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At the Aloft Tampa Downtown hotel, guests can bypass the checkin desk in the lobby and go straight to their room — if they've downloaded the Starwood Preferred Guest app on their smartphone.
The Aloft, on Kennedy Boulevard, is the only hotel in Tampa Bay that offers keyless entry — where guests use a barcode from the app on their phone to enter their room. It's one of many innovations, from mobile checkin apps to hip, latenight bars with affordable craft cocktails and local DJs — that hoteliers are using to lure younger travelers.
Despite misconceptions that they're all broke, many millennials do travel. They're nearly twice as likely to travel for business as baby boomers these days, according to a recent study by the Global Business Travel Association.
The hospitality industry has noticed.
"Hotels generally become functionally obsolete more rapidly than other forms of commercial real estate. They're occupied by daily tenants, so hotels are forced to continuously do something to remain on the cutting edge," said Daniel Lesser, president and CEO of LW Hospitality Advisors in New York City.
"It's all about building the better mouse trap, if you will," Lesser added. "Once someone does something innovative, everyone else piles on. Remember the curved bathroom shower curtain or the heavenly mattress? Those were once the hip and cool things recognized by some generation, so every hotel added them."
New traveler amenities are starting to trickle into hotels around Tampa Bay, where in other cities, they've become almost standard. An example is YOTEL, a boutique company that serves cities like New York and airports in Amsterdam and London. It is known for its smartlydesigned small rooms, called "cabins," a robotic arm that moves and stores luggage in the lobby and digital checkin kiosks instead of checkin desks. And you can order a $4 craft beer (an unheard of price in New York City) on draft in the hotel bar for happy hour.
Major chains are coming up with new ways to stay relevant, too. There are 11 Hilton Hotels in Florida (but none in Tampa Bay,) and 60 nationwide where guests can use their smartphone to get into their room, or the pool or the fitness center. They can check in or request a sandwich or cheese plate to be waiting in the room when they arrive, all through the app, said Dana Shefsky, Hilton's director of digital product innovation.
Hilton has tracked more than 8 million digital checkins since the program launched in July 2014.
"Many of our digital tools are designed to solve traveler pain points," Shefsky said. "Last year, we found twothirds of travelers wished they could choose their own hotel room. As a result, we developed digital checkin with room selection — an industry first — which lets guests select their exact room from a digital floor plan of the hotel via the HHonors app or HHonors web portal."
At Marriott hotel properties, guests can text with hotel associates via the hotelier's app, beginning 72 hours before they're due to arrive at a Marriott property. The program launched at 46 Marriott Hotels in May, but was expanded in November to include all JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Autograph Collection, Renaissance Hotels and Marriott Executive Apartments.
At the Epicurean Hotel in Tampa, guests check in via iPad screens in the lobby. The hotel announced earlier this year that it is partnering with ride sharing company, Uber, so that hotel employees can request an Uber driver for a guest on an iPad, and the charges are applied to the guest's room account. Guests can check in from their phone through the Marriott app there, too.
All this mobile innovation does not mean the traditional checkin desk is going to disappear any time soon. Similar to the banking industry, where customers video chat with bank employees on a new touchscreen ATMs, or at airports, where you can check in for flights on your phone or at a touch screen kiosk, the oldschool desks will continue to be an option.
"We're in the business of people serving people, and our digital tools don't change that. They just offer a convenient medium for digitally minded guests who want to better personalize and control multiple aspects of their stay," Shefsky said.
And it's not all about what you can do with your phone, either.
Charging for WiFi has become taboo. Grabandgo breakfast in the morning and happy hour specials in the bar at night are nearly as important as a hotel room's Internet speed to young travelers.
Back at the Aloft in Tampa, the hotel's WXYZ Bar has become a popular local watering hole for its guests and nearby residents. It's open until 2 a.m. on the weekends and regularly features local musicians and DJs. Art by local artists hangs for sale on the walls.
"This is a phenomenon that has been going on in the hotel business for 30 years," Lesser said. "The trends, the tech, change rapidly. Compared to shopping centers or other forms of commercial real estate, hotels have to change more frequently. They're constantly trying remain fresh and cutting edge."
Contact Justine Griffin at [email protected] or (727) 8938467. Follow @SunBizGriffin.
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