Until now the arrival at hotels was always preceded by a friendly conversation with the receptionist, you’re given your room number, told what time breakfast is served and what time you have to check-out at. This is something that may well be living on borrowed time with the continuous deployment of new technologies. However, the big question is: can a machine replace interaction with another human being?
You arrive at a hotel at the busiest time of the day, guests are checking out after breakfast, and there’s a long queue of people waiting impatiently to be attended. This is a situation that not only occurs in hotels but also in other establishments like restaurants and other businesses dealing directly with customers face-to-face.
This type of kiosk allows you to rent, sell, print an invoice, and even give customers their room keys. To resolve the issue of the lack of feeling and coldness of the process, a screen can be added to the kiosk to allow guests to speak by videoconference with a customer service manager.
Although its implantation in hotels in Spain is progressive but still modest, we can find them, for example, in the Sidorme group’s hotels, and there are many hotels in the United States that have invested in this ‘Point of Kiosk’.
Low-cost hotels or those located on the outskirts are the ones investing most in this technology.
As always, the penetration of new technologies brings critics and detractors with it. In this case, the obvious question is whether these machines will do away with receptionists jobs. Its defensors argue there’s nothing to worry about as the kiosks “help to streamline processes, but there are still tasks where the human factor is essential and that a machine will never be able to carry out”.
Aside from the technological factor, other factors change completely like the profile and type of customer.
Customer data is kept to a minimum as they are not segmented by country of origin, the reason for travelling, and the kiosks also foster closer relations with customers looking for privacy and independence.
As there’s no interaction, there’s no customer loyalty process through friendly and personalised treatment, but this is also seen as something positive in attracting guests who seek discretion and personal autonomy.
Additionally, the management in these establishments can focus more on commercial activities, quality control and managing key partners. Cleaning companies are crucial in these types of businesses that outsource their services, just as the restaurants or bars located in or near the hotel foyer that are usually connected to the property and agree to certain rules and standards for mutual promotion.
Obviously, the cost structure is lower, so it doesn’t take a very large number of rooms to attain profitability even if the stay is the only source of income. And this cost structure also allows hotels to offer very competitive rates that often attract undecided customers.
Its accessibility and ease of use are other arguments in its favour. Lean, one of the hotel management companies selling these kiosks, says that the system “is so intuitive that customers and staff don’t require previous training and it does away with unproductive processes by offering step by step instructions and comments”.
