In the first edition of “The Touchless Experience” series, we established an inventory and understanding of all the physical touchpoints associated with a hotel guest’s stay through the arrival, the stay itself, and the departure. Part Two drilled down on the first half of the guest experience, pre-arrival, arrival, check-in, to/from the room and room access.
Today’s installment addresses the latter half of the guest’s stay: in-room, lobby, restrooms, bar/lounge/restaurant, check-out, departure and post-departure. Note: Due to the differing levels of service provided across the hotel ecosystem, we index these guest experience examples to a full-service hotel operation.
While a full-service hotel will already be using a large array of technologies to support the running and managing of the property today, it is possible that these technology solutions fall into one of several categories:
- A system is installed but is not being used to its full feature/function potential.
- A system is installed but is deemed “legacy” and lacks today’s feature/function requirements.
- A system is installed but lacks present-day integration capabilities.
- A particular system is not being used at all at the hotel.
- A particular system, or integrated combination of systems, has not been delivered-to-market yet.
Factoring in the above, we will step through the catalogued touchpoints of the guest experience and identify where technology could support the Touchless Experience, noting that the first half of the guest journey was covered in the last edition of this series:
In-room
This environment provides a multitude of touchpoints that the guest will likely interact with physically. Touchpoints include: light switches, air-conditioning controls, TV remote control, in-room telephone(s), bedside clock, in-room tablet, drawers and wardrobe handles, bathroom door handle, bathroom faucets, bathroom amenities, bathroom toilet flush, minibar/snack tray items, ice bucket (and common ice machine near room), iron and ironing board, clothes hangers, curtain opener/closer, desk and table surfaces, in-room literature/stationery, cooking and chilling appliances (i.e. microwave, minifridge), glassware, courtesy water bottles, welcome gift/amenity. F&B roomservice delivery invokes its own list of common touchpoints including those involved in signing the delivery check.
Many of these touchpoints will simply need to rely on a diligent cleaning regimen by the housekeeping department, but several do provide an option to introduce technology solutions.
Without doubt, the in-room touchpoint on everyone’s mind, COVID-19-related or not, is the TV remote control. Available for a long time, but selling like hot cakes now, are the small UV-C light boxes that should become a formal part of every room attendant’s cart. Taking just minutes to sanitize smaller items, the room attendant can place the remote control in the light box at the beginning of the room servicing and remove it before they leave, and ideally place it next to a tent-card that explains exactly how it was cleaned. Permanently securing the UV-C boxes in the guestroom is a great value-add if budget permits, allowing the guest to sanitize their mobile phones, keys and other small personal possessions.
There are existing UV-C robots designed to sanitize the room as a whole. These devices were originally designed for hospital room applications at hospital prices. Today, versions engineered and priced for hotel rooms are coming on the market.
The bathroom also lends itself to technology solutions such as the installation of touchless faucets and touchless or gesture-based toilet flushing.
Lobby
Moving to, from and around the hotel lobby together with other common places may involve the guest touching escalator handrails. Lobby and banqueting info boards also constitute guest touchpoints, as do public area literature and stationery supplies.
Hotels in Japan are already using a relatively simple attachment to their escalators that continually cleanses the rubber handrail as it circulates with a UV-C light. The unit is fairly easy to retrofit to any escalator or moving walkway. This same UV-C technology can be used to sanitize most touchscreen surfaces, but keep in mind the need for proximity sensors to shut down the UV-C lamps if a guest or staff member approaches the touchscreen.
Restrooms
Frequency of use by multiple hotel patrons mean the restrooms constitute a high-risk area for cross-communication of all types of pathogens. Touchpoints include entry and exit door handle, door handle/lock on cubicles, toilet flush mechanisms, faucets, soap dispensers and paper towel dispenser.
Technology solutions to address almost all these touchpoints are already available and—depending upon the hotels budget—are already evident. These include touchless door-opening mechanisms on entry/exit doors, automated flushing, touchless faucets and soap dispensers and hand-drying with touchless paper towel dispensing. Hand dryers, while generally touchless, serve to blow whatever is on one’s hands all around the enclosed bathroom space, potentially spreading pathogens rather than rendering them harmless
If we include automatic toilet seat covers, this could end up becoming one of the cleanest locations in the hotel.
Bar, lounge and restaurant
Touchpoints in one of the hotel’s most social areas include door handles to the bar/lounge/restaurant, table and chair surfaces, drinks menus, glassware, condiments, crockery, silverware and check wallet (check and pen). Credit cards and cash being exchanged with the server also constitute common touchpoints.
Social distancing considerations aside, the bar, lounge and restaurant locations will simply need to rely on a heightened and diligent cleaning regimen by the F&B department, but several existing touchpoints do provide an option to introduce technology solutions.
- QR codes for menu presentations represent the simplest, fastest and least-expensive touchless technology for F&B. Simply upload a PDF of your menu to your website, generate a QR code image and print as many copies of the QR code as needed.
- To eliminate the menu and check-settlement touchpoints, many hotels and restaurants are now taking seriously and investing in at-table ordering devices, which also act as self-serve check payment solutions.
- Mobile apps are another means to accomplish touchless menu presentation, ordering and payment. Evaluate your payment and ordering use cases closely before choosing a specific app. Can a party of four place four orders from four mobile phones but have one check, for example?
Factoring the pent-up demand by clientele for at-table payment solutions, these devices are primed for a fast adoption by hoteliers and restaurateurs alike.
Check-out
The reception desk is typically the penultimate port of call and will invariably lead to touching of the reception desk surfaces during the check-out process. In some cases, the guest will be asked to insert, tap or swipe a credit card again, which would not constitute a “touch” event but when asked to sign the card reader screen, it would be done using the attached stylus. Logically, the guest will then receive a copy of their printed folio, touched by the receptionist and then by the guest. Lastly, the guest may return their used keycards to the receptionist, which are in many cases recycled for use with a future guest arrival (without these cards being sanitized).
This is a collection of touchpoints that can be majorly eliminated by technology solutions, including:
- Use of a mobile app to process check-out. In-room TV check-out has been available for decades, although its use and adoption has been at best weak. Simply calling the front desk and asking for express checkout is a low-tech solution.
- Automatically sending guests pre-departure folios via email or text will enhance and enable any of the above touchless strategies.
- Drop-off of keycards has been encouraged by hotels in the past, but the reuse of keycards for future guests requires adhering to a stringent sanitation protocol.
Departure
Physical interactions end at the point the guest picks up their luggage from the concierge staff in exchange for a claim check. Both these interactions involve the touching of common surfaces, including the luggage handles and the claim check itself. Finally, the guest may be required to touch the front door handle leading to the hotel portico.
The departure stage calls into play almost all the touchpoint avoidance practices and solutions as for the arrival stage. Lobby exit doors should employ touchless activation, guest baggage handling should leverage the RFID tag solutions, and the concierge staff should again use disposable luggage handle wraps.
As noted in Part Two, valet parking services are generally discouraged for good reason.
Post-departure
Like the pre-arrival phase discussed in the last installment, by definition post-departure does not have any physical touchpoints, but don’t we want to know from the guest how we did?
Most hotels track guest perceptions of their stay with some form of survey instrument. We recommend working with your survey analytics service provider to update your survey to capture data points showing how your guests perceive your efforts to deliver on the promise of a touchless guest experience.
Today we have covered some of the more obvious high-profile technology solutions relative to guest touchpoint avoidance for the second half of the guest journey. The three-part series notes that technology at the property such as the PMS, service optimization system, sales and catering system, point of sales, asset management system, etc., can all be leveraged individually and collectively in much more robust ways to support many more aspects of protecting and promoting guest safety.
Mark Hoare and Mark Haley are Partners at Prism Hospitality Consulting.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or its parent company, STR and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to comment or contact an editor with any questions or concerns.