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Automatic check-in: the way of the future?
Check in kiosks at YOTEL: will all hotels have these one day?
We’ve featured YOTEL before – a revolutionary hotel group focused on airport hotels, packing maximum luxury into minimal space. Based on our YOTEL video and recent guest reviews, this approach seems to be working.
One of the things YOTEL has done differently is to re-examine the check-in process – and automate it. So I spoke to Jo Berrington, YOTEL’s marketing director about the technology and thinking behind this.
One reason YOTEL decided to automate check-in was that it rents rooms for shorter time-periods – often for people who want a snooze if they have a few hours between planes in the middle of the day – so it has twice as many check-ins as a normal hotel would.
Automated check-in works especially well when most bookings are prepaid – that’s the case with Yotel, which takes bookings through its website and gives customers a booking reference number. “That’s all you need,” Jo told me, “and the kiosk will issue you your key and your wifi code.”
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The cleverly-designed Premium cabin at YOTEL provides free WiFi and a "techno wall"
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But many hoteliers would be horrified by automation. Their view is that check-in is the ideal time for customers to meet the staff and for staff to demonstrate their value. Isn’t that worthwhile for YOTEL too?
“Our thinking is to make our team more available,” Jo said, “rather than to cut staff.” This reminded me a bit of the Andaz London’s barrier-free check-in, though it’s in a different sector of the market.
Check-in is arguably an easy process, whereas airport customers need all kinds of advice and help – arranging bus transfers, how to get to the terminal, booking alarm calls. All of this, plus food and drink orders, can be managed by the two YOTEL staff on duty – without getting in the way of customers who just want to check in and go straight to sleep.
I wondered whether automated check-in worked for customers who might be jet-lagged and not completely on top of things. I was surprised to find out that 70 to 80 percent of all YOTEL’s check-ins are fully automated and occur without any staff intervention. Perhaps people are getting used to the fact that cheap hotels are becoming like airlines.
New customers are slightly less likely to use the automated service – since YOTEL has a different business model and they’re not accustomed to it, they quite often want to see the room first.
Usage is gradually increasing. Jo Berrington points out that “people are getting more used to the process with trains, airlines, and so on all using automated check-ins.” It’s a form of triage – the terminal takes all the easy things to do and frees up staff for more complicated requests.
The technology comes from the company that makes most of the train ticketing terminals in the UK (Shere). It’s not off the shelf, though – Yotel tells Shere exactly what they want. In fact, Yotel is now getting the company to work on a new generation of terminals, which make the process quicker and more interactive. “We’ve learned things over the last couple of years,” Jo said, “and we are keen to incorporate this learning.”
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YOTEL will be opening a hotel in New York soon, and the kiosks will be able to handle far more than they do now – they’ll be able to scan passports, for instance, and they’ll also have a signature pad for customers to sign in.
It’s been easy for YOTEL to introduce the kiosks, because it’s been starting from scratch. Jo pointed out that hotels wanting to introduce the terminals retrospectively face a problem, because “geographically they don’t have the right set-up for it; they have lobbies with desks. We actually think desks aren’t good, because they create a barrier between you and the customer.”
Premier Inn is also piloting automatic check-in - for example at its highly-regarded Premier Inn County Hall hotel by the London Eye
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Premier Inn and Travelodge are also running pilot schemes, with the first 20 Premier Inns for example already operating the technology. If these two giants decide to roll out automated check-in to all their thousands of rooms, this could have a major influence on the industry. Could automated check-in terminals be the way of the future? Watch this space!
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Photo credits: YOTEL, Premier Inn.
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