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Do you have what you need to offer superb tech?
By Daryl Brett, Vintech Systems
The hotel industry wants to offer guests the latest and greatest technology on offer; however, with a large demographic of guests, is this technology really offering a better experience, or is it just adding more frustration to both the guest and the hotel operation? Getting the guest to their room and in the door has always been a step overlooked. It is globally assumed that if you give a guest a metal key, they will know what to do with it. This was then replaced with a card, which suddenly brought a new level of pain as each locking vendor tapped or inserted differently. Where do you touch the card? Which way round does the card go? Do the instructions on the card actually reflect what is expected? All issues facing todays travellers and causing the hotel operation costs and TripAdvisor issues if they get it wrong. Now that BLE Bluetooth Low Energy is here and actively being used in the hotel industry, has it solved these issues? Yes and no. Most of the major locking vendors have released a version of BLE for their own
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AccomNews - Winter 2020
locks, but that is only half the step, how does that BLE credential get to the guest’s device and how do they actually use it? These are now the considerations that need to form part of the decision-making process, before committing to one vendor or another.
pure cost to the hotel. BLE token hosting is typically around $25 per lock per year, with no limit to the number of tokens issued and no plastic findings way into the environment. Labour is also greatly reduced for staff and the frustration at the room door for the guest virtually goes away.
Using a dedicated app for the property is the simplest and neatest solution; however, the guest is then forced to download a different app for each hotel they stay in and who keeps the app updated and paid for? Chain hotels have the luxury of budget allowing a single managed app for all their properties, but should this limit the technology to chains only? The answer is no. The growing concern over plastic in the world and the ever-increasing concern of costs associated with buying new cards or trying to recover used cards from guests is far outweighed by the annual licence fee associated with BLE hosting.
But…
A simple fixed one-off cost per lock, per year, is the only cost to the property as BLE tokens are virtual and so can be issued repeatedly. For example, 365 guest stays per room per year. If one card is not recovered every week, from a staying guest, that is 52 cards lost per year. At an average $1 per card that’s $52 worth of plastic that has made its way into the environment as a
Assuming the guest has managed to get into their room using their phone, now that cards are no longer used, what is the guest expected to use to energise the room. No longer will a wall slot be required as no card is issued. Technology has now moved forward in parallel with the evolution of the lock to allow the room controller to communicate wirelessly directly with the lock. Knowing who has walked in the room, staff or guest, or even now guest type or profile, allows even more operational benefits to the operator. With this level of communication, the room has the logic to react differently to whomever comes in. This is great for the hotel operator, they now have peace of mind that the room is only active when the guest is in the room, that the staff aren’t wasting energy and that the room is automatically set up to how the operator wants the room to be for when a guest enters. But does this make life any easier for the guest? Yes…
SAFETY & SECURITY
With a GRMS (guest room management system) that is in communication with the lock, the room is managed by the guest and if they leave lights on, or the air-conditioning turned on, this is how it will be when they return. What the guest is not aware of is that the room, while they weren’t there, turned itself off and operated in a manner managed by the hotel operation not the guest. Guest services that previously were more luck than judgement is all now managed by the GRMS, actively notifying the housekeeping team if the guest is in the room. If they have requested a room refresh if they have requested privacy, etc. Those tatty-looking, worn outdoor cards are redundant when a guest service is selected in the room the hotel operation is notified electronically so become considerably more efficient in how the rooms are serviced. Most hotels have the core infrastructure to support these new technologies, both BLE locks and intelligent GRMS, with limited refurbishment works required. With a complete holistic understanding of how the technologies now interact and are interlaced, it is a very simple step to bring the hotel into a considerably more cost-effective and technology-based operation, while helping the environment and making the guest’s life easier and less frustrating. www.accomnews.com.au
