Recent years have been tough on the hospitality industry, mainly on hotels and restaurants worldwide. Lots of hotels released their employees since there was just not enough demand.
Today, as businesses are trying to recover from the past few years, their future is still uncertain, making it difficult to hire more employees. It’s more important than ever to manage hotels smartly. New technologies are here to make that happen.
Innovative technology helps hotels worldwide target potential customers, increase efficiency and guest satisfaction and minimize the need for seasonal employee hiring. Such technologies include hotel apps, mobile check-ins, remote contactless payments, the Internet of Things and much much more.
Ways to Smart Manage Your Hotel
Smart management mainly involves increasing customer satisfaction and revenue while decreasing employee tasks and overtime. And the way to do that today is by using the latest digital technologies for the hospitality industry.
Investing in Hotel Robots
Robots have become more and more popular in hotels thanks to their constant productivity and quick return on investment.
You can use hotel robots as a workforce, mainly as room service assistants or at the front desk, greeting and managing guest needs. They can clean rooms at specific times of the day or after a guest leaves, deliver food straight to hotel rooms, vacuum, disinfect and more. Hotel robots improve operation efficiency and reduce costs for employee labor.
In addition, hotel robots are a huge attraction for tourists and visitors, and they are simply going to love them.
Internet of Things (IoT)
The Internet of Things (IoT) interconnects room items and objects and allows guests to control them through intelligent devices such as mobile phones, tablets, remote controls and others. They are all interconnected via the internet.
IoT in hotels is typically used for air-conditioning, controlling TVs, light control, windows and curtains, ordering room service, payments, check-ins and check-outs, and more. Guests can use a smartphone app, a room remote control or scan a QR code to give them access to all functions.
IoT benefits guests by personalizing their room environment, thus providing quick service and increasing satisfaction. The technology also collects data and provides hotel management with information about guest trends, wishes, most popular services, food or drinks, times of the day, which helps them improve their services and processes.
Think About Sustainability
Sustainable is smart. Reducing room and hotel energy use will save you unnecessary costs and preserve the environment. In addition, eco-hotels have earned more popularity in recent years, attracting more environmentally friendly-oriented customers who appreciate the efforts and support the idea behind the hotels.
Improving sustainability is now possible by implementing intelligent technologies in hotel rooms that control temperature, lighting and water consumption. IoT sensors can detect vacant spaces or the absence of people and adjust lights or air-conditioning settings in an energy-efficient way. In addition, they help with detecting leaks and light bulbs burnouts when they occur, thus also preventing potential hazardous situations.
Innovative energy management, digital thermostats and sensors can reduce property energy consumption and costs by up to 20% and fast return on investment rates. It will also provide accurate data to help you analyze relationships between local weather conditions, seasonal demands, time of the day, energy consumption and hotel room occupancy.
Increase Your Sales
Adopting new technologies such as IoT, smartphone hotel apps, mobile check-ins, or virtual menus can give you unbiased feedback about your hotel, the services you provide and what your customers are looking for.
Innovative technologies give you information about the most popular services at your hotel. For example, such services can be SPA treatments, room service, gym or pool areas, tour activities and more. If necessary, you can see what your guests are most interested in and put more effort into developing that area.
On the other hand, virtual menus and orders can give you insights into the most popular drinks, cocktails, snacks and dishes that your customers love. They can be related to specific times of the day or the season.
This information is invaluable because it allows you to look deeper into the customer journey and create special offers to target potential sales. You can use in-room smart TVs, hotel apps and websites to showcase these offers and increase your revenue.