NOW, CHECK IN & OUT OF A HOTEL USING SMARTPHONE
Features like ‘connected room’ will deliver personalised, mobile-first room experience
Upset about the waiting time to complete the check-in and checkout at the hotel after paying big bucks for your luxury stay? Relax. Things are changing for the better. Hotel chains like Hilton, InterContinental, and Four Seasons are changing the guest experience of the way they check in and out, clear their bills, interact with the hotel for room service, etc.
American hospitality major Hilton has rolled out the digital key for its two hotels in India this year: Conrad (Bengaluru) and Hilton Garden Inn (Lucknow). “Our digital key at these two hotels allows guests to use their smartphones as a room key, bypassing the front desk check-in. Another common feature we offer in all our 17 hotels here is the digital checkin, the industry’s first opportunity for guests to select the exact room they want, based on interactive floor plans and Google Maps API,” said a Hilton India spokesperson.
Hilton is also piloting a feature called Connected Room, which aims to deliver a personalised, mobile-first room experience for the guests. “This will empower them to tailor all elements of their stay from the palm of their hand, from streaming their favourite television channels, controlling room temperature and light settings, to ordering extra pillows and towels. We are now testing the Connected Room beta technology in a handful of hotel rooms, and will launch this first in the US, followed by the rest of the world,” the spokesperson added.
Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) is also working to bring these new features to India. “In the future, you will be able to check in online like you do with airlines, check out online, and select a particular room online. It opens a new world of technology. You just take the key...or it may be it will be sent to your mobile. It is definitely the future,” Pascal Gauvin, managing director, India, Middle East and Africa, IHG, told Business Standard. .
Gauvin said he did not have a date yet for introducing these in India but he said it would be rolled out in the near future. Gauvin, who oversees operations of 132 hotels for IHG in India, West Asia, and Africa, from his Dubai office, questioned the need for large check-in counters in the lobby. “Maybe we need to be softer with that. People don’t like to queue anymore for check-in and check-out,” he said.
Luxury hotel chain Four Seasons has rolled out a new digital service, Four Seasons Chat, enabling guests to send and receive instant messages with property teams before, throughout and after their stay. This feature, rolled out globally in October last year, is now available for guests staying at the Four Seasons hotel in Mumbai and will be available to guests at the upcoming Four Seasons hotel in Bengaluru.
Guests can use multiple channels — the Four Seasons App, Facebook Messenger, WeChat or SMS — to interact with the hotel and the responses are given by hotel staff and not chat bots.
“The Four Seasons Chat has an ability to translate more than a 100 languages efficiently and in real time. Our best-in-class response times are in minutes, if not seconds, well below the industry average of 12 minutes...,” a company statement said.