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Lee

What is new in hotel innovation?

I was just wondering what is new in hotels with regards innovation!

For example, I do not provide teleohone in the rooms as nowadays guests can reach us on whatsapp, viber or facebook right away... They can message me or call me straight away for free.  I asked guests about it and they are very pleased with my system.

I always look for other stuff that can improve my property innovation and try to be unique around my area as competion is going way too much so I have to stay on top of the game.

Please could you give some cool ideas so I can impliment it also to my property?

I was considering to put a pillow menu in the guest rooms so guests can choose what type of pillow they would like to have throughout thier stay.

Another possible idea that I was planning to do is offering packed lunch and dinner included with the room rates. 

Thank you

Lee

 

 


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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Dear Lee,

Why not offer 2 types of pillows directly in the room so they can choose between the two, like softer and harder pillows. That's how I do it and guests automatically pick the ones they choose. We do offer 4 pillows per bed.

Another thing that could work and is highly appreciated is to offer free minibar items. Just put it inclusive in the rate and it will be well appreciated.

Cheers,

Zsolt - www.thuild.com

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Lee 5 years ago

Zsolt- What about mini bar items? What would you suggest? If I do that I have to put the room rate up

Thanks

Lee

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Leandri Klopper 5 years ago

Hi there!

Thanks for this awesome post.

According to what I can tell on Booking.com, what's really picking up is In-Room entertainment. Like Netflix or an Xbox. I guess I'm not as fascinated by those ideas because when I go on holiday I don't want to sit in another location doing the same things I could be doing at home, you know?

It seems to be trending though. Hope to hear what the rest thinks!

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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Lee - you can let them have water, chocolate, soft drinks or even a bottle of wine for long stay guests.

I also increase my rate when necessary and inclusive is better than extras.

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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Leandri,

I would never offer an Xbox in a room. Maybe in the lounge, living room yeah. but here I only offer Netflix in the living room.

I personally don't watch TV and around 60% of my guests don't use it either.

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Leandri Klopper 5 years ago

Hey Thuild - Your world of creation (franchise) ,

I agree with you! I wonder why it's trending at this moment?

Booking.com felt like they needed to put an emphasis on that by forcing us to Update our Amenities on the property tab. I mean our scores for our properties were not 100% until we went and looked at it. So they obviously put a lot of weight behind it. And for a big company like this, I think market research is very important.

Most of our South-African guests love the tv idea. The international guests tend to go out and explore.

Anyway, Have a great weekend.

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Lee 5 years ago

I like the idea very much of the free mini bar items. Very basic but a very good idea...

Also the Xbox idea is also a great suggestion without any doubt. Thank you

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Palmforestpalolem 5 years ago

Hi All,

I dont really know if this is a new thing but when I go to a hotel I love it if there is a direct USB charger port, instead of just your normal plug. USB direct charge is great because you don't need an international adaptor.

Also on the TV issue - a lot of business guest like to watch TV in the evening to unwind. Maybe thats why its so popular. Also, if people have kids, sometimes its easier to have netflix for kids on in the background :)

Also some hotels are providing smart phones with data sim cards in them so their guests can use Google/ Google maps when exploring without having to puchase a local sim. Might be good for a long term investment?

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Lee 5 years ago

Hi Palm

USB charger port is a must nowadays since not everyone uses the same ports. I totally agree with you to have a USB port in each room. At least one port. I only have USB port in the reception area only but I will be introducing USB port in each room soon.

Most of my guests want TV in the room and I only give them the very basics as otherwise it cots way too much money to have full cable tv and compare it to my room rates is not really worth having full cable TV. I just need to get more familiar with this netflix as it sounds the cheapest and best option.

With regards the smart phone to each room, I think most of my guests (if not all) already have a smart phone so in my case there is no need for that.

regards

Lee's House

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fluff 5 years ago

Definitely agree with USB charging ports. We have them next to all the seating areas in reception and the addition is penciled in for next years semi-refurb of the rooms.

I have noticed some hotels are now putting in "smart" TVs but I'm not convinced on that one, finding TVs with USB and HDMI ports sufficient.

We give a free welcome-pack of mini-bar items for guests to the better "Deluxe" rooms staying longer than several nights. This is very well received and has a roughly 40% rate of guests buying replenish from us.

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Lee 5 years ago

This free mini tems pack sounds very trending and I am going to do it for sure. These are the items I am thinking to give away for free:

4 cans of soft drinks

4 bottles of water

bottle of wine

some crackers and cheese

Regards

Lee's House Sliema

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fluff 5 years ago

Price of wine depends on your country. Here, as you said, €10 Is needed for reasonable quality. In my previous country €3 was sufficient!

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fluff 5 years ago

Yeah, I see you point but there's also Coca Cola and copy cola, big difference in price ;-)

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Bandara Hotels… 5 years ago

@Lee As you already using facebook messenger, whatzapp etc. Have you heard of chatbot, this also can help a lot when you out of office.

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Leandri Klopper 5 years ago

Hey all,

Joey , it gets worse. I did some research and turns out people can even rent a Tablet or a WII console at some resorts! The idea behind it is to entertain the kids while the parent relaxes. If I had kids and we went to a lodge or somewhere with lots of activities at the resort, I would get so angry if the kids asked me to fork out more money so they can stay in the unit and play TV games.

So I agree with you, too much is too much. I don't go on holiday often, but when I do I painstakingly look for the Best place to spend my money on. I'm the Resort-Traveler type. I will go and stay at a resort for a week and then I don't want to run out of things to do, nor do I want to have to leave the property to get anything (such as food or entertainement etc). As long as the property has everything I need, the extras don't really matter that much.

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Lee 5 years ago

Joey- I will do it for all the guests. The cost for the free items is around €6.00 including a bottle of wine at €3.50.

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Lee 5 years ago

Bandara Group- No I have not heard of chatbot yet and no guests asked me for it. The only other app I have that mostly asian people use is kakao...

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Bandara Hotels… 5 years ago

@Lee Chatbot is the automatic reply message, e.g. when someone type "location" on your messenger then system will automatic reply with hotel address or share location, depend on what you set as automatic reply.

On Facebook Messenger there is free Chatbot function to use. You can google how to use about it.

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Lee 5 years ago

Joey- aha so you are in the same island as me :-)

What’s the name of your accomodation?

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Lee 5 years ago

Joey- I don’t do one night stay anymore as it involves a lot more costs such as the cleaning besides too much stress. When I offer a one night, I put the price really high that I don’t even sell it.
You know here, a lot of competition and different prices so bookers prefer to pay less and stay elsewhere for one night stay.

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fluff 5 years ago

@ Bandara

"Chatbot" is of interest but seems to be a generic term, what chatbots do you use?

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Lee 5 years ago

Bandara- thank you for the information. I tried to get this Chatbot but no sucess. It seems a chat app but I am sure I have downloaded the worng one...

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Bandara Hotels… 5 years ago

@fluff There are so many Chatbot application simply just serach on Facebook. We are using free version name "Chatbot".

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Bandara Hotels… 5 years ago

@Lee I am sure that you can manage to use this. There are some VDO on youtube teach how to use, you may google and search for it.

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Hiraguesthouse 5 years ago

Hi,

Now i do like to provide all the facilities, we extra pillows, comfy bed, etc but our guests look for really cheap hotels, like some of you have said, the competition is way too high now, so we end up reducing prices too much.... how do you cop up with that. and do you still put free stuff in minibar?

We make our guests feel home by providing them complementary soup or drinks or tea, or even sometimes traditional snacks in free...

They love it very much, they appreciate saying they felt loved and nurtured, cared, make them feel like home..! : )

Dina

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Sam Sam 5 years ago

Great point of discussion.
I am trying to encourage an “un plugged” experience hence do not offer any electrical entertainment at the moment. I have board games instead. It’s a low key operation and I like to keep it this way at least for the moment. I am thinking of ways to reduce my carbon footprint as well on any decision I take for the guest house. Something that the Gen Z cares about we haven’t been able to tap into through B.com
yet.

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Leandri Klopper 5 years ago

Joey ,

Oh boy, imagine having to explain a less-than-honorable search history to your internet provider. At least you have funny stories to tell.

When I was living at one of the properties, we used to go down to one of the local pubs. Turns out, no one visiting the property was really aware of this True gem! So I started advertising it. (Sort of because I became friends with the owners of the pub during my time there and partly becauset the place is nice and affordable.)

How do you guys feel about Advertising something that you can't control? Such as a local pubs etc, what if your guests experience horrible service there and take it out on you?

Keep well!

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Stoneybrooke 5 years ago

I have six self-catering units on my farm so I provide basic cooking ingredients, washing-up liquid, tea towels, hand-wash, shower gel and rusks. We also provide full DSTV but no WiFi. When we used to provide free WiFi guests abused the privilege. Bev Stoneybrooke Farm Tierpoort South Africa.

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fluff 5 years ago

@ Stoneybrooke

You must have experienced something I've never come across, please expand on "abusing free WiFi".
My curiosity is most definitely piqued.

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Thuild - Your … 5 years ago

Oh I'm also super curious to find out how can someone abuse free WiFi :)

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Lee 5 years ago

Yeah interesting to know how they abuse the WiFi...

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Villa Junona Croatia 5 years ago

Wow, wi-fi.... Some days ago our quests started complain about too slow interrnet. I took a look at what happens with my main router and discovered two unknown routers that were connected to mine via wi-fi. Both of them were used as hotspots to distribute traffic (which is paid by me!) to some other places. I still do not know wha made this and when. But when I changed the name of our hotel WLAN and its password, internet became as speed as it was supposed to be

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Leandri Klopper 5 years ago

Wow Villa Junona Croatia ... <(O_0)> I don't even know how to reply to that. I feel like I just watched a few minutes of Hackers (the movie).

So you did secure the router behind a locked door now, right?

People can be so sneaky!

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fluff 5 years ago

I haven't experienced wifi freeloaders at the hotel yet but in our previous biz people tried all the time. I nearly always had the router and user list open so that at a quick click they were kicked out of the system.

The look of confusion on the on web-sucker's face was a joy to behold! ;-)

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Stoneybrooke 5 years ago

Well ....... we do not have unlimited WiFi and the guests used in two days what my hubbie and I have never managed to use up in a month. What's so odd about that?

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fluff 5 years ago

@ Joey

QUOTE

My in room TVs are small. Really small by today's standards. I think they are 20 inch flat screens. Since prices have dropped I was wondering whether it was worth it to buy 32 inch ones. But I can't bear the waste of good TVs - which will just have to be thrown away.

UNQUOTE

I'm a bit late reading this BUT why not find a charity run hospice/orphange or similar that could do with a few sets. They'd be put to good use and gratefully received.

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fluff 5 years ago

@ Stoneybrooke

To offer WiFi as an amenity it really does need to be limitless and of decent bandwidth.

Most guests will be watching movies, TV series, or playing on-line games which gobble up GBs very fast.

It's not unusual usage these days!

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Leandri Klopper 5 years ago

Hey fluff ,

I agree, Firstly you monitor guests (within means) when they are out and about in the property to ensure they don't do too much damage. So why not monitor their Internet usage too? Sounds good to me.

Joey, I think giving to charity is a stunning idea. If you want to get some money out though, Facebook is a fantastic place to advertise. But you know what they say... give and you will receive.

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fluff 5 years ago

@ Joey

Modern electric blankets are, electrically, water proof. You can even pop them in the washing machine

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Lee 5 years ago

Collection from airport free of charge is it a trend nowadays?

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Villa Junona Croatia 5 years ago

Lee, Our villa is in small beach town, There is about 65 km from the nearest airport. If you take a taxi in the airport a taxi driver will surely ask for 1000 kuna (135 euro). If you order taxi from a taxi-company the price can drop to 600 kuna (about 82 euro). We offer transportation for 450 - 500 kuna (depending on a season). But a lot of our guests opt for a public transportation. It is not as easy as it seems to be.

They need to get a shuttle bus from airport to Split Bus Station. The Shuttle goes every hour from 10 AM ill 6-00 PM and costs 30 kuna per person. It takes 30 minutes to get to Split. Then you need to take a local bus (every 2 hours from 5 AM till 21 PM) The ticket costs 50 kuna + you have to pay 10 for every piece of luggage. The bus drive for 80 minutes. And then you have to walk about 1500 m (with all you luggage, of course) through almost all city from the bus station to our Vila.

The most strange thing about all that is - to stay with us these guests pay 200 euro per night

….enigmatic human nature....

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M Adamopoulou 5 years ago

My guests also are not interested in TV etc. They come to us for relaxing and enjoy the countryside. The kids also enjoy being outside having fun. My guests appreciate the goodies I leave for them to find.

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Felipe 5 years ago

I will not say that ppl use a lot the TV when they stay somewhere outside their house as the purpose is to visit or relax somewhere else. But something that we have to take in account is that you may face a rainy day or have kids that want to see cartoons or just after a day of visits, sightseeing or trecking just want to sit down, relax and watch a movie. That is why I think that the wifi for free and nice bandwith is a MUST and all the TVs must be able to stream movies (amazon prime, netflix ...) perfectly. On our side the smallest TV is 49" (prices are also dropping for big sizes with smart TV included) with smart TV and amazon prime (cheaper than Netflix) and just perfect as the standard price is for 4 TV and have 4 units and there is no password or username to enter as you register each TV manualy once. The XBox or Playstation sounds too much from my point of view and nowadays some can travel with their nintendo that you can also plug to a smart TV ...

On a Pillow point of view we offer feather ones (60x60) and you can allways adapt to be more soft or hard if you squeeze on one side or the other.

We only offer 1 for single beds and 2 for doubles as we do not see to point to get like some hotels (we are a guest house) many pillows that after are just move from the bed to the floor or nearby chair leaving that one full of pillows.

For the free minibar I will say that free tea & coffee in room is our idea but free coca cola or beer is not as it will be unfair to charge a bit more to every booking if someone do not want a drink in room. In the same way that we feel that a guest should be able to choose with or without breakfast rate or in our case we only offer without (apartment kind of lodging)