Payments may appear relatively straightforward for guests, but they can be excruciatingly complex for hotels. The reason for this is that the current payment facilitation landscape is highly distributed: When a guest purchases a room or an add-on and hits “pay,” their request must pass through a series of systems and vendors, including the payment gateway or processors, acquirers and payment service providers, and the various banks and payment methods themselves. The result of this dispersion of vendors is that payments can become needlessly complex for hotels (and their guests!), leading to wasted time, increased errors, and a more cumbersome guest experience. In this article, we’re going to look at ways that hotels can streamline payments, both for their guests and themselves, and in the process develop a secure payments system that can actually enhance revenue and amplify the guest experience. 

More than ever before, technology is playing an even larger part in the hospitality industry as a direct result of the pandemic. It’s being explored in new ways to support social distancing and a contactless guest experience. Paper based in room compendiums and room service menus are replaced with QR codes which allow guests full access to a range of facilities via their own mobile phones. Many hotels are implementing web check-in and in many cases, extending that further to keyless entry by again using guests mobile phones. The ability to deliver these services ideally requires integrated or interfaced systems within the hotel.

Understanding and anticipating individual guest needs lies at the heart of offering a superior hotel experience. To offer evermore tailored and personalized levels of service, it’s now possible to access an unprecedented amount of customer data via sources such as mobile check-ins, online bookings, loyalty programs and past spending habits. Brendon Granger dives into beacon technology and how to make the most of it on your property.