Q: How can in-room technology maximise existing or create new revenue streams for a hotel?
Chevalley: In-room technology can help hotels sell more food, beverages, spa-treatments, movies and excursions, while even letting guests use their own handheld devices like their iPhone, iPad, Android-phone or simply the TV in their rooms. All this can be done with no unnecessary downloads and no installations. Just pick your service, choose your product and it’s done.
Dumas: It all depends on the technology, but as a general rule consumers engage in acts of purchasing when it is easy to do so. How many times have you started buying something online and after the third page of purchasing you’ve given up because it is just too complicated? It’s the same in a hotel, if the guest needs to talk to three people to make a dinner reservation, he’ll have dinner elsewhere; if he can book a table directly on his phone, there’s much more chance he’ll eat at the restaurant. That’s extra revenue stream.
Jeffery: In-room tech is producing considerable uplifts in room service revenue while boosting up-selling items. For example, it can suggest adding red wine and chocolate cake to go with a steak order. The hotel’s PMS and POS systems can also be integrated into the app, making room service orders and up-selling measurable. Other possible revenue streams include an increase in tour bookings, impulse buys such as shopping purchases (great for hotels with their own shops), advertising opportunities from outside brands and increases in spa bookings and treatments.
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Salgia: Leveraging in-room technology creates new differentiators, meaning that hotels are able to raise the room tariff while new revenue streams are generated such as in-room dining, movies on demand, newspapers available on the iPad, shopping or e-commerce.
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