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Examine technology’s impact on guest experiences

Nowadays, it’s commonplace to find a tablet on the hotel room nightstand that allows guests to control room lights, adjust the temperature, open or close the blinds, and even order room service. But a few hotels are becoming early adopters of much more advanced technology.

At Marriott International’s Aloft Hotels, guests can text requests to the front desk using emojis. Hilton Worldwide’s concierge butler, Connie, powered by IBM’s Watson cognitive technology platform, offers guests suggestions for activities. Several hotel brands are doing away with plastic keycards and enabling guests to use their smartphones to open the room door.

Yet is all this actually enhancing the guest experience? If it takes a guest a few minutes to learn how the tablet controls the lamp on the nightstand, is that better than simply flipping a switch? If mobile check-in requires guests to log into a special app each time they return to their rooms, is that better than using a physical key?

Bjorn Hanson, a clinical professor at NYU’s Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism, said new technology can elicit positive reactions from guests, so long as it actually works. “My research indicates that if a technology is an amenity — available and optional, not mandatory — most guests respond favorably,” he said. “If the technology is mandatory, or not totally user-friendly, the response can be overwhelmingly negative.”

Eric Marlo, global brand manager at Marriott International’s Aloft Hotels, said the brand will only consider a new technology if it enhances the guest experience in some way. Aloft vets a lot of the proposed technology in its Concept Room, based in Stamford, Conn. “We do numerous amounts of testing on any one project prior to rolling it out to hotels to make sure that it performs up to our standards,” Marlo said.

Texting front desk

Arrive Hotels’ first property, in Palm Springs, California, opened last spring with no telephones in the rooms. Guests simply text the hotel for whatever they need. Despite this move, Arrive founder Ezra Callahan is cautious to “deploy technology just for the sake of technology.”

Arrive opened in Palm Springs without telephones in guest rooms.
Arrive opened in Palm Springs without telephones in guest rooms.

Callahan noted that Arrive’s target demographic — the hyper-modern traveler, often a millennial — “texting is almost their primary form of communication.” He believes text messaging lowers the barrier for guests to ask for something and actually helps them get more out of the hotel stay. “You can do something on your own time, at your own pace, without having to make lame chitchat,” he said. On the operational side, eliminating in-room phones saves infrastructure and maintenance costs.

As for keyless entry, Arrive is hoping to roll this out at its next two properties, set to open within a year and half. However, rather than using its current key card system, Arrive is considering installing keypad locks on the doors, with guests receiving the keypad codes via text at check-in.

“We just don’t think using your smartphone is more convenient than an actual key. A physical key is going to beat the phone every time, even if just by a couple of seconds,” Callahan said. But a keypad with a simple four-digit code could be faster than a smartphone while still freeing up the guest from having to pull out a room key. The challenge has been finding a keypad lock that can be programmed remotely.

Callahan added that thanks to the rise of Airbnb and VRBO, where owners often use keypads on rental properties, guests are becoming more comfortable with keypads.

Slow to take off

Arrive may also be considered prudent for not investing in smartphone keyless entry. David Sjolander, chief operating officer at Hotel Technology Next Generation, said it’s still too early to tell whether mobile check-in and keyless entry will take off. He said a new J.D. Power report on hotel guest satisfaction says only 3% of guests take advantage of online or mobile check-in. “Hotels have been trying forever to help guests bypass the front desk but nothing has really worked. And oftentimes, it’s not the technology. It’s getting guests to change their behavior, and I don’t know if that will ever change. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Regarding robotic butlers and concierges, Sjolander noted the ones that are being used for efficiency, such as a high-powered vacuum cleaner that housekeeping can use. However, even the gimmicky-looking butlers like Relay and Aloft’s Botlr (both are created by the same manufacturer, Savioke) are doing a good job of engaging with the guests.

“The robots actually had to be programmed to move slower because guests didn’t want them to leave the room so quickly,” Sjolander said. “They really liked it.” Robots are here to stay, he adds, but the hotel industry hasn’t quite figured out what to do with them yet.

As for the tablets that control room functions, Sjolander said those are keepers, as well, especially since guests use similar Internet of Things (IoT) technology in their homes. Yet he points out that there are still plenty of security issues to overcome.

“If someone can get into the room, and remove the thermostat and access the wiring that’s there, can they take over the entire infrastructure?” he asked. “We’ve got to get on top of the security issues first.”

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