Hotel And Hospitality Supply Movement Archives - Page 2 of 9

The Important Trends that Are Shaping the Hotel Industry You Are Sure to See in 2018

In the hotel industry, some trends, such as powered housekeeping carts, are here to stay. Others have a shorter shelf life. Which one of these current hospitality trends will be part of the scene into the new year and beyond?

1. Co-Living

The hotel industry is increasingly putting a focus on the concept of community. One result is the rise in pod hotels, “poshtels” and other properties influenced by communal living options such as hostels.

2. A Complete Guest Experience

Not content to be simply an accommodations provider, Airbnb recently branched out into the tours and activities business. Watch for hotels to follow suit.

3. Redefining Loyalty

Loyalty programs are an integral part of hotel marketing strategies, but they run the risk of ultimately disenchanting members, such as what has happened with airlines. Hotels need to rework their programs to emphasize the personal touch and reward true loyalty instead of just dollars spent.

4. Back to Basics

Technology has transformed the way hotels operate and taken guest services to a new level, but it’s personal attention that defines the hospitality industry. Successful hotels will find new ways to offer genuine customer service to their guests.

5. Think Local

At one time hotels served as community centers, but their attention turned toward serving out-of-town travelers. In the future, hotels will again consider the local community and ways to provide solutions to their needs as well.

Improve Safety and Productivity with Powered Housekeeping Carts

You can’t afford to keep guests waiting, and powered housekeeping carts from DJ Products let your staff turn rooms quickly and efficiently with less risk of injury. Visit our website and use the convenient online chat feature for real-time assistance from our sales engineers.

Tips to Improve Productivity at Your Hotel Locations

In the hotel industry, time is a valuable commodity for your guests, which makes it even more valuable for you. How do you maximize staff productivity to make each man-hour count?

Hotel industry cart solutions are a great way to improve efficiency. Here are five more tips to help you boost productivity at your hotel locations.

1. Promote Open Communication

It’s difficult for your staff to work together if everyone isn’t on the same page. Incorporate both real-time and virtual methods of communication, such as regular staff meetings and email messaging or even private social media groups.

2. Automate the Accounts Payable Process

One seemingly minor mistake on an invoice can lead to lost labor hours as your staff works to correct the error. An automated accounts payable system will quickly pay for itself.

3. Save the Trees

Endless paper pushing is another black hole of productivity. Today’s technology makes it easy to store documents electronically.

4. Offer Employee Incentives

Employees aren’t as invested in improved productivity as owners and management are. Offering cash or other modest incentives can build a healthy sense of competition that helps your staff internalize productivity goals.

5. Modify or Reduce Workloads

Determine the most time-consuming jobs performed by your staff and find ways to simplify them while maintaining quality.

Hotel Industry Cart Solutions from DJ Products

Our electric hotel industry carts and pullers let your staff work quickly and efficiently without sacrificing safety. Visit our website and use the convenient online chat feature to learn more about hotel industry cart solutions from our friendly sales engineers.

In-Room Gaming Focus Caters to Vacationing Online Gaming Couples

Picture a dream vacation. Do you imagine yourself playing video games in the hotel room? For dedicated fans and competitive professional gamers, it’s difficult to enjoy the same experience on the road because you can’t travel with your desktop computer and all the high-tech gaming accessories. A Taiwan hotel has the answer.

From ergonomic DXRacer gaming chairs to premium 32” monitors, the i hotel has everything that an online gaming couple or tournament group would want. Rooms feature dual setups and the lobby boasts an enormous room dedicated to gaming.

To squeeze more cash flow out of the investment, the i hotel even rents rooms hourly to gamers.

Tailored Services Boost Hospitality

At DJ Products, we follow the latest hotel trends to see what works to increase bookings, improve the guest experience, and stay profitable. Right now, it’s all about personalizing the hotel experience.

If you own or manage a hotel, you may or may not be interested in online gaming amenities, but you can certainly improve your operations with technology that benefits your staff and guests.

Our powered carts for the hospitality industry can be used to speed up housekeeping and streamline the response to maintenance requests. Along the way, your staff can get more done with less clutter involved.

Most importantly, battery powered carts for the hospitality industry reduce worker strain from pushing and pulling linens and equipment.

Looking to stay competitive while many hotels are gambling on highly niche services? Prevent injury to your best employees with the right tools. Contact DJ Products about powered carts for the hospitality industry such as our Powered Housekeeping Cart.

The Hospitality Industry Runs via a Robust Immigrant Work Force

Recent controversy about immigration policies in the United States has sounded an alarm among members of the hospitality industry. Potential regulation changes could seriously impact the robust immigrant workforce in restaurants and hotels.

How the Hospitality Industry Relies on Immigrants

According to the National Restaurant Association, nearly one-quarter of restaurant employees nationwide are immigrants. That number is even larger among chefs, where immigrants make up 45 percent of the total.

The ratio is borne out in individual states such as New Mexico, where approximately 22 percent of hospitality workers are immigrants. Numbers are even higher at some individual businesses such as the Inn of the Governors in Santa Fe, where immigrants are one-third of the hotel’s 75 employees.

“The Hardest Workers”

Cynthia Fresquez, general manager of the DoubleTree Hotel in Albuquerque, estimates that 50 percent of housekeeping workforces are comprised of immigrants. Fresquez adds that immigrants are “the hardest workers” who keep the businesses going.

That sentiment is echoed by Sam Gerberding, general manager of the Inn of the Governors. Gerberding says that immigrants are “profoundly important” because they are willing and able to perform jobs that would otherwise go unfilled.

Fernando Olea, owner and chef at Sazon, a Mexican restaurant in Santa Fe, employs a staff that is roughly 30 percent immigrants. Olea admits that he doesn’t know “how restaurants would be able to operate” without the immigrant workforce.

Lighten the Load with Battery-Powered Hotel Carts

As Cynthia Fresquez pointed out, housekeeping is the backbone of hotel operations. Visit our website to learn how you can improve staff efficiency and safety with electric hotel carts from DJ Products.

Hotels Embrace a “YOUniverse” Experience to Woo Bookings

From the lobby to the guest room, people want to feel a connection with the places they stay. What if every aspect, from the decor to experiential moments, felt utterly personalized?

If hoteliers can predict what their guests want rather than waiting for surveys and feedback, it’s much easier to get people’s attention and win their loyalty. Instead of just keeping on trend in terms of shower curtains and healthy food options, a hotel needs to be proactive about delivering the kinds of experiences that guests love, or even share on Instagram.

Data analytics can now go further than ever before to provide this kind of proactive insight. Sabre Hospitality describes the effect in its report on the “Youniverse,” which means the idea of creating a product or service tailored to various individuals’ tastes and preferences. Today’s highly connected world with big data available makes it possible to correctly predict, not guess, what your hotel customers want.

Much the way Amazon can guess what products a consumer wants, hoteliers can predict what amenities will delight a guest and make them feel a brand connection.

Staying Ahead of Hotel Trends

Though your customer demographics may vary, the biggest trends in hospitality right now center on experience, collaborative spaces, and clean design.

DJ Products makes powered carts for hotels to help automate the processes of housekeeping, supply carts, and more. By removing the task of manually pushing carts—a rigorous, repetitive injury-prone part of the day—your employees can improve the guest experience across the board.

Want to streamline services with powered carts for hotels? Browse DJ Products hospitality carts for more info!

What’s Trending in Technology for the Hospitality Industry?

With newer technology like mobile wallets changing people’s expectations in a tech-saturated world, the hospitality industry is catching up with the trends. Beyond the booking apps, hotels can use technology to radically change the way employees work and the guest experience itself.

At DJ Products, we know how to boost your staff’s productivity with powered carts for hotels. With the touch of a button, loaded housekeeping carts can roll down the hallways—protecting you from the ticking time bomb of repetitive stress injuries that lead to downtime and compensation claims.

Today, we’re rounding up hospitality tech trends including such highlights as:

Wi-Fi and Conferencing Equipment: Unless you operate a small bed-and-breakfast, it’s time to add cellular signal boosters and high-density Wi-Fi so guests and conference attendees can get reception.

Smart Check-In and Room Keys: Smartphones can now make key cards obsolete, so guests can check in online and stroll right to their rooms.

Robots: Room service, towels, and more can be delivered by robots. For a more personal touch, our powered carts for hotels can get your smiling human workers around the property faster.

Infrared Sensors: Putting an end to early morning door knocks, infrared sensors can tell staff if a room is occupied.

Smart Home Features: Reward your valued guests by letting them input preferred heating and air conditioning levels and more, integrated with smart home features that activate upon arrival.

The technology is already here for many of the new hotel amenities that people will soon expect. Get started with powered carts for hotels from DJ Products to speed up and improve hotel guest services.

Tips for Personalizing the Hotel Experience for Your Guests

Retail companies have successfully leveraged IT platforms to personalize the customer experience with actions such as suggesting purchases based on individual preferences. However, the hospitality industry is lagging behind in offering personalized service.

Bringing Personalization to the Hotel Guest Experience

Hotels have two significant roadblocks to personalizing a guest’s experience:

>Using different platforms for booking, POS, loyalty and other activities makes it difficult to efficiently capture the required data.

>Many guests book rooms through online travel agencies such as Expedia, so hotels don’t have access to email addresses unless desk clerks request them at check-in.

When Customer Service Misses the Mark

Carolyn Murphy, a marketing specialist for hospitality consulting firm Revinate, wrote about a less-than-satisfactory experience she had when checking into a hotel. The desk clerk asked Murphy if it was her first visit, despite the fact that she had stayed there twice before.

Murphy went on to add that she had posted a review of her original experience at the hotel on TripAdvisor and received a reply from the general manager. In addition, the day before Murphy’s arrival she tweeted about anticipating her visit and included the hotel’s Twitter handle.

According to a Yahoo survey, 78 percent of respondents expressed a preference for more personalized service. Giving guests a satisfying experience can pay off in more repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals.

Powered Carts for Hotels from DJ Products

Hotel guests value comfort and convenience. Our powered carts for hotels let your housekeeping staff perform their duties quickly and discreetly.

Visit our website and use our online chat feature to get assistance from one of our friendly and knowledgeable sales engineers.

Tips to Increasing Your Hotel Stay Bookings

For hotels, customer acquisition costs matter as much as how many beds are filled. Direct bookings avoid commissions of up to 25% charged by online travel agents, making these guests most desirable and profitable. How do you compete with those well-advertised travel sites, though?

To increase occupancy, especially for direct bookings, it’s all about making your hotel visible online and then capitalizing on the traffic. As Hotel News Resource explains in fuller detail, there are three key tips for increasing hotel bookings:

Take charge of SEO and social media: Pay-per-click ads can pay off if you know how much a lead is worth to you. Hotel brands can also gain traffic organically by blogging about events, posting lovely photos on Instagram, and using social media for hoteliers.
Respond to online reviews: Hotel guests, unfortunately, love to complain loudly about bad experiences. Reach out on various review sites to let other prospective guests know you care.
Make online booking easy and exciting: Use the latest web design trends to make your booking process user-friendly, and promote limited-time offers to lock down customers.

Great Guest Experiences Bring Loyalty and Word-of-Mouth

Customers value perks like early check-in, a clean lobby and hallways, and responsive customer service. At DJ Products, our powered hospitality industry carts empower your staff to do their jobs quickly, efficiently, and comfortably. The benefits include fewer worker injuries, better team morale, and faster housekeeping.

Powered hospitality industry carts like our motorized housekeeping cart may be just what your hotel brand needs to improve service, win loyalty, inspire great reviews, and generate more bookings. Contact DJ products today for more info!

Hoteliers Embrace Social Media for New Marketing Opportunities

Technology can change people’s habits, leading to changes across an entire industry. In 2015, mobile search volume surpassed desktop search. In 2016, social media advertising spending outpaced TV ad spending for the first time.

The hotel industry stands in position to embrace social media as an exciting—and in fact, necessary—means of marketing. Especially to the younger generations.

For the hotel and hospitality industry, social media marketing is especially important because it lends itself toward converting sales immediately online.

Jimmy Quach of HVS Vancouver explains some tips for hotels using social media:

• Produce quality content about experiences, food and drink, destinations

• Encourage the use of branded or event-specific hashtags, which make it easier to track engagement

• Spend on influencer marketing to get your hashtags and links in front of specific demographics

• Use social media as a customer service tool

• Combine with new mobile wallet and online payment tools for seamless bookings

Embracing Technology to Grow a Hotel Business

When used smartly, technology can help your hotel deliver a better experience to a growing customer base. Social media and mobile engagement make it easy for guests to find and book. Technology, like our powered hospitality industry carts, can also improve the guest experience.

DJ Products has a lineup of motorized equipment for housekeeping carts, supply carts, waste bin hoppers, and more. Powered hospitality industry carts let your staff work more efficiently, which improves guest comfort, reduces customer service response times, and even prevents worker injuries to keep your best staff on the clock.

Contact DJ Products today for more info about powered hospitality industry carts such as our CartCaddyLite electric cart pusher.

For Hotels – “The Times, They Are a Changing”

From the rise of Millennials to the advent of Airbnb, the last decade has seen a number of trends that have dramatically influenced the hospitality industry. Here’s a look at some of the ways hotels have been changing to meet the demands of modern times.

1. Focused Service Hotels

Hotels used to include swimming pools, fitness centers and other amenities in an effort to be all things to all people. Today there’s been a shift to focused service hotels that design their brand around the needs of specific segments such as business and conference travelers, or event hosting.

2. Decline in Surge Pricing

Hotel room pricing used to follow the fluctuations of supply and demand, rising during peak times like sporting events or conventions. Airbnb has become a viable alternative to traditional lodging, forcing hotels to be more competitive with pricing.

3. Expansion of Brands

At one time, hotels built their brand around a recognizable profile that let travelers know exactly what to expect. Now major players such as Hilton and Marriott encompass a wide range of brands to capture market share in all segments, from budget to luxury.

4. Influence of Millennials

Many hotels are integrating features and amenities to accommodate tech-savvy guests in their 20s and 30s who are prone to combine leisure with business travel.

Improve Housekeeping Efficiency with Hospitality Industry Motorized Carts

Hospitality industry motorized carts from DJ Products let your staff move heavy bundles of linens and other housekeeping supplies quickly and safely. Visit our website and chat with our sales engineers about the best solution for your applications.