Smart Solutions

The prime focus of service providers to the hotel industry is to offer high-tech, safe and hassle-free resolutions

Technology had a new meaning in the world of hospitality when the pandemic stared at in its face in 2020. No longer was technology limited to in-room entertainment, USB chargers for smart devices or free wi-fi services. With each passing day, newer innovations were introduced and guests were extended highly advanced digital experiences: from smart room keys to controlling room climate settings and lights through their mobile phones to making contactless payments, dinner reservations and ordering room services. This transformation led service providers in the hospitality industry up their game to offer out-of-the-world solutions. 

“The Covid19 crisis has brought about various transformations to the way hotels operated globally – primarily the way they used to serve guests. Worried and concerned about their health and safety, over 80 per cent guests want contactless services from accommodation providers today. They want to ensure the hotel takes every possible step to significantly reduce common physical touch-points across various stages of interactions with the hotel staff,” says Aditya Sanghi, co-founder and CEO, Hotelogix. 

Agrees Rakesh Awasthi, Head - BD Project, Ozone Group. “Covid19 has brought about a sea change in consumer preferences, usage patterns and product dynamics in the last two years. For the hospitality sector, we have developed touch-free technologies and introduced products such as RFID locks that work through OTPs, thereby, completely negating infection transmission that may happen through access cards,” he says, adding, “Our prime focus is to provide high-tech, safe and hassle-free solutions.”  

RMS Cloud, the pioneers in contactless guest facing solutions, too have rolled out contact tracing and guest declaration forms and implemented contactless check-in and check-out processes for seamless guest experience. “Covid19 has changed the way consumers have started looking at a hotel’s deliverables. The average consumer is now more aware of hygiene and interactions at a hotel. The hoteliers too request transparent operational modules where they can view data on housekeeping and F&B operations,” shares Peter Ferris, Chief Sales Officer, RMS Cloud. 

ENABLERS FOR BUSINESS

Awasthi opines the pandemic has initiated a much required and a compulsive shift towards digital ways of working. “As an organisation, we need to be present aptly at both ends of the spectrum ie physical as well as digital or online. Having considered that strategically, the company has undergone a 360-degree change necessitating digitisation of all physical touch points, creation of digital assets such as product installation videos, operational manual capsules, troubleshooting videos, e-after sales and query handling to provide a seamless onboarding experience to our customers,” he says.

Similarly, RMS Cloud is helping hoteliers distribute the inventory across 100 global channels including the GDS to reach out to potential customers with an inbuilt distribution switch. “We have several modules built in our platform to suit both mainstream and alternative accommodation providers such as Property Management Systems, Point of Sales Systems, Distribution Systems including GDS Switch and Channel Switch, iterfaces for Revenue Management Systems, Dynamic Pricing & Yield Management and much more. RMS also provides a fully contactless guest experience so guests can book, check in and depart without ever having to interact with the hotel staff,” informs Ferris. 

“We, at IDS Next, offer a host of business and service enhancement solutions that seamlessly integrate with the world’s best revenue, distribution, CRM, and loyalty platforms. This helps our hotel partners increase operational efficiency and profitability and reduce costs. It is combined with the support and training we provide, regulate their costs, and facilitate the creation of a memorable guest experience,” says Manoj Mohanty, Senior Vice President Sales (South Asia and SE Asia), IDS Next Business Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Data itself is a business enabler, shares Harshvardhan Amle, Founder, Upswing Cognitive Hospitality Solution. “Our data platform gathers millions of data points to give hotel anticipate guests behaviour, gives concise view of how much a guest spends, what month or day of month usually the guest books, how much he is likely to spend, what would be right time and offer to have guest book again, what offers might push guests in to proactive buying behaviour, demand forecasting based on local events like holidays, festivals, expos and conferences. Moving forward with our built-in Artificial Neural Network we give hotels a view of cancellations that might happen for all the future booking, followed by retention recommendations. All of this is just the tip of the iceberg. There is more to it than meets the eye,” he says.

CHANGES IN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

“The pandemic made significant shifts in consumer sentiments in all sectors, and this has been especially apparent in the hospitality sector. With the goal to redefine the way hotels operate through smart software solutions, IDS Next has been a trusted technology partner and preferred supplier to the international hospitality industry. Bolstered by this trust, we provided solutions that redefined hospitality processes in accordance with the changes brought in by the pandemic,” says Mohanty. 

During the early stages of the pandemic, IDS introduced a contactless solution that created a safe and mobile guest journey. Sanghi says the whole brouhaha around contactless guest service is not an entirely new phenomenon. “Many globally leading hotel brands had started offering such services to guests much before the pandemic. The pandemic-related health concern just fuelled its demand. Now only branded chain properties are leading this race. But soon, unbranded standalone properties, resorts, and other accommodation providers will follow suit. As guests would increasingly ask for other contactless services, there is no escape from this,” he feels.

Agrees Amle. “Innovations always happen at the next curve. Historically, any disruption caused a wide shift in the way industries and customers behave. This time the curve was or is the pandemic. Way before the pandemic, contactless apps or a predictive analytics platform was good to have. Today, these solutions have become a necessity from both, hotel owner/ operators and guest perspective. Who wouldn’t want a slice of future occupancy and ARR, with actions to increase both along with preventive cancellation retention recommendations?” he opines.

However, Awasthi feels we are in an evolving scenario as far as the pandemic is concerned. With new variants coming in, new situations will come up, both in personal as well as professional spheres. “This requires a consistent realignment in our ways of living and working. Organisations, to be able to maneuver through these challenging times, need to relentlessly re-innovate and be proactive to address the changing requirements from the market and the industry. With very strong sentiments towards health and hygiene, companies need to develop sustainable solutions that are a strategic fit to the requirements of the future,” he shares. 

He goes onto add that the hospitality sector needs to embrace these requirements at a much faster pace to bring back positive sentiments and confidence in people about health, hygiene, and safety. “Some of the trends we have started witnessing in hotels include solutions that ensure ease of access like automatic swing doors, digital furniture, virtually accessible locks, safes and lockers, completing replacing the traditional keys, access cards and password mechanisms,” Awasthi says.

SEAMLESS OPERATIONS

To ensure smooth and hassle-free post-sale service to the tourism and hospitality industry partners, Sanghi says Hotelogix is the only cloud-based Hotel PMS provider to offer an AI-powered Automated Coaching Engine (ACE) to help hotels deal with attrition issues. “Our ACE provides module-wise training for hotel staff through intuitive and interactive on-screen guidance. Moreover, we have added self-explanatory downloadable PDFs with relevant screenshots covering almost all the critical modules of our multi-property solution,” he says. The company also provides 24x7 prompt tech assistance via its multi-channel support system. 

“Our clients can contact us via email and on-product live chats. They can even reach out to their respective dedicated account managers for speedy resolution. We have even enabled our clients with an escalation matrix to take up the matter with the next level if their queries are not resolved in time. To prevent system downtime and to ensure our clients’ business is up and running all the time, we continue to upgrade our Hotel PMS,” he puts in.

Ferris shares that RMS has been on-boarding and training customers remotely for over five years now. “RMS wants to empower its customers by providing control over and information about how to operate the product. Whether it’s looking up an article on our AI learning Help Centre, using RMS University for new employee training, or through our tech architecture that put the power back in the hands of operators to changes to their databases without developer or support intervention. Lastly, by creating an in-product module market to allow our customers to activate the latest enhanced features or connect to integrated partners with a few clicks of their mouse,” he says.

As a company, IDS is well-versed in the changing demands of hotel partners and the industry at large, says Mohanty. “In line with these changes, we are launching a host of new solutions that will complement our existing solutions and products, expanding our capabilities and reach. We are one of the only companies to provide fully integrated on-premise and enterprise-level cloud SaaS solutions. We integrate the support channels along with the ease of use to provide superior post-service. Our support service now operates over multiple channels and in multiple languages,” shares Mohanty.

says to ensure their customers get most out of their solutions, a team of dedicated big data and customer successful professionals helps hotels, the users with complete setup, on-boarding and training. “Our comprehensive self-service portal helps hotels understand what data is important for their specific hotel operations. The best part is that unlike any other solution, our data platform is self-explanatory and comes with built in easy access tutorials. We also have a 24x7 support desk for mission critical support to our customers,” he says. 


This article was published in BW hotelier issue dated '' with cover story titled 'JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022 ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL'


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