Volpe, C. (2008). Hotels Lock it Up. Hospitality Technology. October 2008, Retrieved from http://www.htmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=3E19674330734FF1BBDA3D67B50C82F1&tier=4&id=4380EF5629CD45FB9C4D382CA9B09534
One of the crucial hospitality concepts is that a hotel is “a home away from home”. In terms of this providing security is one of the main concerns about guest rooms. That is why locking system vendors keep up their work trying to find innovative and reliable solutions. Christina Volpe, the author of the article “Hotels lock it up”, presents two cutting edge technological decisions: radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and near field communication (NFC) cell phone compatibility. RFID ELS requires a key card or wristband with an RF chip that sends signals to the special reader located on the door. Vendors that provide this type of locks are, for example, Kaba Ilco (www.kabailco.com) and VingCard (www.vingcard.com). The author of the article highlights that RFID is contact-free technology that means that it is even not necessary for guests to take the card out of the wallet, it is enough just to put the wallet up to the door. Undoubtedly, it is very convenient for travelers. The hotel staff also really likes this system because it is “user friendly”. The second technology, NFC, that refers to near field communication, allows communication between devices over about 4 inch distance by using a short-range high frequency wireless communication. This enables guests to unlock their rooms using encrypted code received via short text message on the cell phone. So, it means that customers could make a reservation on-line, get a confirmation connecting to the Internet on their cell phone/Smartphone/PDA , then check-in, get access to the room using this device and check-out from the hotel! And moreover, this technology could be utilized as marketing tool providing, for example, the opportunity of remote check-in/out and access to guest loyalty programs via SMS.
In my opinion, RFID is really a great solution for the hospitality industry. First of all, it is very important for resort hotels as far as it allows to eliminate physical contact between card and card reader. It is significant because sand from the beach (that could be brought on the card) could damage the card reader. Moreover RFID key cards can provide access not only to guest rooms but also to different in-room (safes, minibars) and hotel (pools, fitness centres, conference rooms, etc.) amenities and even could be used as an electronic wallet. I believe it is very convenient for the guests to deposit a certain amount of money on this card and then just feel free to use different hotel facilities. It is possible to use not only cards but wristbands as well as a key to RFID ELS. I think that all the features above also make this system very convenient for families with children.
Near field communication (NFC) cell phone compatibility is also a significant technology for the industry. However, probably it is not always convenient to use cell phone as a room key, for example when guest is going to the swimming pool. I believe that cell phone technologies are very important, but probably they could be more used as CRM tools. Nowadays, travelers heavily use cell phones. So, mobile version of hotel website and remote check-in/out are becoming just guests’ standard expectations (not technological advances).
Above these two technologies mentioned in the article, there is one more very interesting and innovative point - biometric locking system. The first generation of this technology was introduced only in 2004 by Saflok. Biometric LS refers to the use of automated methods to recognize a person based on either physiological or biological characteristics (fingerprint, iris, hand, palm scan). “The Leisure Customer’s Adoption of Biometric Technologies in Hotels” survey conducted by Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne (Lausanne, Switzerland) shows that 87.3% of leisure guests in the sample (300 hotel leisure guests) are ready to use biometric technologies for guest services, particularly sport and outdoor activities. Among all biometric tools they preferred iris scanning for payment systems as well as for identification purposes. However, this technology is still not widely accepted mainly because of security and cost issues. But anyway, hospitality industry has a great potential for future growth and development from this perspective.
References:
Collins. G., Cobanoglu C. (2008). Hospitality Information Technology: Learning how to use it. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt publishing company
Murphy. H., Pottet, D. (2007). The Leisure Customer’s Adoption of Biometric Technologies in Hotels, Retrieved from http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4030000.search?query=biometrics+in+hospitality
Volpe, C. (2008). Hotels Lock it Up. Hospitality Technology. October 2008, Retrieved from http://www.htmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=3E19674330734FF1BBDA3D67B50C82F1&tier=4&id=4380EF5629CD45FB9C4D382CA9B09534
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Technology and Hotel Guests' Satisfaction
Withiam, G. (2008). Tech-savvy guests spend more. Hospitality Technology, October 2008, Retrieved from http://www.htmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=3E19674330734FF1BBDA3D67B50C82F1&tier=4&id=277F5CD9C9B1434C8CEBFE06229B6EC5
Technology importance and adoption have become a cornerstone issues in hospitality industry. But even though technology applications can greatly improve hotel operations and contribute to guest satisfaction, some hotel customers are not very familiar with technology. Being not attuned to modern technological tools those people don’t use them heavily during their hotel stay and obviously they don’t want to pay for these services and even could be annoyed and disappointed with the necessity to deal with technology all the time. So, nowadays every hotel faces a great challenge: to choose which technologies to implement, to decide whether it is worth money and eventually to build up own technology adoption policy. All these issues are covered in the article “Tech-savvy guests spend more” written by Glenn Withiam, the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research Director of Publications. Trying to answer the questions mentioned above the author describes the survey conducted by the Cornell University Center for Hospitality Research in order to find out hotel guests’ technology inclinations. The study group employed the web-based Technology Readiness Index (TRI) tool. The researches described the group of travelers who favor technology and get the highest TRI score. The main features of those respondents are:
- They are relatively younger,
- They are more highly educated,
- They are more affluent,
- They are more inclined to be frequent travelers,
- They are willing to pay higher room rates (and tend to stay in upscale hotels).
Also the researchers found out the top technological tools to be on the cutting-edge of IT adoption, among them:
- Online / web-based hotel booking,
- Self check-out,
- In-room Internet access.
At the same time study results confirmed that not all hotel guests embrace technology innovations. The author concludes that every particular hotel should learn more about its guest preferences and opinions about technology and take decisions concerning technology adoption accordingly. One of the possible ways to serve not technology-savvy clients is to maintain human interaction opportunities.
In my opinion, the topic of the article is really interesting, up-to-date and significant for the industry. Nowadays hotels have to operate in a very competitive fast-changing environment. On the one hand hotels should track technology innovations and employ them to meet the technology-savvy guests’ expectations. But on the other hand implementing technology we can discourage certain group of travelers to stay in a particular hotel. Even simple everyday actions (e.g. to turn on a TV or draw curtains) could become a great problem for those who are not familiar with cutting-edge technology. So, hotels should be very attentive to their guests and also very selective choosing new technologies. Such research projects as one described in the article can help hoteliers to take right business decisions. We should remember about hotel business main point: to provide positive experience to the guests keeping up making profit. It means that it is unnecessary to implement all the technological tools that appeared on the market. First of all, hoteliers should compare the price of this adoption with possible impact on hotel guests’ satisfaction. To give an example, professors from the University of Delaware Dr. Beldona and Dr. Cobanoglu conducted the importance-performance analysis of guest technologies in the lodging industry and classified all the technologies in four groups according to guests’ expectations and satisfaction. The first group which is called “keep up the great work” includes express check-in/out, remote control TV and HSIA and has both high importance and performance scores. The second group, with high importance but unexpectedly low performance, includes wireless internet access, alarm clock, easily accessible electrical outlets and online reservation capabilities. This group should attract hoteliers’ attention because guests considered these tools choosing a hotel but they were not satisfied with the level of service. The third group demonstrates technologies were given the low importance rates but recorded high performance; it includes web TV, pay-per-view movies, in-room personal computers. And the last group indicates the low importance-low performance technologies: videoconferencing capabilities, wireless access to hotel website, business centers and plasma screen TVs (Beldona, Cobanoglu, 2007). These results could help the hotels to distinguish those directions they should work on. Also I suppose it would be very interesting to deepen the study and focus, for example, on business and holiday travelers. But anyway for the best results every hotel should study its own clientele to draw the conclusions regarding technology implementation and its impact on guests’ satisfaction.
References:
Beldona, S., & Cobanoglu, C. (2007). Importance-performance analysis of guest technologies in the lodging industry. Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 48(3), 299-312.
Withiam, G. (2008). Tech-savvy guests spend more. Hospitality Technology, October 2008.
Technology importance and adoption have become a cornerstone issues in hospitality industry. But even though technology applications can greatly improve hotel operations and contribute to guest satisfaction, some hotel customers are not very familiar with technology. Being not attuned to modern technological tools those people don’t use them heavily during their hotel stay and obviously they don’t want to pay for these services and even could be annoyed and disappointed with the necessity to deal with technology all the time. So, nowadays every hotel faces a great challenge: to choose which technologies to implement, to decide whether it is worth money and eventually to build up own technology adoption policy. All these issues are covered in the article “Tech-savvy guests spend more” written by Glenn Withiam, the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research Director of Publications. Trying to answer the questions mentioned above the author describes the survey conducted by the Cornell University Center for Hospitality Research in order to find out hotel guests’ technology inclinations. The study group employed the web-based Technology Readiness Index (TRI) tool. The researches described the group of travelers who favor technology and get the highest TRI score. The main features of those respondents are:
- They are relatively younger,
- They are more highly educated,
- They are more affluent,
- They are more inclined to be frequent travelers,
- They are willing to pay higher room rates (and tend to stay in upscale hotels).
Also the researchers found out the top technological tools to be on the cutting-edge of IT adoption, among them:
- Online / web-based hotel booking,
- Self check-out,
- In-room Internet access.
At the same time study results confirmed that not all hotel guests embrace technology innovations. The author concludes that every particular hotel should learn more about its guest preferences and opinions about technology and take decisions concerning technology adoption accordingly. One of the possible ways to serve not technology-savvy clients is to maintain human interaction opportunities.
In my opinion, the topic of the article is really interesting, up-to-date and significant for the industry. Nowadays hotels have to operate in a very competitive fast-changing environment. On the one hand hotels should track technology innovations and employ them to meet the technology-savvy guests’ expectations. But on the other hand implementing technology we can discourage certain group of travelers to stay in a particular hotel. Even simple everyday actions (e.g. to turn on a TV or draw curtains) could become a great problem for those who are not familiar with cutting-edge technology. So, hotels should be very attentive to their guests and also very selective choosing new technologies. Such research projects as one described in the article can help hoteliers to take right business decisions. We should remember about hotel business main point: to provide positive experience to the guests keeping up making profit. It means that it is unnecessary to implement all the technological tools that appeared on the market. First of all, hoteliers should compare the price of this adoption with possible impact on hotel guests’ satisfaction. To give an example, professors from the University of Delaware Dr. Beldona and Dr. Cobanoglu conducted the importance-performance analysis of guest technologies in the lodging industry and classified all the technologies in four groups according to guests’ expectations and satisfaction. The first group which is called “keep up the great work” includes express check-in/out, remote control TV and HSIA and has both high importance and performance scores. The second group, with high importance but unexpectedly low performance, includes wireless internet access, alarm clock, easily accessible electrical outlets and online reservation capabilities. This group should attract hoteliers’ attention because guests considered these tools choosing a hotel but they were not satisfied with the level of service. The third group demonstrates technologies were given the low importance rates but recorded high performance; it includes web TV, pay-per-view movies, in-room personal computers. And the last group indicates the low importance-low performance technologies: videoconferencing capabilities, wireless access to hotel website, business centers and plasma screen TVs (Beldona, Cobanoglu, 2007). These results could help the hotels to distinguish those directions they should work on. Also I suppose it would be very interesting to deepen the study and focus, for example, on business and holiday travelers. But anyway for the best results every hotel should study its own clientele to draw the conclusions regarding technology implementation and its impact on guests’ satisfaction.
References:
Beldona, S., & Cobanoglu, C. (2007). Importance-performance analysis of guest technologies in the lodging industry. Cornell Hotel & Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 48(3), 299-312.
Withiam, G. (2008). Tech-savvy guests spend more. Hospitality Technology, October 2008.
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