Differentiate in a buyer’s market

A fitting quote attributed to Lenin sets the scene. Whether you look at e-commerce, online classes, ordering and takeout or video streaming, technology adoption accelerated across all age groups. Will this have implications for hospitality? Why would it not? Will it change everything? No — overall the changes will be relatively small. Travel will soon be back on its long-term growth path, fed by the increasing middle class in Asia.

Check-in / out

Online check-in — and eventually the whole process including mobile key — is a much smoother, more efficient way to manage the administrative part of arrival. Nothing against a greeting smile and a warm welcome, but for the pure admin part, digital self check-in is simply better. There is usually a lot of idle time when travelling, and almost all of it beats waiting in front of the reception doing something that feels like applying for a loan.

Digital touchpoints

Contactless, low-touch, physical distancing — however you call it, this increased the speed of adoption of existing technology. The need to communicate is potentially higher than ever. Digital signage, the in-room TV, the WiFi splash page and most of all the guest’s smartphone (native app, web app, messenger/chat) for two-way communication are perfect possibilities to stay in contact — best used in an orchestrated way rather than a different tool per channel.

In-room entertainment

The “streaming wars” had already started before the first outbreak. Besides Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, Disney and Apple brought even more content and variety, and with every lockdown the popularity of this entertainment increased. It is pretty obvious that hotels are better off giving guests a simple option to stream content on the in-room TV. It is not trivial, but it is also not rocket science — and for those hesitant with the remote, it should be controllable from the guest’s own smartphone.