Google Glass for Hotels?

The development of futuristic technology has provided hotels with more opportunities than ever to truly impress their guests with a unique experience.  Two hotels, Acme Hotel Chicago and the Stanford Court San Francisco, have found a way to use wearable technology to their advantage.  The highly sought after Google Glass is currently available as a beta program. Google has released the product to “Glass Explorers” who can get the product in hopes that they will reveal the many flaws in the advanced piece of technology.  To get Google Glass, one must sign up and pay a hefty fee of $1500 for what is essentially an unfinished product.  While Glass still has tons of cool and useful features, the polished product will undoubtedly be better.  This makes people reluctant to purchase it as new technology is often buggy.  The Acme Hotel Chicago and Stanford Court San Francisco have signed up to become “Glass Explorers” but the hotels themselves won’t be doing any exploring.

Guests have the option to rent Google Glass during their stay as to enjoy using the product while in an unfamiliar city.  Acme is offering the product on a complimentary basis in three hour blocks for guests to enjoy, while Stanford Court offers the “Google Glass Explorer Package” for just $199 a day.  The opportunity to “borrow” Google Glass for a day is a tourist attraction in itself.  Besides getting the opportunity to test one of the most advanced consumer technology devices on the market, the product has dozens of uses for a traveler in an unfamiliar city.

A few things guests are able to use Glass for when traveling:

• Weather information
• Travel information like maps, travel guides, nearby accommodations, restaurants and more.
• Ability to get live directions from your exact location

The use of this product could essentially eliminate the need of a concierge service in your hotel.  At the moment, it’s financially unrealistic to provide every guest with a pair of Google Glass, but in a few years as new products are unveiled the price will drop as technology always does.  There are several ways you could use Google Glass to increase efficiency at your property behind the scenes for your employees and in the front of the house by providing it to guests.  One hotel brand, Starwood Preferred Guest, has created an app for Glass which allows guests to check into their rooms, call the hotel, look up their reservations and even take virtual tours of individual hotel rooms.

Google Glass is still young and we can’t predict the impact it might have in the future.  But one thing’s for sure, people are anxious to give this product a try; they just don’t want to pay $1500 for it.  This can be a fun and innovative way to enhance your guest’s experience!

Follow Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association on Social Media for industry trends, news and information!

Facebook                   Twitter                   LinkedIn Group                    Google

Source:

http://www.hotelsmag.com/Industry/Blogs/Details/50807

4 Ways to Increase Direct Bookings

With the growing market for Online Travel Companies (OTC’s) hospitality professionals are constantly searching for new and unique approaches to increasing direct booking to their property.  Here is a glance at four things you can do to increase your own direct bookings.

1. Own the Customer Experience.  Every other business sees the potential in this industry and people are flocking to it to get their piece of the pie.  Don’t allow other companies to take over parts of the customer experience like booking through OTC’s, reserving activities through a 3^rd party and allowing travel companies to give transportation advice.  Your hotel must own the customer experience from beginning to end to show your guest that you have all the tools and information to give them the trip of their dreams.  If you own the entire experience, you gain trust and loyalty from that guest.

2. Web Experience is Guest Experience.  Your customers begin their search process online.  When booking airfare, accommodations and activities for their trip, the entire process begins with the click of a mouse.  The first place travelers will go are OTC websites because of their simple structure and ability to compare multiple rates at once.  Your website needs to be as transparent and easy to use as an OTC website.  This includes mobile optimization as many travelers will book their accommodations while on the go via their smart phone or tablet.

3. Think Like the Guest.  Your guest wants to find as many necessary services in your hotel as possible.  Do everything you can to eliminate communication with OTA’s.  Give them info on local venues, restaurants and travel in a simple manner such as a direct phone line to the concierge.  Even if they don’t use it, they will recognize its presence and take note of it when making future plans.

4. Crucial Interactions.  This is one we discuss on this blog frequently.  As an employee in hospitality, you’re given a few select opportunities to interact with the customer in a memorable way.  Your front desk knows which medium your guest booked their accommodations through and as a front desk attendant, this opportunity should be taken advantage of to remind your guests of the benefits and incentives they’re provided by doing so.  “Businesses must connect with customers and consistently encourage and reward “good” behavior.”

Follow Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association on Social Media for industry trends, news and information!

Facebook                   Twitter                   LinkedIn Group                    Google+

Sources:

http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/global/154000320/4064664.html

http://www.htrends.com/trends-detail-sid-76785.html

Social Media Hotels: Free Marketing, Customer Service and Efficiency

How hotels use Twitter and social media for free marketing and to increase customer service capabilities while increasing efficiency in hotel operations.

The Sol Wave House, a hotel in Majorca, Spain, recently launched a campaign to make themselves the first ever “Twitter Experience hotel.”  The Twitter hotel is essentially where guests can “Tweet” requests to an in-house “Twitter Concierge” who delegates the requests to the hotel staff directly.  This of course gives guests the opportunity to make service requests from anywhere in the hotel as long as they have their phone with them.  The Twitter Experience hotel bases almost 100% of its operations on an internal community available to guests through a downloadable app.  While this is a little extreme as it’s their entire basis of operations, properties can use pieces of this idea to increase customer service and efficiency in their own operations.

The trends of smart phones and social media are only growing and hotels should be taking advantage of this as an opportunity.  “A report released earlier this year by The Boston Consulting Group says millennials will become the core customers of airlines, hotels and travel companies in the next five to 10 years as they enter their peak earning, spending and travel years.”  The Twitter Experience hotel is an example of the industry working to attract these millennial customers to gain their business and loyalty.  Social media is also growing among older demographics, particularly in the business world, and this should not be viewed as something to only benefit millennial customers.

Many social media users document their travel experiences virtually non-stop on their smart phones; this is an opportunity to gain free publicity when utilized correctly.  Social media users will go about the hotel checking into restaurants, properties and literally detailing their every activity to all of their friends and family online.  Because customers are already using this simple social media system and using it so often, hotels are seeing this as an opportunity to be interacting with their customers and even give them another channel to put requests through to the hotel.  The Sol Wave House placed a moustache on each rooms mirror with the hotels Twitter handle and a hashtagged #Moustache for guests to Tweet their moustache pictures.  It may seem silly, but this is free marketing for the property.

While someone should be available at the desk at all times it’s unrealistic to expect guests to be willing to go to the desk every time they have a question or request.  Millennial guests are starting to prefer less personal interactions when it comes to getting service, they would rather be able to text or tweet to room service or housekeeping than call down to the front desk with the room phones.  At the Twitter Experience hotel guests can tweet things like, “I need extra sheets and pillows brought to room 100,” tagging the hotel, which will be seen by the Twitter Concierge who can then send someone to their room.  It can even be acknowledged with a quick reply, “Be there soon room 100,” to let the guest know that their request has been received.  This can just as easily be done with a Facebook page that details the service on the page.  “Submit your service requests through Facebook or Twitter for prompt and easy handling!”

Guests also have the room phone to call down and make requests; in most of the hotel they don’t have access to a hotel phone.  Customers who are relaxing by the pool or want to schedule spa visits can make requests via social media.  This can include requesting extra towels and drinks while sitting by the pool or the ability to schedule spa reservations with something as simple as a Tweet.

While this allows guests an opportunity to make requests at their own discretion it can also help increase efficiency in handling these requests.  Because social media interactions are listed on the hotels pages, it creates a database which lists every request individually and can be dealt with in order of importance or time.  Many times it can be difficult to field multiple phone calls from guests, this can eliminate phone back up and held calls almost altogether.

The biggest difficulty in implementing this strategy is paying an employee to be constantly checking the social media pages for requests.  When considered, is that really any different than having someone available to answer phone calls all day?  With social media, front desk attendants (or whoever handles customer service at your property) can avoid interrupting guests or asking guests to wait while they finish a phone call as they are able to check social media at their own convenience.

What do you think? Would you consider using social media as a channel for guests to submit requests?

Follow us on Social Media!

Facebook

Twitter

Google +

Sources:

http://seattletimes.com/html/travel/2021951133_twitterhotelxml.html

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Consumer-Corner/2013/10/13/Millennials-pushing-hotels-to-get-up-to-speed/UPI-40671381654860/?spt=rln&or=1