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Trending: Instant communication

Calling down to the hotel’s front desk for extra towels may soon be obsolete. Messaging technology is gaining traction with several hotel companies seeking to improve communication with guests.

Last year, Hyatt Hotels Corp. began testing private messaging through Facebook’s Business on Messenger. “We view our 24/7 social care efforts as a natural extension of our purpose, which is to care for people so they can be their best, and that means we want to engage with our guests on their terms, through their preferred channels,” says Dan Moriarty, director of social strategy and activation at Hyatt.

“Now, Messenger is just one of the many channels where our guests can reach us to get help with their reservations, ask for recommendations or make in-room requests.”

“I expect that by the end of the year, we will have one or two major hotel chains playing well on Messenger,” adds Lee McCabe, global head of travel strategy for Facebook, who says the company is in conversation with several major hotel companies. “More and more people are turning to Messenger, especially millennials who use Messenger three times more often than they do email.”

Marriott International’s Mobile Request, available through its app, features a two-way chat feature called “Anything Else” that enables guests to communicate with hotels before, during and after their stays. uests can request services and amenities in English, Spanish, Chinese, French and German.

“I think that if hotel companies and hoteliers don’t start to get ready for this today, they might find themselves in six months’ time or 12 months’ time looking around and asking themselves, ‘How did we let this happen to us again?’” says Tim Peter, founder and president of Tim Peter & Associates, Long Valley, New Jersey.

The three C’s

According to Facebook’s McCabe, connection, convenience and context are growing increasingly important to travelers.

“The consumer wants to connect with a company on whatever devices that they are using all of the time,” he says. “They don’t want to be forced to connect in a different or awkward manner. They also want the business to make their lives easiest as possible so that every interaction should be easy, efficient and effective. Every part of the communication should also be personalized.”

Hyatt’s Moriarty has made similar observations. “We continue to see our guests valuing the real-time, human connection with us through social channels,” he says. “Consistently, we find guests with a millennial mindset, no matter their true age, value messaging and social care the most. We continue to see our guests valuing the real-time, human connection with us through social channels. And we’re also seeing more people use messaging to save time on simple transactional items, like making a booking.”

In addition to younger guests, business travelers are  a prospective audience. “This is certainly a millennial trend with one huge caveat: business travel,” Peter says. “We are seeing younger companies with younger employees begin to use things like Messenger and WeChat, What’s App and Slack to manage internal communications, which carries over to travel.”

You call us

About two years ago, Starwood Hotels & Resorts piloted Let’s Chat, a two-way 24/7 messaging tool between guests and associates, at W Doha Hotel & Residences. Available on WhatsApp, Blackberry Messenger and iMessage, Let’s Chat is now available at more than 150 Starwood properties worldwide.

“We recognized that if guests are using text messages in their social spheres, why couldn’t we provide that same style in our hotel?” says Daniel Kerzner, Starwood’s vice president of digital, loyalty and partner marketing, adding that What’s App accounts for 85% of dialogue. “Texting has grown so rapidly and covers across very large age and large geographic brackets. The device that people use might be different depending on where in the world they are from and the chat apps might be different, but by allowing guests to use their own device has allowed us to cross demographics.”

Another important feature of Let’s Chat is that guests initiate all conversations. The platform aims to replace the conversation that a guest would have over the phone or at the front desk. Kerzner reports an average 60-second response rate and says the majority of requests received over Let’s Chat include spa bookings, restaurant reservations and car transfers. “It’s really an extension of a concierge at their fingertips,” he says. “We do not push any unsolicited marketing or promotional material over a channel. Instead, we are on the receiving end of the station of dialogue that has been initiated specifically by the guest.”

Corinthia Hotel St. George’s Bay in Malta recently introduced a pre-allocated WhatsApp number that guests can use to contact the hotel directly for services during their stay. The hotel also offers “Twitter by the Pool,” which allows guests to tweet their food and drink orders while at the pool.

“Inevitably, messaging is going to be highly disruptive – it has to be,” says Robert Cole, founder of RockCheetah, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. “This represents a huge shift in the industry.”

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