As the famous line goes, ‘there’s an app for that.’
The hospitality sector is one of the leading adopters of mobile technology, particularly apps when it comes to connecting with their customers and providing them a convenient and efficient service. There are a myriad of ways on how hospitality is able to leverage mobile apps to boost hotels’ profits – throughout the customer’s stay. All major hotel groups are now focusing on mobile strategies to develop their overall guest’s experience, providing them customizable apps that make all types of digital transactions simple.
Digiday.com highlighted five hotel brands with useful mobile apps, namely:
- Marriott Hotels
- Conrad Hotels
- Mandarin Oriental (MO)
- W Hotels
- Ritz-Carlton
The proliferation of mobile internet is one of the reasons for the rise in the implementation of mobile technology, which led to the growing number of consumers using data on a daily basis. According to Gaming Realms in a post published on Edisoninvestmentresearch.com they found that their users predominantly came to their many sites via mobile – 70% to be exact. The developer of online and mobile software, such as Spingenie.com, also added that 4G mobile data has changed the landscape of the internet as a whole, and forced hotels across the world to offer a more personal service that interacts with users directly through their mobile devices.
It’s not only the guests that benefit from mobile apps and groundbreaking technologies, as hotels are also able to accelerate their way to success by using these revolutionary tech trends. Hotels are now able to promote self-service to clients by allowing them to bypass front desk to access rooms faster, pay wirelessly through apps for faster booking services, and encourage them to interact with their respective hotels’ digital assistance systems via apps than call the operator using the in-house phones.
Likewise, hotels are able to enhance customer experiences by offering them instant gratifications via virtual loyalty programs and promotional emails.
“Through the apps, hotel operators gain the ability to gather guest data, understand guest behaviors and monetize guest preferences. They can then use that data to make business decisions surrounding marketing, distribution and pricing. The primary reason for collecting data, however, is to serve hotel guests better and enhance an exceptional stay that will drive guest loyalty long term,” wrote Cris Davidson from the Americas in his Hotelexecutive.com post.
How do you foresee the hospitality industry further leveraging mobile technology and apps in the future?
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