These days there’s an app for just about anything and the hospitality industry shouldn’t ignore the wonderful functionality of an app. In terms of practicality, applications make it so much easier to enhance and streamline operations in a highly efficient manner. It sure does make things immensely convenient in light of the rise of contactless check-in and payments too. To ensure your hostel operations run like a well-oiled machine, integrating apps is definitely worth considering. Let’s look at exactly how hostels can use apps to make hostel management a seamless operation among other things –
Improve Guest Experience
Technology can now let your guest check-in, place meal orders, get in touch with staff at the property and much more on a single app. By giving guests this option, you manage to exceed their expectations. The fact that your guests can book a dorm at your hostel just with a couple of clicks on the app lets your brand make a positive impression. With an app that lets your guests check in, you’re also preventing them from waiting in a queue at the reception. To add to that, it is a great way to maintain social distance too.
We understand the impact an app can have and at goSTOPS, we’re soon to launch the goSTOPS app. The app gives guests the advantage of making contactless check-in among other things. Guests can also post about the excursions they took while staying at goSTOPS on the app to let other guests get an insight into their experience. The goSTOPS app is our way in which we’re providing our guests with an optimized booking experience. Developing your own hostel app is a solid choice as it makes things a whole lot easier for your guests.
Manage Reservations
Besides enhancing guest experience, an app can also simplify hostel operations. Updating and keeping track of guest bookings can all be automated on an app. Without any app or system, reservation can be a challenging process especially if there are many parties involved that take a commission. If you have an all-encompassing app where guests can book directly then you could reduce the degree of involvement of an intermediary.
Integrating the reservation system on your own hostel app also prevents your customer from facing technical errors that occur on other apps. This way, you retain guests lost in processing systems. You can keep things as simple as you like and have more control over reservations with your own app.
Data At Your Disposal
When you have an app managing your day-to-day operations of your hostel, you would also be able to collect a certain amount of data overtime. You’ll have a number for the number of bookings your hostel had, total revenue generated, occupancy rate, average stay length and so on. With all this information you can collate figures and make accurate predictions to enhance your hostel. The app Hotel PMS and Channel Manager by eZee Absolute do exactly that.
At goSTOPS we used eZee when we just had hostels in just 2 locations and it helped tremendously. Yes, goSTOPS and Tech go way back. When you have goals to grow your operations and open more properties for your hostel, having data at your disposal is extremely important. The allocated data from your app can prove fruitful for business development too.
Enhance Hostel And Guest Communication
Guests might want to easily stay in touch with your staff at your hostel and your app can be the place where they can drop in their questions. This way you also have a record of the type of queries that come in during a stay. You can look into whether there’s a repetitive query asked by most guests and find a way to communicate better on that front.
Hostels can use apps to also communicate with guests, and not just the other way around. If your hostel has a room available for early check-in, this information can be communicated via the app to your guests. If your hostel is organizing a trek or a walking tour, these details can also be shared via the app. Use apps to give an intimation to guests on running offers, a heads up on upcoming events or even when you just sanitized their room.
When guests are on the go, a text intimation from an app to which they receive fast responses can be just excellent. You can respond to short messages like ‘Where is my order?’ ‘Where can I rent a bicycle?’ ‘How much does laundry cost?’ and more. Many smartphone users prefer to text these questions rather than call. To add to that, according to Twilio, 89% of consumers prefer messaging businesses and India ranks 2nd for preference of messaging. If customers would rather text you, they should most certainly have an option to do that. A chat box is a feature that should be integrated into your hostel app for this purpose.
Run A Guest Loyalty Program Efficiently With The App
Hostels can also use apps to grow the number of repeat guests. When your hostel has an app, your guests are most likely going to rely on you for their stay because the app is right there on their mobile device. You can also consider introducing loyalty programs by letting guests get certain points for staying again and then redeeming them for added benefits. This increases the likelihood of your guest making your hostel the preferred choice. At goSTOPS, we’ve introduced the Dream.Invest.Travel Membership that encourages guests to travel with us again. Both memberships and loyalty programs within an app are great ways to get more repeat customers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, hostels shouldn’t hold back from using apps for their business. It is guaranteed to make day-to-day operations, revenue management, and payments much more optimized. It also streamlines things for your guests in more than one way as we’ve seen. Automation and technology is an emerging trend in the hospitality industry. All in all, it is time to integrate it as the industry heads to recovery.
