Hotel Mobile Apps

The hotel app is all about improving the guest experience by adding convenience and making the guests stay easier and more enjoyable. Whether it is allowing the guest to view the available spa services in the palm of their hands or actually allowing them to book the appointment. Conversely, the hotel app allows the property to market them in a different and unique way. The hotel app can truly become another marketing channel, maximizing spa revenue and improving the guest experience all at once, even allowing the property to attract additional bookings.

The benefits of the hotel app also extend after check-out by helping to create guest loyalty. Most hoteliers would agree that improving or creating guest loyalty starts by improving the guest experience overall. This is where the hotel app can be used to achieve that goal; whether it is offering remote check-in, the ability to book directly on the app or simply offering a local area guide that can be used without a cell phone connection.

Taking things one-step further, the mobile app can be used to encourage guests to post reviews. For instance, after a guest receives a massage at the spa, we can send them a push notification encouraging them to share their experience on Facebook. Another scenario might be sending a push notification to guests after they check-out encouraging them to post a review on TripAdvisor. This is a great way to increase exposure for the hotel, and ultimately drive more room nights; especially given the fact that online reviews are one of the primary factors guests look at when deciding where to book their next stay.

Hospitality in the Cloud

According to Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Predictions for 2015 and Beyond, “By the end of 2017, 70 percent of successful digital business models will rely on deliberately unstable processes designed to shift as customer needs shift.” This ability to adapt with the consumer is directly applicable to the hospitality industry, as meeting the ever-changing expectations of guests is essential to profitability. When considering which technology options can have the greatest impact on dexterity and flexibility, cloud computing should certainly be top-of-mind.

Impact on Limited Service Hotels

Limited service hotel brands are a vital part of the hospitality market, typically offering room rates that appeal to budget-savvy travelers. However, because they do not have as many ancillary revenue streams as full service hotels, decision-makers are often unable to allocate sizeable funds for IT to match their larger counterparts. In the past, this has created difficulty for these properties in remaining up-to-date on business systems and potentially hindered them from capitalizing on the latest innovations.

Fortunately, the cloud provides an opportunity to change this. Many national or global organizations are choosing to invest in SaaS to provide their limited service brands with access to technology that may otherwise be beyond their reach. When the parent company evaluates potential applications, selects the vendor and equips its brands with the necessary tools to execute the project, these hoteliers are positioned to reap a multitude of benefits, both immediately and in the long-term.

Consider this illustration

A global hotel company with numerous franchised hotels is considering technology options to help its limited service properties improve revenue management. By implementing an automated revenue management solution in the cloud and rolling it out to these locations, the organization can help smaller hotels with lower numbers of staff to better manage profits, despite a lack of time or resources to dedicate solely to a revenue management function. These properties will now benefit from an advanced technology application to help optimize revenue, allowing owners to focus more on guest services. Simultaneously, the global organization gains the advantage of a holistic perspective across these properties to enable better-informed decision-making.

Upselling Through a Mobile App

In the hotel industry, we are so busy talking about selling more rooms, more food and more beverages that we often overlook how effective the channels we use to market these offerings actually are. Many hotels still use outdated and ineffective marketing channels. Mobile applications provide hoteliers with a totally new channel through which they can interact with their guests on a more personal level, which increases guest satisfaction and loyalty as well as hotel revenues. Mobile apps offer countless opportunities to connect with guests that were not possible before the 2008 debut of the App Store on iTunes and subsequent adoption of mobile applications by smartphone users. In the past seven years, mobile app technology has exploded and hotels are set to benefit from it.

Personalized messages sent from the app to specific guests are key to successfully upselling products and services. Unlike other newer marketing channels such as Facebook and Twitter, which push messages out to everyone, the mobile app can target a more specific segment of guests. Personalizing marketing efforts drives revenues upwards because guests are more likely to respond.

The mobile hotel application facilitates sending personalized messages to guests through push segmentation. This technology allows the hotel to segment guests in many ways and send push notifications only to a certain selection of guests, ensuring the messages guests receive are personalized. Push segmentation provides endless opportunities to interact with a subset of guests.

Mobile hotel apps are generators of revenue because it ultimately makes conventional processes easier and more convenient for guests. As an example, guests would traditionally call housekeeping from their rooms, place the order and wait for their food. With an integrated mobile app, a guest returning from a long day of sightseeing can order room service on their way back to the hotel. It bypasses traditional methods for ordering room service and is a faster, more convenient way of ordering.

Guests seem to appreciate this convenience; hotels with integrated apps report an 18% increase in room service. A hotel app that is integrated with the housekeeping system can offer guests the convenience of ordering room service from their smartphones, and guests don’t necessarily have to be in their rooms at the time they place their orders. Because it is easy and convenient, guests are more likely to order room service.

To prevent guests from deleting the app off of their smartphone at the end of their stay, the app can have multiple features that will be useful to the guest once they return home. The app can contain chef bios, recipes, and information about local produce or specialties. If a guest particularly enjoyed a specific cocktail or signature dish when they were at the hotel, the guest can re-create it at home using the recipe within the app. By using push segmentation, on a monthly basis the app could notify users about the local specialties of that month complete with videos from the chefs, detailed recipes, and photos.

How Apps Can Enhance & Facilitate Meetings

A meeting planner responsible for a large event often compares one hotel against many others. One way for your hotel to stand out from the competition is to provide the meeting planner with a customizable, event-specific meeting mobile application. Meeting apps provide copious benefits to both the meeting planner and attendees and can be customized to fit the specific meeting. Apps increase attendee engagement before, during and after the event and create an easier and more convenient environment for the planner and attendees.

Pre-Meeting

Before the meeting, attendees are invited to download the app. They can sign up for the meeting directly through the application and then use the many features to prepare for the event. Rather than waiting until they arrive at the meeting to get a heavy bag stuffed with booklets, pamphlets, and papers, attendees can see all of the information on their smartphones ahead of time. They can read guest speakers’ short biographies, watch videos, and navigate an interactive event map. Downloading the app allows attendees to plan accordingly for the event. They can view the agenda and favorite the sessions they would like to attend, creating their own personal schedule. The app allows attendees to arrive at the event fully informed and prepared for the upcoming sessions.

Printing enough booklets for everyone in attendance is a huge cost in the event planner’s budget. However, the mobile app replaces the cumbersome printed booklets and pamphlets, reducing the cost of printing materials for the event. Creating a mobile app can actually be a cheaper option than printed booklets. Additionally, the lesser need for paper products may tie in with your organizations goals to become more ‘green’ and eco-friendly.

The app can also detail the amenities that will be present at the event such as seating charts for sessions and available food options. Should an event require attendees to sign-up for a session in advance, they can do so through the app. This feature gives meeting planners an accurate head count for the meeting in general or for specific sessions.

When initially signing into the app, attendees will be given the option to sign in using their LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook profiles. The app will then tell them who in their network is also attending the meeting. They can then connect through the app and plan to meet up at the conference. If someone in your network downloads the app after you, you will receive a push notification alerting that someone new from your network has joined the meeting.

Push notifications are simply the messages that pop up on the screen of your smartphone. The hotel and event planner has the ability to control these notifications and customize the messages as necessary. This feature is also a way to generate buzz about the meeting ahead of time. Attendees will have to the option to post about the meeting on their social network profiles, potentially encouraging others in their network to go to the event.