One of the frustrating moments of checking in to a hotel is exactly that – checking in. After a long, tiring flight you do not want to wait in line to be served. Hilton is about to change that. Just like an airline allows you to select your seat, by the end of this year more than 4,000 Hilton Worldwide properties in 80+ countries will allow you to select your hotel room and order amenities via your smartphone or laptop. And from next year you can use your smartphone as a key to enter the room in selected Hilton hotels.
So, now you can stay in a room away from the elevators and also avoid the long walk to the end of the corridor.
Here is how the system will work. Once a room is booked, the process for guests to manage their stay is simple:
Room selection: At 6 a.m. the day before a booked stay, Hilton HHonors members can sign into their account via their mobile device, tablet or computer to check-in and choose their preferred room through floor plan maps or lists populated from the hotel’s available inventory. Photos of rooms are also available to help with their selection. Hilton’s digital lobby function is updated in real-time, so guests no longer have to wait until they are physically in the hotel lobby to be assigned a room.
Special requests: After choosing a room, guests can further customize their stay at full-service hotels by purchasing upgrades and requesting specific amenities to be delivered to their room before arrival.
Room key: Next year, Hilton will begin to equip its hotel rooms with the technology for doors to be unlocked with guests’ smartphones, enabling them to go straight to their rooms upon arrival. For now, once they arrive at a hotel, guests simply pick up their room key from the front desk, a streamlined process since the guest’s payment information and other details are already verified through their Hilton HHonors account prior to arrival.
Check-out: Guests can bypass the front desk upon departure as their bill will be automatically sent to their email address.
