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Payments the new hidden star in luxury hospitality

Op-Ed: Prioritising payments can help elevate luxury brands to the next level by Hayley Fisher

It is without a doubt that the hospitality and travel industry are among those most impacted by the pandemic. These industries were also one of the fastest to transform and recover. As foot traffic returns, hotels – particularly premium and luxury hotels – find themselves facing new challenges and opportunities.

As Australia opens its international borders, the hospitality industry is set to operate in a new COVID normal with guest expectations continuing to evolve.

Today, data-driven insights will be key in empowering hoteliers to continue to create bespoke experiences for guests and allowing them to transition to a new era of digital hotel experiences.

Prioritising payments can help elevate luxury hospitality brands to the next level by offering seamless and personalised guest experiences, streamlining processes and operations, assist with evolving regulations and compliance guidelines, gaining unique customer insights through data, and help drive business growth.

  1. Seamless and bespoke guest experiences

Prior to the pandemic, hospitality brands dictated the guest journey. However, this has shifted significantly with consumers increasingly demanding a more seamless experience.

The past 24 months have changed peoples’ perception of luxury travel with personalised experiences topping as the most desirable luxury amenities among respondents according to the Global Travel Trends report by American Express Travels.

For example, AccorInvest, an Adyen hotel partner, redesigned their check-in experience using tokenisation enabling a contactless and seamless process. Card tokenisation inherently reduces the exposure of sensitive card information. At the point of booking, guests’ payment data is instantly captured, encrypted and replaced with a secure token for all subsequent purchases.

Guests are able to check-in via their mobile devices prior to their arrival and securely authorise card payments using their virtual check-in.

Offering frictionless and memorable experiences is key for hospitality brands particularly in luxury and premium hotels where high-touch experiences are often equated with high levels of service excellence. It is important for hotels to invest in payment technology that empowers a unified experience across every touchpoint – be it online, mobile or in-person.

  1. Leveraging technology to keep up with evolving customer needs

Hotel brands are constantly looking for ways to simplify and reduce friction at the point of check-in. Today, these brands can leverage technology to make check-ins more frictionless through self-check-in kiosks or digital check-in platforms allowing guests to check in via their mobile devices before they arrive at the hotel property.

With tokenisation, guests can also securely authorise card payments during mobile check-in, making the process contactless and more seamless.

Digitally transforming the customer journey does not need to come at the expense of the guest experience. With a fully integrated payments solution, it can drastically reduce the workload and the amount of time spent on manual tasks like auditing and closing terminals, freeing up resources and allowing staff to better engage guests.

For example, some of our hotel partners have indicated saving eight to 10 hours of manual reconciliation across all channels and geographies.

A unified and integrated solution not only connects the front desk, kiosks, rooms and other departments within the hotel, but is also compatible with property management systems such as Agilysis, Infor, Oracle Hospitality and Shiji.

  1. Keep it personal: Integrating customer data

Understanding guests’ needs and delivering bespoke and authentic services is at the core of the hospitality experience.

With an integrated platform, hotels have access to real-time data that displays guest preferences from how well new menus are performing, to the popularity of new services, as well as assist with identifying opportunities to convert dine-in guests to room guests.

These invaluable insights help determine future business decisions, such as building highly targeted, customised loyalty programs and promotions.

The payment system when set up correctly at the beginning can help remove the complexity by simplifying touchpoints. It becomes a crucial element to influence a guest’s experience and a key point of differentiation between your hotel and the competition, as well as your conduit to new revenue streams.

Payments move quickly, and the guest demands are constantly changing. Hotels understand the value of a strong payments partner who is able to deliver a next-level payment experience today and can also be flexible to quickly adopt new channels and integrations in the future.

A combined high-tech and high-touch experience will be the new norm in the trade – and that is where you will earn your hidden star to be a cut above the rest.

Hayley Fisher is Country Manager Australia and New Zealand for Adyen, a Holland-based payment company that allows businesses to accept e-commerce, mobile, and point-of-sale payments.

 

 

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