Self Service with a Smile by George Koroneos talks about self service kiosks and their different uses in hotels. The use of kiosks in hotels has become very popular. Hyatt hotels has check-in and check-out kiosks but they also have in-room folio access. Guests can access their folios on their tv screens and check out from their room. They have also installed a self-service food delivery system. Guests can place an order on a kiosk located in the lobby and have their food served to them in the sitting area of the lobby. TWELVE hotels which is a new boutique hotel brand has kiosks that allow guests to check-in and out and connect to local airlines to print boarding passes. They have also installed self-service touch screen terminals in ever hotel room. The terminals allow guests to order room service, ask for towels, or request anything else they might want or need. The computer can also be used to check out of the hotel and to have the valet bring your car around to the front door.
Great Wolf resorts are using a different type of self service. The resorts are using wristbands as guests "keys" to their rooms and also as ways to pay for things at the resort. Guests can scan their wristband at a pay station and pick up anything from food to video games. The guest's account is directly debited. The resorts have now gone to a cashless system for the wristbands. Before the cashless system, the wristbands could have a certain amount of money set on them. With the cashless system, everything is just directly charged to the guest's bill. Adults can put a certain amount of money on kids wristbands or they can set up a debit account that charges right to the room. These wristbands are great because guests don't have to worry about carrying cash around with them or having to store their wallets in a locker when they go tot he water park.
I think self-service is great. A lot of people like to be able to do things on their own without have to rely on others to help them. The kiosks at Hyatt are movable so that when they have large meetings they can move the kiosks close to the entrance of the meetings. This allows for the guests to check out right by their meeting instead of an extreme amount of people going to the front desk. The use of the personal terminals in the rooms at TWELVE is great as well. Instead of calling down to the front desk to request more towels, the request is sent straight to housekeeping allowing the guests to receive their towels faster. The wristbands at Great Wolf resorts is a great form of RFID technology. They allow parents to keep a watch on what their kids are spending and also at the same time make life and vacation just a little bit easier. They don't have to worry about making sure they have their wallet at all times and it's especially helpful when a family wants to go to the water park. They don't have to worry about a lost of stolen wallet because all they need is right there on their wrist.
Koroneos, George. (2007, March 1) Self Service with a Smile. Hospitality Technology. http://www.htmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=8D86DF469BD74C098382D9532C904D8E&nm=Additional&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=3E19674330734FF1BBDA3D67B50C82F1&tier=4&id=C5EF074DAD4C458CA8A0B0F89469267E
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4 comments:
I really enjoyed this article. So many of us have read and written up articles on kiosk services that they all begin to seem the same. However, I really enjoyed the new approach this article highlighted on kiosk use. The way these self-service technologies are being used, they are not interfering with employee interaction. Being able to check your folio to keep tabs on your expenses while staying in the hotel is a great service, as is the altnerative to having to call the front desk for room service and various other needs. My favorite part of the article though was with the cashless wristbands. I think their time is long overdue and makes the stay so much simpler. Especially when it eliminates the hassle of safeguarding your money, or making sure the kids have money on them.
In my personal opinion, the more self serve kiosks the better. Through the entire beginning and end of any vacation planned, the traveler will spend most of their time waiting. Waiting to get your boarding pass, waiting to place your luggage, waiting to go through the metal detectors, waiting in the waiting room for the flight, waiting to board, flying, waiting in line to rent a car, waiting for a shuttle bus, and ultimately waiting to check in and waiting to have your car picked up by valet. In this article, it seems that moveable kiosks are being used to acknowledge all of these waiting tasks. A guest can check themselves in on a self serve kiosk, and check out via theire television set. A guest can use the kiosk to pre-print their boarding pass, and to have their car picked up, having all of these technologies so readily available is a great change for travelers across the world. On top of waiting, a guest spends so much time organizing themselves so that nothing gets lost or misplaced during the trip. Having RFID wrist bands helps the guest relax by allowing them to not worry about carrying their room key, their wallet, or how much money their kids could potentially be spending with out them knowing. I would want to have a wrist band on my trip due to how easily I misplace and lose important items!
The new idea of self-service with hotels and resorts is a great one. Being able to enjoy your vacation just a little bit more because you don’t constantly need to bother someone else is a wonderful feeling. The cashless system through the use of wristbands is also an awesome idea because always having to worry about carrying a wallet or purse can get annoying especially if you’re out with the family at a resort. I also liked the idea of being able to request items for the room directly through whoever would be serving you, for example, talking to housekeeping for more towels. The only downside I see is that there is very little guest-staff interaction and guests may feel like they are completely on their own and might not like that idea. Otherwise, self-service sounds like a great move into the future.
That sounds like a lot of great stuff. The wrist band technology really sounded neat. I think that kind of thing works best at a resort with a water park. I don't think a wrist band would be quite as well recieved at a luxery hotel or something like that. If a guest wants to dress up nice, I doubt they would want a wrist band. This probably drives up sales for the hotel as well because people want to use the wrist bands. It's fun and they can't really keep track of how much they have spent like they would be with cash. Sounds like a great investment. As far as touch screens go, I'm not a huge fan, but it sounds great for the busy business traveler.
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