How COVID-19 Will Affect Hotel Compendiums
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4min read
COVID-19 has affected almost every major industry, including the accommodation industry. This is the biggest global disruption of its kind in decades. The implications when it comes to health and hygiene in everyday life will become a bigger priority on-going.
During the pandemic, most of the world's population was instructed to at least do the following:
- Keep a safe distance of 1.5 metres away from others, who do not live in the same household.
- Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds.
- Isolate yourself from shared objects and rooms if someone in your home has the virus.
Almost every surface and object that is available for use in guest rooms can be infected by the virus or even the common flu. Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of America's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said in an interview on PBS.
One of the things one can do is when you have surfaces that you frequently touch, that you might you know get one of those alcohol swabs, or one of the things that can disinfect and rub it off and clean it. One of the most common ones are doorknobs. And I think that's the thing that people should be most aware of, is because people can get virus on their hands, one of the things you do every day is turn a doorknob.
Guest rooms at hotels, resorts, apartments, lodges etc., have many appliances and surfaces that guests use frequently including, but not limited to:
- Alarm Clocks
- TV Remotes
- Coffee Tables
- Door and Wardrobe Handles
- Fridge
- Dishwasher
- Ovens
- Taps in Bathrooms and Kitchen/Kitchenettes.
One common item provided in each guest room that can be added to this list, is a hotel compendium.
Here are a few hotel compendium formats that involve sharing resources with each guest.
Printed Compendiums
Keeping these paper compendiums (commonly in leather or plastic folders) clean between every changeover of guests, would require investing more time and money to clean each of these surfaces.
This is particularly important if plastic pockets in your compendium folders can be infected for up to 72 hours.
TV Compendiums
Some properties provide their digital guidebook details via their in-room TVs. These systems generally have the bare minimum of details and require guests to navigate with the TV remote, like you would for finding a movie on Netflix or navigating the Digital TV Guide on your TV.
When multiple guests are staying in any one of your guest rooms, there's a high chance that they have all used the TV Remote.
By providing a compendium on your TV, you are increasing the time your guests need to handle the shared TV remove to navigate through the details provided.
In-Room Hotel Tablets
A small selection of properties provide a hotel tablet for guest use in each room. These generally require a separate charging dock in addition to the tablets that could be shared around by other guests in the same room each day/night.
In a post COVID-19 world, hotels with these tablets in them will need to start cleaning the tablets more regularly, in addition to their already high maintenance of charging and replacing broken tablets.
Cleaning tablet screens is also not as straight forward as it sounds, as there are differing opinions on what is the best type of cleaning product to use, that not only cleans fingerprint marks, but also safely removes germs that previous users may have added.
Choosing the right solution for cleaning hotel tablet displays is very important.
Not only does cleaning these tablets increase your hotel operations time and on-going expenses, but it could also damage the display's protective laminated plastic or glass cover, which is the layer separating the display from the finger you are using. If this were to happen to any of your hotel's tablets, it will then be costly for the screen or entire device to be replaced.
Contactless Hotel Compendium Solution
You may be asking yourself by now, that this is normal and having to clean these hotel compendiums more frequently is going to have to be 'the new norm'.
But what if it doesn't have to be?
The latest guest digital compendium format that all property types can adopt, is that of allowing guests to access your compendium details and services on their own devices.
It is extremely rare that you see people handing over their smartphones, tablets, laptops etc. to other people and most often it would only be within the same family or guest room.
Our Hinfo Guest Digital Compendium solves everything addressed above in three very important ways.
Bring Your Own Device
Your guests are already bringing their own smartphones, tablets and laptops to your property for personal and business purposes.
Allowing your guests to access your compendium details and property services on their own devices, eliminates the need for any shared resources in any guest rooms.
Individual Access for Every Single Guest
In most cases, at least one guest staying in every single guest room who is a teenager or older, has access to the internet via their own smartphone, tablet and/or laptop of choice.
Your guests do not even need to share the iPad they may have in the family, just to view your compendium details, with everyone able to have access on their own devices.
Every guest can access the details and services they want to, in their own time and on any device they are familiar with.
Less Cleaning and Maintenance
By this stage, you are likely thinking of everything in your guest rooms that need to be cleaned more thoroughly and whether they in fact NEED to be there.
By upgrading to a contactless digital guidebook that is accessible on your guests own devices, this will not only eliminate needing to provide a printed compendium or hotel tablet in each room, but also results in one less item to clean and disinfected on every guest changeover.
Hinfo addressed each of these issues well before we knew about the pandemic, but as a result these benefits now become even stronger, when adopting our Hinfo contactless BYOD solution.
To get started with our Hinfo contactless guest digital solution, please send us an enquiry via the form below.
