Smart Guest Application Suite: hotel services now on client’s smartphone

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has been on the hotel sector market, mostly high-end, for over twenty years.

"We handle telephony, wifi, and data, first explains Thierry Bonnin, international vice president of large and vertical accounts at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.

We supply large hotels worldwide with our products, network service and telecoms such as the Royal Monceau, le Shangri-La, Four Seasons but also Club Med. We also equip the Royal Caribbean boats.

For mid-range hotels, our offer includes an innovative cheaper model. Through the cloud system, our services are paid based on the number of occupied rooms in the hotel.

This permits not having to subscribe for an annual licence. Each month, we ask for the hotel's occupancy rate and the establishment pays based on that.”

With a strong will to stand out in the hotel sector, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise first established a tablet service in the rooms.

"Our first innovation was putting tactile screens in the rooms that can be customized with the client’s name, update user documentation, install an automation system to adjust air conditioning, lighting, weather forceast...

The challenge is that many clients already have a tablet or smartphone. So we wanted to be able to have the hotel services included on the client’s device.”, explains Thierry Bonnin.

This is how the “Smart Guest Application Suite” was born, that offers different services - such as mood control in the hotel room, lighting and temperature adjustment, alarm activation etc. - all on the client’s mobile.

The solution is used instead of landlines and becomes a real time mobile service in the hotel.

"When a client arrives, he has to download the application; we then link the room to his phone number.
Of course no data is saved and at the time of check-out, the application is deactivated”, specifies the international vice-president of large and vertical accounts at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.

The BYOD Telephony client solution can also be integrated to third party “e-concierge” applications in order to provide clients with options such as access to the hotel’s directory, speed dialing, caller ID, free internal calls, when they go through the hotel’s wifi, and an “e-concierge” click-to-call option.

Thanks to this solution, the client can directly call the reception but also the restaurant, or spa…

"If I’m at the bar and someone tries to call me in my room, the call is redirected to my mobile.

As for hotelier, he can promote special offers or send marketing messages via the application managing platform. An entirely customizable platform for each hotel” adds Thierry Bonnin.

This platform has already been established in the 45 Park Lane hotels in London, Beverly Hills Hotel and the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles. And will soon come to France.

The only challenge of this mobile services pertains to the wifi quality in the hotel, a difficult issue because the norms evolve frequently.

Adapting to these and finding a cost-effective economic model for the establishment remains a challenge.

"A study in the United State shows that 70% of hotel clients are dissatisfied with the wifi in hotels. This has a direct link with the client’s satisfaction today.

But it is difficult for a hotel to be up to date because technological innovations evolve rapidly.

If there is a free service, the hotels needs to be able to absorb the costs.

I don’t have a solution”, admits the Alcatel-Lucent Entreprise representative, who pinpoints the main challenge around digitalizing the client’s experience in hotel.