| The sector is now as automated as any other when it comes to PoS and payment solutions and is also looking to more innovative technologies to meet the demands of today’s consumers. Self-service, kiosks, digital screens, mobile systems, integrated multi-channel...the
list of innovative consumer-facing IT solutions found in-store today is familiar
to any retailer. For those in the hospitality and leisure sector, it is also much the
same. A few years ago, restaurants, fast food outlets, heritage sites, and assorted ‘leisure’ operations were dominated by ageing technology – that is, if they had actually progressed beyond manual operations.
Today it is very different: wireless payment terminals are standard in any restaurant that expects diners to pay by card; integrated kitchen systems are steadily replacing those slips of paper detailing orders; and - when it comes to fast food – self-ordering kiosks are on the increase. Looking ahead, fast food is also seen as a prime target for payment systems based on near field communications (NFC) – the ‘pay by phone’ concept – while m-commerce is also set to dominate for event ticketing and promotions. “Today’s generation is a generation on the move,” says Clyde Dishman, director of hospitality industry marketing at NCR. “Speed and convenience are thus paramount for the long-term success of any application.”
Dishman sees mobility, web-based operations and contactless payments as key growth areas for the hospitality sector over the next few years. “NFC will enable mobile phones to act as e-wallets,” he says. “Add the phone’s global positioning system and you can remotely place orders to the nearest outlet. We’re already seeing in the hotel sector that the more self-service is made part of the normal experience the more guests will embrace it.”
In the US, self-check-out kiosks in hotels are commonplace with typically more than a third of guests using the devices; in some cases the same kiosk also doubles as a check-in terminal for nearby airports. At the Holiday Inn in Dulith, Georgia, for example, around a fifth of guests check-out and check-in at the same time: “They just print out their boarding passes,” says Mark Snyder, senior vice president of brand management at Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts in the Americas. “And the system is most popular with business travellers during weekdays.”
In the fast food sector, self-ordering kiosks have been variously piloted over the past few years with major chains like McDonald’s and Subway testing out the technology. Roll-outs have tended to be slow, but Francie Mendelsohn, president at Summit Research Associates and a key analyst in the kiosk space, believes that could be set to change: “We’re seeing a boom in the use of interactive kiosks in the US generally with high levels of consumer acceptance and fast food is an obvious growth area,”
she says.
Recent installations include a food ordering system from Sheetz – a petrol forecourt and fast food chain with 350 outlets on the East Coast – which puts kiosks at petrol pumps so that customers can order their food while filling the tank and then collect their takeaway meal when they pay for both food and petrol in-store. The kiosks are typically being used by around 200-300 customers a day. In
recent months, Subway has also started focusing on kiosks once more and more pilots seem likely.
As well as kiosks, use of digital signage is widespread with a key benefit being time-of-day updates in service offerings. At Canary Wharf in London, Waitrose Food and Home is using digital signs to display the changing menus at its various food bars – Steak and Oyster, Juice Bar, Salad Bar etc. The system was developed and is hosted by Pierhouse: “We use a mobile phone GPRS connection,” says Geoff Clifton, business development director at Pierhouse. “So we can quickly change the menus as required during the day – the brunch menu, for example, is offered until 11am and then we move on to lunch.”
The digital signs have been in place for some years but updating by telephone was introduced just after Christmas 2007; simple text messages are involved so there is no need for a broadband connection to the screens and no dependence on staff to remember to change menu cards at the appointed time.
Similarly centrally managed digital displays are also appearing at 62 Vue cinemas nationally, using Sony screens and Ziris software. The digital screens replace ‘menu boards’, used to show prices and promotional material, and allow far greater flexibility for showing cinema- or zone-specific material. “We needed to add versatility and advertise what, when and where we wanted,” says Vue’s IT manager and project co-ordinator, Vinay Dave. “The system means that we can chop and change and do what we like whenever we want. We can close box office zones during quiet periods and operate all ticketing and retail from a single point or we can deliver increased promotional activity or schedule information to
any screen in peak periods – all on a daily basis.”
The mobile area
It is in the mobile area that hospitality and leisure companies have been especially innovative. The sector was an early adopter of SMS marketing, sending ‘happy hour’ offers by text for more than a decade. Given that the target market for many clubs and leisure centres are the tech-savvy under-25s, then it is hardly surprising that it is an area for continued innovation. One recent project, for example, involves widgets which Facebook users can add to their pages allowing friends to ‘buy them a drink’ remotely when it is their birthday.
Huetouch, which specialises in bluetooth proximity marketing, is taking this form of marketing to new levels. Its portable Huetouch Go system beams promotional messages to mobile phones within a 10 m radius area using bluetooth technology. Phone owners can choose to accept or decline a beamed message but once accepted then further SMS messages will arrive in the inbox whenever the phone owner is close to the Huetouch transmitter. “Cinemas are big business for us,” says managing director, Nicholas Maguire. “And we’re also seeing growing interest from leisure centres.”
Such centres are setting up their Huetouch Go devices, loaded in the back of a car, in an area where their target customers are likely to be congregating: such as a Tesco car park around 9am where young mums, doing a morning supermarket hit after dropping toddlers off at play school, are likely to be found. Appropriate messages – about children’s activities or pilates groups during school hours – can thus be beamed to potentially interested and relevant consumers.
Mobile ticketing, too, is on the increase with many younger consumers preferring to display a barcode on their phone than worry about printed paper. “Over the past six months we’ve moved from early adopters to this being a mainstream way to do business,” says Don Cameron, sales and marketing director at Mobiqa – a specialist in both mobile ticketing and promotional SMS. “The mobile option is now regularly offered along with post, print at home, or whatever as a delivery method for online ticket purchase. Everyone we’re talking to about selling on the web and delivering to the phone is looking at WAP or SMS for payments.”
Hospitality and leisure may once have been the Cinderella of the retail IT world, but companies in this sector are now well up to speed with the demands of their high-tech customers.
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