The coronavirus pandemic has left millions of businesses all over the world hanging by a thread, even forcing many to close doors permanently. The hospitality industry is not an exception.
Numerous hotels keep struggling with low occupancy rates due to decreased consumer demand, consequently generating very low revenue. Changes are necessary, but what are they?
What can hoteliers do to make their properties safe and reassure guests that they can have a seamless post-COVID experience? Let’s have a look.
Improving Operations and Infrastructure
To increase occupancy rates and drive more revenue, you must reassure your guests that you can deliver a safe, clean, and seamless guest experience at your hotel.
That primarily means strictly following the health and safety regulations based on regional government instructions and guidelines, ensuring the entire property is regularly sanitized, and the staff follows various safety protocols, including social distancing.
It also means reducing physical touch points. Your guests should be able to have a hands-free experience to feel more confident when considering booking and be completely safe during their stay.
Housekeeping, maintenance, checking in, checking out, ordering food, using hotel amenities, making payments – all operations must undergo critical changes. They all need to offer a contactless experience.
What Changes Are Necessary for Operations and Infrastructure?
The most important thing is to clean and sanitize your hotel and each room regularly before and after the checkout. What does “regularly” mean?
It means thoroughly cleaning every room (bedrooms, conference rooms, spas, gyms, etc.) after each use, and disinfecting high-touch surfaces multiple times a day. Of course, you should give your guests the option to tell if they want their rooms cleaned during their stay or not.
When meeting new guests, you should check their temperature at the entrance to ensure your staff and current guests stay safe. Daily temperature checks of your staff and guests should also be the new norm.
Everyone should be able to check-in and out without waiting in lines at the front desk. They should also have an opportunity to use and pay for all hotel services without even leaving the room.
All of this may sound completely impersonal, but you can personalize guest experiences even when everything is contactless. People can feel great while staying at your hotel as if there’s no pandemic out in the world. And that’s all thanks to contactless technology.
How Can Contactless Technology Deliver a Better Guest Experience?
Embracing contactless technology is essential for implementing all those necessary changes to hotel operations.
With contactless tech, you can:
● Reduce or eliminate physical touchpoints
● Increase staff efficiency
● Reassure guests that your hotel is clean and safe
● Improve trust and boost occupancy rates
● Improve guest experience and satisfaction
● Drive more revenue
To achieve all this, you need to utilize hotel management software that reduces or eliminates customer contact. You need modern hotel systems that offer new and advanced features that include contactless and zero touchoptions. There are many types of online check-in software for hotel managers that have upgraded their features to meet this post-COVID requirement.
There are also dedicated QR Menu solutions that you can integrate with the hotel PMS you’re already using.
With a QR Menu, your guests only need to scan the QR code you previously provided in an email to access all your services.
They can then scan their IDs and provide digital signatures to check-in before giving them digital room keys. During their stay, they can enjoy contactless dining by ordering and paying for food using only their mobile devices.
They can message your staff for any special requests, such as tour guides or anything else they need. So, personalization is very much possible.
When checking out, they can also do it via their devices by clicking on the link that contains their billing information and other stay-related details.
The best part about QR Menu solutions is that no downloads are required. They’re cloud-based, secure, and ensure real-time two-way communication with hotel PMSs.
All-in-One Platforms vs. Multiple Vendors’ Technology
Adopting an all-in-one platform for your hotel management is much better than mixing tech solutions from multiple vendors.
When you have all in one place, you have a holistic, integrated view of customers and all your operations. You have a single interface across all your tech, making for a shallow learning curve, fast adoption, high efficiency, and clean experience.
Adopting multiple technologies means dealing with different vendors and interfaces, longer staff training, lower efficiency, and a cluttered view of customers.
Conclusion
It’s too early to make any assumptions, but contactless technology in hotels may very well become the new norm even when we finally wave the virus goodbye.
It’s incredibly convenient and time-saving, which is precisely what hotel guests are looking for. Most importantly, it ensures staff and guest safety, which is what the hospitality industry needs now more than ever.
Book a free online demo today to see how contactless hotel management software with a QR Menu works. Explore all the features and learn how it can help your hotel thrive in the post-COVID world.
About The Author
Deepak Chauhan
Deepak Chauhan is responsible for marketing and positioning of “mycloud” platform and is a veteran in the hotel software industry with over 25 years’ experience giving him a strong understanding of the product requirements in the industry. He has very rare mix of working in operations of various hotels and chains for over 10 years and then co-founding a software product and service company, servicing 5 star hotels and chains for 14 years.
Deepak has led the development and marketing of cloud based hospitality systems to meet the specific, business objectives of small and mid-size properties across the globe and has worked closely with a diverse group of hoteliers and hotel technology vendors.
