Accor has announced the implementation of a digital service that will reinvent the guest welcome in its hotels worldwide. The new technology offers customers a personalized welcome that is less devoted to administrative formalities. In turn, it makes the hotelier entirely available to greet guests, cater for their individual needs, or simply help them save time.
This service, which was designed in close collaboration with the hotel operating teams, will be offered to all loyalty card or subscription card holders and to customers booking directly through Accor. It will be deployed across all Accor brands and will be adapted by each brand to fit its service offering, depending on their segment, market positioning, and establishments’ specificities.
Here are the four steps of the new digital service:
Two days before their hotel stay, guests are invited to prepare their check-in online if they have booked directly with Accor or if they are loyalty card or subscription card holders.
On the arrival day, guests receive a welcome message by SMS, confirming that their room and key are ready and offering very useful practical information to simplify their trip (transport services to the hotel, car park access codes, etc.).
When guests arrive in the hotel, their key has been prepared and is handed over immediately without the usual administrative formalities. The hotelier is even more available to greet guests and cater for their requests.
On the departure day, guests can leave rapidly. To check out, they simply have to hand in their key to indicate that their room has been vacated. The invoice is sent to them by email.
This new system has been tested in approximately 20 establishments in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. It is now deployed in 60 hotels in 13 countries. The ambition is to roll out this solution in 1,000 hotels, or close to 30 percent of the network, by the end of 2014.
Brazil will boast the largest number of equipped hotels, since the service will be offered in nearly all the establishments in most of the cities hosting football world cup matches as of June 2014.
“This innovation focuses on giving our guests a warm, personalized welcome and on saving time thanks to new technologies,” stated Christine Pouletty, the project’s manager. “The first feedback from hotels already equipped with the system is very encouraging since more than 90 percent of guests who used this service say they are willing to do so again. Queues are diminishing and hoteliers are more available for their guests. They can devote themselves completely to their passion, the job of host.”
