The ultimate in safety, convenience and comfort
Whether you manage a resort, hotel, apartments, a motel or a caravan park we can all agree that guests are special for choosing to invest their precious holiday time in your accommodation. For this reason should they should be provided with every comfort and convenience that you can afford them, surely.
The accommodation industry’s ultimate goal is to create a holiday experience that keep guests returning. This desire to please has caused an increased demand for luxury items. Items such as golf car vehicles used to transport within hotels and resorts or in other words, guest movers.
These guest movers are now common in accommodation complexes throughout Australia, once reserved for large resorts they can now be found in properties of all sizes. Imagine the impression left on your guest, when they are met upon arrival and transferred in safety and comfort to their room. This is especially delightful for someone with mobility difficulties. The ultimate convenience and comfort.
John Bristow is from Golf Cart Group, the exclusive national distributor for EMC products for over 10 years. Golf Cart Group carries the full range of EMC vehicles, everything from two ton electric trucks, to street sweepers, electric buses that seat between 11 and 28 passengers, golf cart based utilities, eight seater resort vehicles, laundry and housekeeping vehicles, insulated food and beverage vehicles, medical support vehicles, off road and rough terrain vehicles. All this makes Mr Bristow quite an expert.
He said, “A golf cart style vehicle immediately takes you to a holiday in your mind. Whether a luxury resort island or one of the fabulous caravan parks you will find dotted around Australia, the very presence of a golf cart puts you in holiday mode. Golf carts are whisper-quiet and smooth. And they are a lot smaller than a family car, but most importantly, they are fun.”
People and luggage movers were originally designed to carry golfers and their clubs around a golf course but now they come in a wide range of formats and are marketed for various uses.
In an accommodation complex it is not just the guests that benefits – porters, housekeepers and landscapers get to fulfil their roles quicker and with less effort. For hot and cold hospitality, food and beverages, they are great for room service or for accessing guests in and around the resort and are ideal for dealing with a catered wedding or function. Whether it is a tilt tray, flat tray, or something custom made, ground staff, cleaners, maintenance personnel, rubbish removalists, or even the concierge will benefit from even the simplest of utilities.
“Guest and luggage movers are an important part of any resort, or caravan park. There are a lot of other applications these near silent vehicles fulfil. Laundry, housekeeping and guest services, ground maintenance, waste management and waste removal and restocking satellite bars,” confirmed Mr Bristow.
They come equipped with electric, petrol and diesel engines, enabling them to become modified to suit any particular purpose. As such, they can be used as utility vehicles to transport small numbers of passengers short distances, or they can be customised making them perfectly suited for the accommodation industry.
Electric vehicles are low maintenance, cost effective, quiet, easy to operate and can travel in areas a full-size car or van cannot. Savings on fuel, service and registration costs can also be made.
Golf cart-based vehicles and electric resort vehicles have come a long way in the last few years and advances in safety has been the industry’s top priority. “New golf cart based vehicles are now available with three point ‘lap sash’ seat belts with inertia reel, so they roll away when not in use. Just like your road car the belts come over the occupants shoulder and across the lap,” Mr Bristow clarified.
There has also been huge advances in these vehicle’s braking systems. Once limited to mechanical brakes on the rear wheels only, golf cart-based vehicles are now available with four-wheel hydraulic brakes. This is a much safer solution, even at low speeds.
According to Mr Bristow, other advances include “optional safety glass windscreen with electric wiper, integrated on board smart charger so you simply plug the cart into any household power point”.
Proper automotive style headlights with high and low beam is now available in these vehicles and this makes driving at night a much safer experience. But Mr Bristow reveals that: “Probably the biggest improvement to electric vehicles is power. Not to go fast, but to deal with hills, with loads and range. New golf carts are available with a 5kw AC motor offering a simply stunning performance.”
These faster vehicles can be ordered with speed limiting though for those who do not require the extra power. “The common choice is maximum 20 km/h, the vehicles are capable of much higher speeds but are electronically limited. At customer request these vehicles can be programmed to run at much higher top speeds” added Mr Bristow.
There has been major advances in technology for electric cars and there is exciting news especially in the special purpose electric vehicles. Mr Bristow explained: “Today’s golf carts and alternative electric vehicles still use lead acid batteries that have been around pretty much unchanged for 100 years. While lithium batteries supply energy to today’s electric cars, electric tools, laptops, iPads and pretty much everything in between, they are not yet common in alternative electric vehicles.
“EMC is the first manufacturer in Australia to offer lithium batteries as an option in a wide range of electric vehicles. Much more expensive than traditional batteries, lithium offer huge advantages that can actually make the true cost of ownership/operations lower. Lithium are 70 per cent lighter so the vehicle simply performs better with up to 200kg less lead weight to lug around.
“Lithium requires no maintenance at all. No adding water once a week, no cleaning terminals, no spills, no gassing fumes when charging. But the big news is that lithium batteries will cycle, this means – charge and discharge, at least four times as many as lead acid. Simply put, they last a lot longer. It is quite realistic that lithium batteries will outlast the life of the vehicle itself.”
GPS tracking and geo-fencing is another addition that EMC vehicles can come equipped with. The benefit of this is not simply a matter of knowing where a vehicle is; you can actually program the vehicle to behave differently in different areas. For instance in a no-go-zone you can program the vehicle to stop or operate in reverse only and if a vehicle enters a restricted area the owner receives an email or text notification, preventing misuse or theft.
Many electric vehicles are now also available with a solar assist option which increases range and reduces charge time. Mr Bristow confirms that solar assist is also available on almost every model in the EMC range.
There is unlimited use for these vehicles and their technological advances make them ideal for the accommodation industry. This is an exciting time to purchase a people mover, not to mention the benefits they present for employee health and safety and time management. The vehicles speed up menial task work and the electric vehicles are environmentally friendly, quiet and economic.
When shopping around for a people or luggage mover you need to research carefully, in the same way you would buy a family car. You need to consider the vehicle’s safety record, its cost, its resale value, aftercare, durability, lifespan and quality. There is plenty of choice but be selective as “you get what you pay for”.
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