In the first two posts in this series we introduced the SMAC Stack – Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud – both in general terms and in the ways it’s starting to filter into the hospitality industry. In this post, we’ll talk about the future of the SMAC Stack when it comes to guest management.
Consider the following scenario:
You’re a general manager at a hotel located by a major middle-of-the-country airport. The skies are blue outside, but a freak winter storm is racing down from Canada and starting to pound the East Coast. A quiet, off-season weekday is about to be upended by thousands of stranded travelers looking for local accommodations. To top it all off, you’re supposed to be on vacation.
Fortunately, you woke up to a notification from your Property and Revenue Management System of a possible weather event. As the day progressed, the same system started picking up on major activity on Twitter that included the name of your airport and the words “delayed” or “cancelled.” And your website just noted a spike in mobile traffic arriving from the airport WiFi network.communi
Four hours before East Coast flights are grounded for good, you’ve already alerted your staff, called in additional front desk personnel and shuttle drivers, and adjusted your rates to reflect the massive incoming demand.
Then you go back to the beach.
Analytics can also be used in more everyday ways. If a regular guest breaks her usual schedule, it’s possible her short-term consulting gig ended and she’s not coming back. On the other hand, it’s also possible that she’s started staying somewhere else and a well-timed special offer might be the incentive needed to win her back.
Frequent visitors could skip the check-in desk completely, checking in on their authenticated smartphones and entering their rooms with a special one-time-use code, with the room key waiting inside for their use.
If some of this sounds unrealistic, it’s because right now it is. But the race is on to get there and no one wants to be left behind.
The hospitality industry is being buffeted by some pretty major forces these days. The financial crisis has changed customers forever – or at least until times are rolling again. Tech giants like Google are moving into areas that have long been dominated by specialized providers. Running a profitable hotel is about as difficult as it’s ever been.
At SkyTouch, we’re no more certain of what the future holds than anyone else, but it’s our mission to build solutions that give property managers the tools they need to compete in this industry, no matter their size or niche. Helping our customers learn as much about their customers as Amazon knows about theirs is one way we’ll get there.
