Article

Starwood hotels testing check-in kiosks

The hospitality industry, in general, has been making a push to make the customer experience better and easier at the property level.

December 9, 2003

In another sign that the hospitality industry is becoming a strong market for self-service technology, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. has been closely watching a pilot of check-in kiosks at two of its busiest hotels.

White Plains, N.Y -based Starwood is testing self-service kiosk applications at the 1,215-room Sheraton Boston Hotel and the 509-room W New York in Times Square.

Carl Cohen, vice president of property technology business and systems strategy for Starwood, said the kiosk at the W in Times Square has been in beta since July. The Sheraton kiosk has been in test since September.

"We are still learning, fixing and adapting," he said. "We do have an expansion planned, but it's a question of timing at this point." Cohen noted that the company is keeping track of usage; namely how many guests are using the kiosks and how many successfully complete their transactions. "When the technology proves itself, we will roll it out to other properties," Cohen said.

Branching out

Starwood's brand names include St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, Westin, W and Four Points by Sheraton. Starwood, which has a worldwide presence, groups its business into hotels and vacation-ownership operations. Starwood plans to deploy these kiosks to a number of its downtown, convention and airport hotels next year.

Jim Brown, director of corporate and marketing communications for Kinetics Inc., which is supplying the deployment's hardware, said that down the line, the project will include a "truly integrated network" that offers such consumer-friendly apps as ordering meals ahead of time, and downloading airline boarding passes.

"We will be the leaders in this area. There is nothing in the technology to prohibit us in the future," he said.

Software for the project is developed in-house by Galaxy Hotel Systems LLC, which is owned by Starwood.

Dan Hogan, vice president and general manager of Galaxy Hotel Systems LLC, said today, information on the availability of rooms and the status of rooms is coordinated by Galaxy's software, Lightspeed, a property-management system.

"The hospitality industry, in general, has been making a push to make the customer experience better and easier at the property level," said Hogan. "There has been demand for self-service from the hotels."

"I personally travel every other week for business, and I can't tell you when I last spoke with an agent," he added.

Kinetics hotel check-in kiosk

How they work

The Starwood kiosks are located in each of the hotels' lobbies. The kiosks allow guests to check-in and out of the hotel by simply swiping their credit cards, eliminating the need to go to the front desk. Check-in takes less than 45 seconds, compared with several minutes using the traditional front desk check-in method.

A receipt informs the guest of his/her room rate and room number. The receipt also has space for customized messaging through StarGuest, Starwood's proprietary customer relationship management application suite.

Upon check-out, the guest swipes his or her credit card, the kiosk pulls up the guest folio, the guest confirms that all the information on the folio is accurate, the kiosk prints out the guest folio and the guest has the option to have the folio e-mailed to him/her in read-only format.

Cohen said the hotels have employees staffing the kiosks to monitor guest reaction and to help them use the terminals.

Cohen would not discuss the cost of the project, but said, "When you do a couple of kiosks, it is an expensive approach. We will achieve scalability when the rollout expands."

Brown said Starwood is using an off-the-shelf enclosure from Kinetics called the Touchport. The basic starting price for the unit is $6,000. Customers can add on elements such as a credit card reader, bar code scanner or biometric devices.

Hogan said there are certain places such kiosks will -and will not -- work.

"Would patrons of a five-star hotel go to a kiosk? Probably not. They are paying $400 to $500 per night and want a certain level of personal service. But someone paying $119 at the Westin O'Hare in Chicago who just got off a flight at 8 p.m. just wants to check in easily and go to bed."

[Editor's note: Info Touch Technologies became Tio Networks in April 2006.]