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The handy travel companion amplifying hotel service and guest experience

By Robin Fredericks

14 Dec 2017

Wednesday, 5 December 2017, saw the launch of the 'handy' device into the South African market as a means to revolutionise the travel and hotel industry.

The launch, which took place at One&Only Cape Town, saw Tink Labs’ Jan du Toit, director of sales, South Africa; Barry Clemens, general manager Africa and Indian Ocean; Sem Kallen, accounts manager for southern and eastern Africa; and Steven To, global head of sales, share the handy experience with guests, inviting them to try it out and get a feel for the device.

From left to right: Steven To, Jan du Toit, director of sales, South Africa, Barry Clemens and Sem Kallen.

I was personally blown away by this integrated travel solution. Why, you may ask?

Well, handy is a device that meets travellers' demand for internet connectivity in and outside of the hotel room. It’s basically a local travel companion for the duration of your stay. It’s also the first mobile travel solution serving as a travel guide for tourists combining hotel services.

The handy smartphone

Upon turning on the handy device, I was prompted to enter my checkout date (all data gets erased once you check out – so what happens in handy, stays in handy). Once I logged in, I could either sign up using my email address or my Facebook account. I was immediately welcomed by the 'handy' city guide with an array of options to choose from - including distances from the hotel and GPS to boot – from the Boulders African Penguin Colony to the District Six Museum, Lions Head and more, as well as restaurant suggestions in and around the city that guests could visit. It’s a device that allows for language capability, so you’d never feel as though you’re literally in a foreign country where no one understands you. It also has a built-in camera and allows you to buy tickets online for any activity that may interest you.

Guests have access to social logins and email as well (with free internet access during their stay), access to unlimited local and international calls, and speed dial capabilities to hotel services – it really is a handy smartphone.

We chatted to Reinard Korf, operation manager at the President Hotel, which is also the first hotel in South Africa to introduce handy as part of its service offering, to find out more about what made the hotel buy into the handy experience, what their reservations were and how useful they’re finding the device in their day-to-day operations.

What made the President Hotel consider handy as part of its service offering?

For me, when I first got introduced to handy, it was a no-brainer. In essence, it's a product that can be offered to the clientele, which is not available in the country at this stage. Imagine you have a guest and you can offer a unique selling point (USP) – you can offer them a product that none of your competitors can and you have a tool that allows you to be in contact with guests. You can push your marketing material to them, intercept negative reviews, and you have direct interaction with the guest at any given stage – and vice versa.

Reinard Korf

Why wouldn’t you want to offer that to a guest, and why would a guest not appreciate that?

First, not only would I be able to improve my FNB revenues, I can punt promotions and activities and get additional spend, because we all work hard to retain our in-house guests for additional spend, so that was a very big push for me.

Second, I am able to manage guest experiences, so if they have a bad experience and they feel like venting, they put it on the phone and I get a notification. I can engage with guests from that perspective and fix it rather than having to just write an apology via email. Three, the hotel has a unique selling point for the fact that guests feel that they are connected with the hotel, they can request services that way. A great example would be if you are hosting a large group of people, all out and about, and you need to send individual messages to the guests. In the past, you would send a note to the room or you would wonder where the guests are.

Today, I dial a room number on my integrated system and the phone rings wherever the guest is, I can speak to them directly, or I know in which room the guest is staying so I can send a quick message to say the organisers are looking for him/her, for example. I can reach out to the guest. If they all need to be ready at 6.30am for breakfast, I can send a group communication to the selected rooms that I need to.

Another great aspect is that, if you’re a family and you want to get in contact with you're children staying in a different room and they’re at the pool, you can call them on the room number and reach them at the pool, or they can reach you while you're doing tours on Table Mountain – instantly connected. The great thing is the panic button – If they are anywhere and feel at risk, they can press the panic button and it goes directly to my security department who dispatches help, so any international traveller can feel safe and connected.

For me, with regards to the above aspects, it was a no-brainer – guests would appreciate that sort of service.

What were your reservations about incorporating handy? Did you see any risk?

The risk? South Africans are kind of conservative and we always why someone wouldn't steal it? I think that was my biggest question. I thought people will steal this – guests steal hairdryers, they steal your amenities, they take your kettles, they sometimes try to put anything that they can find into their bags and go with it – so why wouldn’t they take a smartphone? Especially a smartphone that’s standing free in their room, available to them, that they can do whatever they want with – why would they not take it?

I was assured by handy that no one will take it. In Asia, they’ve never lost it, and everyone’s succeeding with it, but I did not believe them at all. So, we worked out comprehensive procedures for our hotel to put controls in place and educate team members about the process in place.

To date, we’ve been running it for four months and we have lost three units. The first unit we lost, we were able to GPS locate it exactly to where it was lost in Long Street and sent out a driver who picked it up from the street. The second time, a guest lost it in Long Street and we tried to find it, but it had been picked up. The guest openly admitted fault, gave us their credit card and paid for it. The third time it happened the guests came to us and said they lost it somewhere in the V&A and paid for it - they didn’t even try to argue with us to say we carry the risk. So, our losses to date are zero.

We’ve been running handy four months – and we're running at a high 75 plus occupancy, so that means on average we have between 25 to 30,000 guests per month. They all use the units. My fear at this stage is none – guests are not taking it, but they are still taking our hairdryers, it’s the funniest thing.

Once you have the proper process in place and you educate your team members and staff, as a hotel manager, you get less concerned about it. For some reason, guests appreciate and understand that this unit is valuable to the hotel, that it is an added benefit and that they should respect it - so far we have had very good success with it.

Image Supplied

What do you find most important about the handy device?

For me, it's important because whether you travel to Europe or to South Africa, you get a similar level of technology and standard. So this is just another way to get South Africa up to international standards, this is not a third world country. And it’s not exclusive to five-star hotels, they’re putting this in three-star, four-star hotels, as well as guesthouses.

Your average South African and traveller, be it corporate or a tour group or individual traveller, get to have access to this wonderful device. What’s important about this device is that you can book tours, you can book taxis, it’s a GPS locator. I can use Google Maps. I can make use of Instagram on it – my information is protected – I can Facebook on it, I can call my family on it and be instantly connected. We found that with our international groups, especially when they’re travelling for work, nobody wants to pick up a hotel phone – "if I touch it, I am going to get charged." Now they can speak for hours to their family.

What’s also important is that you can choose the language that you’re most comfortable with – they are also loading African languages, which means that they recognise the importance of these languages which is great.

It’s a great product and I am happy that it's coming to South Africa – it's very important that it succeeds in all the hotels.