NFC signal radius is about 20 centimeters, which considerably reduces the chance of protected information access by hackers, this index for Bluetooth can exceed 10 metres, although the signal is usually switched off to save the battery.

NFC is compatible with the Radio Frequency Identification technology, RFID tags that have actively spread into various spheres of life — anti-theft labels in bookshops and libraries, the car industry, logistics, healthcare. It is the RFID-chip that is used in the latest biometric passports. A phone with an NFC-module can be used as a mobile purse or a transport card.

And hence a question for discussion appears — what to do if the mobile phone that was overloaded with talks during the previous day will switch off because of low battery? A business traveller can always use a socket to charge the phone during talks or a meeting, but the MICE-industry is comprehensive — the last day may be devoted to sightseeing, golf, alpine skiing, and the smart phone may be used to take photos all the time. So the guest arrives at the hotel with a switched off phone and there is nothing else left for him, but to ask the reception manager to open the room with a passkey.

A device with an NFC-module can be used in passive mode. It is enough for the door lock to be connected to electricity, which creates a field for the switched off device, this field is quite enough to read the signal even in an absolutely dead device.

It does not mean that Bluetooth is worse than NFC — indeed, it is not, but in case of mobile key technology introduction the evident focus was on the more democratic price segment of mobile devices, because NFC-modules are present only in very expensive smart phones.

In some companies mobile key technologies have almost been frozen. Thus, Holiday Inn started introducing its Mobile Room Key technology in 2010; the mobile phone was used as a key to get into the room. But this system works only in a limited number of hotels. Mobile project director of TripCase (the project of Sabre) Ben Newell complained about unsolved technological problems connected with the use of mobile technologies as electronic keys.

People do not dislike keys, in fact, Newell remarks. The problem is they do not want to go to the reception. Despite the fact, that this technology is slightly ahead of time, we should not exclude the possibility, that it will become the main solution in this industry in the end«.

Simplification of booking

When a modern business traveller plans his business trip, he searches for information about the hotel in reviews or on its official site. The share of hotel bookings through mobile devices — phones, smart phones and tablets — is constantly growing. And here hotels have to set as close contact with the customer as possible in order to increase their service quality. It is important to offer the traveller a convenient booking interface and an opportunity to convey his demands to the service provider to the fullest extent.

As for a convenient interface, according to TripBarometer opinion poll, that was conducted by the largest travel portal, TripAdvisor, about 38% of hotel sites in the world are not optimized for mobile devices, given that one third of 35 thousand poll participants want to have an opportunity to book services through a smart phone or a tablet. Hotels (including hotels of various levels) will have to grow a lot in this direction.

At the end of 2013 CheckMate, a Californian company from Mountain View, launched a beta version of a mobile platform that was put to the test in several hotels of the state. The platform lets hotels receive daily reports about the guests who have arrived and send them messages with all the necessary information. «Guests can sent their inquiries regarding free rooms available, inform us about the time of their arrival as well as add their loyalty program participant number and other requests, CheckMate cofounder Antony Madjo said. Hotels get all this information on the day the guest checks in and can get the room ready for him beforehand».

CheckMate purchased Room 77, a room booking and search technology, in April 2013 and has since then become one of the leaders in using this application, apart from another two distributors of this technology — PointsHound and Alliance Reservations Network. Madjo has stressed that he would like to cooperate with corporate travel agencies, because «not everyone has the necessary budget and resources for operations of this type, so we suppose, that their travellers will definitely benefit from using such programs».

Paige Francis, Vice President of Specialty Select Brands for Starwood remarked, that the decision to change the registration procedure had already led to reframing the location of the reception desk itself. Thus, the desk has been moved forward to the centre of the lobby in Harlem Aloft in New York: «Some people want to just pass by the registration desk, but when it is in the centre, it adds greater importance to communication». In other words, Starwood has taken into account the psychological aspect: the traveller can avoid any communication with receptionists, but he may be sure that they will always help him in case of any unforeseen situation.

Automation is penetrating our life at a swift rate, and here hotel industry representatives should seize the moment when mobile technologies really do a power of good for everyone — hoteliers themselves as well as their guests in the first place.

Oleg Abarnikov
Adapted from businesstravelnews.com