Touch and go

The essence of hospitality is the personal touch – the interaction between guests, the hosts and the services they provide. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the risk of contagion is forcing people to stay apart and contact-free, the industry must adapt to regulations and restrictions that fundamentally challenge its way of doing business.

“Nothing of this scale has ever been seen before,” remarks Neal Jones, chief sales and marketing officer EMEA for Marriott International. “Over the past few months, we’ve had to close hotels, look after our guests and take care of our employees. We are starting to see some recovery, but it has become clear that business will not return to the levels we saw before the pandemic for some time.”

“Our teams have been rolling out a range of new processes, but first and foremost we needed to reassure our associates returning to work, and our guests, that our hotels are safe havens as people start to travel again,” he adds.

From hotel access to check in, in-room controls to room service, hotels are hotbeds of personal interaction and high-contact areas. Many surfaces – from door handles to remote controls – create the risk of transferring the virus, not to mention the usual interactions with service staff in the dining room, cleaners in the rooms and staff at the checkin desk. So, how can hotels cater for guests without destroying the key elements of hospitality?

The industry has been asking itself this question since the first days of lockdown. There are no easy answers, but a great deal of thought has gone into finding the right balance between safety and service in a world where rates of infection, and local regulations are changing fast. “Trust is a very valuable asset,” says Gilles de Richemond, group CIO at Accor. “It is all about building trust among guests that our hotels are safe places to be.”

Understand the guest journey

Technology will inevitably play a central role in making hotels safer, while maintaining the appropriate levels of service and simplicity for guests.

Jeffrey Stephen, workgroup co-ordinator for Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG), is developing resources for hotels to use in finding technology solutions for handling Covid-19. Its first move was to break down the guest journey into 12 steps – including hotel access and arrival, and the different stages of a guest’s experience right up to departure – to look at pain points and, crucially, touchpoints in each.

“The number one thing is communication,” says Stephen. “We must communicate better, more often and more effectively than ever. It is all about communication between stakeholders.” “Travellers want to be able to see the real changes that will make their travel experience safer,” adds Jones. “Over the summer, guest feedback has shown us that pre-stay communications are key for our guests to understand the changes they will see in their hotel experience, in terms of social distancing, dining options, contactless check in and so on.”

The HTNG group’s recommendations are defined by eight guiding principles: reduce shared physical touch points, reduce intrusion on personal spaces, reduce congestion in areas of gathering, manage and contain live infection, manage emerging hotel liability, reduce the anxiety of getting infected, operate under a reduced budget and resources, and, at every stage, deliver the expected hospitality experience. This must be achieved while also meeting the unique expectations of different types of guests.

“Some people are hypersensitive, they may be in a high-risk group and only be travelling because they have to. They want to touch nothing and see no one,” says Stephen. “Others are accepting of the rules, so they wear masks and avoid contact. There are others, however, who don’t care, won’t wear masks and don’t wash their hands. Hotels have to cater for all of them. All guests are valuable.”

Technology on the front line

Breaking down the guest journey does not provide any magic bullets to solve the problems raised by Covid-19, but it does shed light on some obvious areas of risk to which technological solutions could be applied. One example is the use of digital registration cards that can be filled in online, in place of filling out forms at the reception desk – which could significantly reduce time spent interacting with staff upon arrival.

“Checking in and out with an app is the most important step to maximise safety,” says De Richemond. “It is a more mature technology and can be rolled out more quickly. Using an app to access the room requires more investment, but Covid-19 will accelerate that change.”

The principle of self-service, which could extend to other activities, such as collecting keys from a kiosk rather than from a member of staff, is of prime importance. “The key is having guests use their own devices, which is the definition of self-service” says Stephen. “It is about reinventing the guest journey and self-service will no longer be shunned. It will be the new norm.”

Keyless entry is another way of reducing the number of touchpoints. Marriott is already implementing a smartphone app that puts the room key on to a guest’s smartphone, with Hilton and many other chains adopting similar plans.

“Almost half of our hotels in EMEA are now live with Mobile Key, with many more preparing for their implementation,” confirms Jones. “As we move forward, we’re increasingly using technologies like mobile check in, mobile key, and mobile chat between guests and hotel associates to reduce face-to- face interactions.”

Housekeeping is another problematic area, as a guest’s room is, essentially, their bubble. The entry of cleaning staff must be limited, though specific requests for cleaning or new linen must be fulfilled. Robotic systems are viable options in many instances. There are portable robots that will quickly sanitise bedsheets, blasting a room with pulsed ultraviolet (UV) light that can combat viruses, bacteria and fungi.

We have been progressively deploying enhanced technologies for cleaning, including electrostatic sprayers with hospital-grade disinfectant to sanitise areas of high-traffic and high-touch throughout hotels,” says Jones. “In addition, Marriott International has approved UV boxes as a solution for disinfection of guest room keys.”

Unpick operations

Any technological change must work alongside – and, in many cases, will necessitate – operational change. Little or no investment is needed to enable guests to schedule check-in times or park their own cars in order to limit contact.

The biggest changes have come in the firm raising of cleanliness standards to meet the new health and safety challenges raised by Covid-19. Marriott, like other brands, has put in place clear guidelines on the use of chemicals and cleaning equipment, as well as increasing the frequency of cleaning and disinfection in high-touch areas. Accor has introduced intensified hygiene and prevention measures, using the ALLSAFE label verified by Clifton as a marker of its higher standards.

There is also a concerted effort to enhance staff training in hygiene protocols. Marriott has also introduced flexible cancellation policies, which are updated as travel restrictions change. Amid all of these efforts, the cost factor cannot be overlooked. At a time of suppressed revenues, it can be hard for some hotels to invest in something new, but existing technology – notably task scheduling systems – can sometimes be used to better mitigate certain risks, and operational changes can be implemented quickly and to great effect.

One valuable resource that hotels already have is guest data. HTNG, vendors and hotel operators that contribute to its working groups are looking closely at how data might be used to better predict guests’ individual needs and, therefore, adapt services to be as touch-free and seamless as possible.

“Using data has always been a struggle for the industry, but there is renewed energy for it because of Covid-19,” says Stephen. “Guests are all different and hotels want to customise services from a safety perspective, so there is more focus now on using the data we collect. Covid-19 is just the latest accelerant.”

“Communication was important before the crisis and so was using what we know about our customers to personalise services,” says De Richemond. “The challenge is to have a 360º view of the customer and to aggregate guest data in real time, before the agent who has the touchpoint with the customer.”

Overall, the Covid-19 pandemic will not only push the industry to look at new technologies, but also accelerate existing development programmes, especially in areas such as self-service and the use of data. The hotel sector was, it seems, on the right track, but now it must move faster towards the future.