What is smart hotel? When most of people think about smart hotel, they think about home automation. Guests can make use of the mobile app to control the IoT smart hardware, like lighting, curtain, air-conditional and TV; however, smart hotel includes many different aspects in which smart control is just part of it. In this article, we will talk about the smart hotel systems developed by Teamotto Smart and how each system can interact with each other.

There are some basic flows about the smart hotel, it includes:

1. Online booking app ( not OTA booking apps)

2. Smart PMS ( Hotel Property Management System)

3. Check-in kiosk

4. Room Management

5. Smart control

All these functions constitute a total solution of smart hotel. 

1. Online booking app

Most of hotels have no online room booking app, they are more rely on the OTA like booking.com, Agoda and cTrip. These OTA platform can drive a lot of traffic and hotels need to pay high commission rate in return. The most important is the guests book the hotel from OTAs will not become the member of the hotel itself. As a result, large hotel management group like IHG, Hilton and Hyatt have their own booking app together with the membership system. More than 60% of the sales of these hotel groups are coming from their online booking apps. They can make use of the app to build a better and closer relationship with the guests and increase their loyalty. 

Teamotto Smart solutions include the online booking app for hotel. The online booking app ( not only mobile apps, but also WeChat Mini Program) can attract more sales by the membership system and reduce the cost paid for the OTAs. We will talk about what functions should be included in the booking app and in fact, as a semi-customized app, more functions can be added according to the request raised by hotels.

Room Booking

Room booking is the major function of the online booking app, users can use the booking app to book the room and proceed the payment with various payment method, like credit card, Google Pay, Apple Pay, WeChat Pay and Alipay. The hotel room status and pricing can be retrieved by the integration with hotel’s PMS. When the order is made, the order will automatically send to the PMS and real time confirmed by the hotel. 

Royalty Program

Users registered the account will become the member of the hotel. They can enjoy the membership benefit, like bonus points for gift/night redemption, regularly receive the coupon, free Internet access, late check-out and free parking etc. Different type of membership will enjoy different benefits, and thus guests will tend to use the hotel booking app more frequently. 

Pre-Check-In/ mobile key

When the guests make the booking by the app, they can use the pre-check-in function. After pre-check-in, they will obtain a QR code, and present the code at the hotel self check-in kiosk to enjoy speedy check-in experience. The booking app can also be a mobile key to unlock the door by using bluetooth and using for the smart hardware control. 

eShop

The booking app can also be a eShop for the hotel. Hotel can list the products that they are going to sell at the mobile app. Users can buy it and pay it online. It can increase the revenue of hotel and improve the experience of guests. 

Online Assistant

As the guests come from different countries, it’s not easy for them to call the hotel directly by phone. Using email is not preferred by most of guests. Thus, the online assistant function is the best solution for it. Hotel can tell the guest to download the booking app, and there will be an assistant to answer their questions in the office hours. The online assistant will use another app to answer the questions from the guests. The chat-bot is also provided for some frequently asked questions.

2. Smart PMS

Most of hotel is using a computer-based PMS, and thus the check-in process can also be handled in front of the front desk. It will be caused a long queue; however, with the smart PMS, front office staff can ask the guests to sit on a sofa and enjoy a drink first. Then the staff can bring a smart PMS pad to help the guests to handle the check-in process. Smart pms is a very easy-to-use app, the training time of how to use the PMS is less than one day. The interface is clear and easy to use. 

3. Check-in Kiosk

Check-in kiosk can reduce the workload of the front office staff while increase the experience of the guests. The check-in kiosk is not only for check-in, but also the check-out and room booking functions. For more information about self check-in kiosk, you may visit the article Hotel Self Check-in Kiosk

4. Room Management

There are many issues encountered by the guests and front office staff for the room management. The most significant case is when the guest check-out, front office staff needs to tell the room attendant to clean the room, and once the room is cleaned, the front office staff needs to ask the room attendant couple times and make sure the room is clean and ready for new guests. With the room management system, the situation will be changed sharply. When the guests check-out, the room attendant will receive a notification to clean the room, and the status of the room will be changed from occupied to dirty room. When the room attendant cleaned the room, the room status will be changed from dirty room to clean room and available for use. The status will be changed and reflected to the PMS at the same time.

5. Smart Control

As most of people think that smart control is the most important for smart hotel, thus I put it as the last to talk about. Teamotto Smart has a total solution for smart control that we have integrated with most of smart hardware into out platform. The smart hardware includes lightings, curtain, HVAC, background music, door lock, camera, IPTV, smart glass, smart toilet, air monitor sensor, micro-wave sensor, ambient light sensor, wind and rain sensor etc. With the smart hardware and smart sensor, smart control is not just a control for hardware, but automation. To learn more about smart control, please read the previous article Smart Control App/System Dedicated for Hotels.

As we are providing the solutions for smart hotel, the application and functions can be changed or improved by the request of hotel owners. If you need further assistant, please call us now.