Technology is reshaping consumers’ everyday lives, including how they travel and what they expect from the hotel and resort experience. The hospitality industry is courting today’s smartphone tethered, ever-connected guest with a high-tech-for-high-touch game plan.
They’re tapping technology to ease, enrich and bring a new level of intimacy to their hospitality experiences, from booking to check out and everything in between.
According to the Zebra 2016 Global Hospitality Study, guests rank personalized interactions and convenience perks like mobile check-in and reward-rich loyalty programs, as top enticements to win their stay.
Hospitality managers have taken note. Enabling selfhelp technologies, such as smartphone check-in, and implementing location-based technologies ranked as the industry’s top investment priorities
To ignite guest interactions via their mobile devices, the hospitality industry is upgrading to 2D imagers to support QR code applications. The technology solution is designed to ease and enhance the in-stay experience via mobile interactions, so that a guest can simply scan a QR code stored on their mobile device at a hotel kiosk to bypass the front desk check-in line.
And that’s just the beginning. Over 75% of hotels are implementing QR code applications within the next year with the top applications including check-in reservation identity scanning, loyalty points and coupons.
A guest is willing to divulge some personal information in exchange for tailored promotional offers, but they are uncomfortable with the tracking of their movements, buying behavior and social media profiles. Hotels/resorts are equally concerned and cite gathering guests’ trust as an important priority.
Around the world, in-hotel/in-resort technologies that help custom-design the guest experience are seen as critical to competing amid the proliferation of venues on the market — from new niche hotels to the growing popularity of home rental websites born from the sharing-economy trend.
Although the impact of technology varies by international market, digital disruption is changing the service model at hotels and resorts worldwide.
Click here to read the full report 2016 Hospitality Vision Study from Zebra Technologies
