1) Free Wi-Fi in the room
I am still amazed by mid-range and high-end hotels that continue to not offer or, worse still, charge their guests for Wi-Fi. At the very least, hotels should offer free Wi-Fi in a quiet area where guests can go to do business, away from the bar. Hotelchatter.com does a thorough study every year and compiles a quick reference table. We have a direct link on our blog.
2) Online travel agencies
Voyages-sncf.com, Expedia, Inc., Saber Holdings, Opodo, and Priceline.com have become the elephants in the hotel room booking business. Each with 2008 annual revenues in excess of billions ($USD), they continue to be a saving grace for travelers and a source of frustration for royalty-paying hotels. Only a few niche personal travel agents will survive this information efficiency paradigm shift. To compete, fare aggregators and metasearch engines like Kayak.com, Cheapflights.com, and SideStep.com continue to stack their information offerings.
3) Reported Wandering
Wandering is cheap travel. Those who take advantage of airline points but can’t find a nearby Couchsurfing.com partner present hotels with unique negotiating challenges. Numerous last-minute hotel deals have been found using sites like Vagabondtraveller.com. Being able to provide non-tourist information to these seasoned (and occasionally smelly) travelers is a challenge front desk or concierge employees must successfully overcome.
4) The Twitter Deal
Aside from the plethora of non-informative or repeating news tweets available, hotels have made some headway on Twitter. Twitter’s last minute coupon code has already made it the go-to site for savvy travelers. Whether it builds customer loyalty is a matter of execution. Hotels that creatively meet the needs of their target guests continue to do well. Do you have a favorite room? Always check their Twitter account before booking.
5) TripAdvisor
The one-stop-shop for hotel and bed & breakfast reviews, Tripadvisor.com now has over 25 million reviews to read and, for the most part, trust. It allows travelers to find out if the construction of an extension is waking up guests at 8 am or if the service staff is exquisitely trained and motivated.
6) Hotel alternatives
The economic downturn of 2008/2009 was a great opportunity for those associated with what are usually more frugal housing alternatives. I don’t have to look across the street at the new HomeAway.com office here in downtown Austin to understand the benefits of structured information for deal-hunting travelers and scheduled booking for their homeowner clients. The acquisition of a large competitor secured its place in the United States at the top of the vacation home food chain. BedandBreakfast.com operates in a similar space for bed and breakfasts and offers a gift card service for travelers to book nights with their clients.
7) Airport, Capsule or Mini-Hotels
The nap and shower model tries to catch travelers with long layovers or strong hangovers. Honolulu International Airport tried but ultimately failed, however the nearby Nimitz Shower Tree Mini-Hotel is picking up where they left off. The model isn’t very popular in the United States, but Europe and Japan are in high demand from weary travelers looking for a convenient recovery. A popular capsule hotel near Kabukicho in Tokyo is mainly for businessmen recovering after a drunken night.
8) Boutique hotels in the US
According to The Independent, the term “boutique hotel” was coined by businessman Steve Rubell when he and Ian Schrager opened Morgans on Madison Avenue in 1984 because it looked more like a boutique than a department store by comparison. The popularity of this experience has blossomed with the rise and fall of real estate in recent years. Whether companies trying to differentiate their properties from the norm will continue on this path out of this recession remains to be answered.
9) Ecological Hotels
The green hotel movement has gained momentum in the last decade. A percentage of travelers require that they stay not only in a LEED-certified structure, but also with environmentally friendly services. The hotel’s LEED plaque will indicate whether the hotel has silver, gold or platinum status. Element Hotels by Sheraton is the first hotel chain to require all properties to be LEED certified. At the other end of the spectrum, Maho Bay campgrounds in the Virgin Islands range from “eco tents” to rainwater harvesting cabins.
10) Preferences of frequent visitors
In the last decade, guest services have been launched into a whole new dimension. The Seinfeld episode where George insults his hamstring trying to get the sheets tucked in has some truth, as the maid left the correct bed untucked (George and Jerry were in different beds when the request was made). Some hotel chains now keep track of your favorite soap and shampoo, which radio station you should dial your alarm to, and, yes, whether or not you should leave your sheets unbuttoned. Guests have become less paranoid about allowing their hotel to keep this information, and savvy managers have taken advantage.
11) The iHome
Speaking of alarm clocks, the growth in popularity of the mp3 from Napster to today’s legal paid services forced many hotels to acknowledge the antiquated nature of the $10 alarm clock. Go into the iHome. There are many variations, but the iHome has become the de facto standard for playing mp3s in your bedroom. And in the future? Bittel Electronics just created an alarm clock/phone/radio/iPod/iPhone/mp3 player interface called UNO. Nice.
12) HTNG: Next Generation Hotel Technology
Founded in 2002, the association exists to guide behind-the-scenes technology toward some form of sanity. In the past, hotel managers have notoriously struggled with multiple reservations, room scheduling, point of sale, rate distribution, and appointment scheduling. HTNG has guided providers to unify their offerings and work together to meet the needs of the hosting industry. They are a “global trade association that fosters, through collaboration and partnership between hoteliers and technology providers, the development of next-generation solutions that will enable them to do business globally in the 21st century.”
These requests have helped drive advanced property management systems (yes, PMS) that can be smarter in ways managers have been pounding their fists on for years. Systems now exist that can handle point-of-sale transactions for multiple locations and still remotely shut down HVAC systems in an unoccupied room.
13) Hotel and Travel Blogging
I’m sure some people still use travel guides like Fodor’s, Lonely Planet, or Frommer’s, but like the newspaper industry, travel information has migrated online. The people who still buy these books are half “I don’t want to look at a computer” and half “I want people to see that I’m planning a trip.” Travel is a hugely broad topic to blog about, and as a result, there are a plethora of travel blogs with subtopics. Most bloggers are paid by their advertisers, by the hotel or airline industry, or indirectly by both. At Uberom, we are no different.
A blog review MAY not make or break a hotel or bed-and-breakfast, but high-traffic blogs like Gadling.com, Deliciousbaby.com, and Jaunted.com certainly command respect.
14) Kiosks: Check-in/Check-out/Concierge
As I wrote in Improving Customer Service: Top 3 Reasons, the number of employees in the lodging industry overall has been declining for over a year. However, the decline in guests has outpaced the layoffs.
During this recession, hotels are quickly learning the benefits of automation and affiliation. The same kiosk technology that helps you pay at the grocery store or print your boarding pass at the airport has also arrived in your hotel lobby. The kiosks not only complement the front desk employees, but their friendly concierge now has a trainee from the department as well.
All this automation is great, but to improve the quality of their services, hotels are increasingly partnering with companies to provide everything from airport transfers to special packages, but that detail is best left for another article!
What will the next decade hold for the lodging industry? Will the current trend of automation continue, or will guests step back and request more personalized attention? Let me know what you think.
