Vitec Multimedia Inc.
09/17/2021 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/17/2021 03:37
How to improve the hotel guest experience during the COVID-19 pandemic
How to improve the hotel guest experience during the COVID-19 pandemic
by Exterity Marketing
August 23, 2021With the end of COVID restrictions on the horizon and travelling becoming progressively easier, hospitality teams are looking to entice guests back through their doors. Guests across the world are looking for a much-needed break from every-day life and a difficult 18 months of lockdowns and restrictions. To provide guests with the very best experience during their stay, hoteliers can differentiate themselves by offering a customised experience through digital innovations that ensure guests receive the communications they need and the entertainment they want - and, importantly, feel safe throughout their stay.
In this blog, we look at how hotels can utilise IPTV and Digital Signage technologies to offer guests the very best experience during their stay.
Personalise the in-room experience
Personalised in-room experiences can make guests feel more in control and less exposed while ensuring their stay is enjoyable. In-room infotainment systems have empowered guests to do more from the comfort of their room amid ongoing concerns about COVID-19. Today's interactive IPTV portals allow guests to access hotel information, order room service, book amenities such as restaurant reservations and spa treatments, directly pay bills, and check out - all without venturing beyond their door and therefore minimising physical contact with staff. The modern hotel room IPTV system can also display personalised messages to guests, safety advice relating to social distancing or face covering requirements, and other local guidelines or rules.
Tailor the guest experience
Another crucial element that can help hotels and other hospitality venues to tailor the guest experience, is integrating the customer database of hotel groups to support a unique, fully customised experience - such as providing select premium channels and movies, or 'Gold-member only' special promotions. These additional services can be tailored further based on personal preferences, and can all be centred around a group-wide guest membership or loyalty scheme. These programmes gather a vast amount of information that, for the most part, is not utilised as widely as it could be in order to provide greater levels of guest experience personalisation.
Personalisation also provides hotels with greater upselling opportunities through revenue-driving dynamic adverts and content via in-room TV and mobile apps. For example, a hotel can target returning guests with a special offer for a repeat order, e.g., 'since you liked our Asian menu on your last visit, here are some recommendations for you'. Or guests with children might see on their in-room infotainment systems appropriate promotions for kids' clubs, water activities, hotel toy shops, fun family excursions and so on.
Beyond the guest room, the hotel also knows other customer preferences, such as what type of wine the guest ordered the last time they visited one of their restaurants. Providing this information to staff via the booking system would enable them to recommend the same wine that the guest had last time - a personal touch that makes guests feel valued. It is thanks to IPTV innovations that allow such curated services that will be critical to the comfort and confidence of guests moving forward.
Offering a 'home away from home' experience
Hoteliers are also enabling guests to feel more at home by providing the capability to cast their favourite content from a personal device to the hotel room TV. Again using a QR code mechanism, guests can be reassured that their content only appears on the television in their own room and doesn't interrupt casting that may be happening in an adjacent or nearby room. When guests check out, the QR code changes, unpairing the guest's device automatically and no personal data is accessible or stored. The feedback from hotels is that the in-room casting solution has seen excellent uptake. In hotels that have both in-room casting and Video on Demand capabilities, usage analysis shows that in-room casting is higher than Video on Demand, indicating that this type of viewing habit has become second nature to tech-savvy travellers.
End-to-end guest experience solutions with Exterity IP video technology, visit our website to learn more
Hotel Solutions last edited on: Monday, August 23, 2021