Don’t miss: Don’t make these mistakes in San Francisco!
InterContinental Hotels Group’s new guest technology is smartphone-based. (Image: InterContinental Hotels Group)
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is the latest lodging giant to start rolling out the next generation of technology-based guest services, much of it designed to work with customers’ smartphones, and one intriguing innovation — a language translator — that works with the Apple Watch.
The company said its IHG Translator App will translate a spoken English phrase into any of 13 other languages, or users can select from a menu of common phrases that are pre-loaded into the software.
A translation app works with the Apple Watch. (Image: InterContinental Hotels Group)
Other innovations coming from IHG include:
- Mobile Check In and Check Out, including confirmation of arrival time and notification by SMS when a guest’s room is ready. It is currently being deployed in the Americas region, and U.S.-based IHG Rewards Club elite members “will have exclusive access to the service in the first instance,” the company said.
- An extension of the check-in, check-out service is the new Mobile Folio, which lets guests see their hotel bill in real time on their phone or tablet; they get the final bill during Mobile Check Out.
- Mobile Room Keys — currently being tested in the U.S. — will let guests bypass the front desk upon arrival and go directly to their assigned room, using a smartphone to open the door.
- With IHG Guest Request, customers can use the IHG App to ask hotel staff for a variety of special services or items for their rooms; the app logs and tracks all requests to make sure they get a response.
- IHG hotels in China are the testing ground for iBeacon technology. This involves planting little devices in lobbies and hotel restaurants that recognize IHG Rewards Club members by detecting the IHG App in their phones. “They then send information to the guest’s smartphone, including personalized notifications and offers relevant to their stay,” the company said.
- The company is teaming up with Stay.com so that guests who book IHG properties in any of 50 worldwide destinations will be able to research and download personalized travel guides, for use online or offline. The linkup with Stay.com begins June 25.
NOTE: Be sure to click here to see all recent TravelSkills posts about: Free airport parking? + Fastest airlines + CLEAR goes cardless + Cool gasoline price heat map + More!
These watch apps have a ways to go. I was in a Marriott property a few days ago, and thought “I’ll be ultra-cool and check out on my watch!”. Alas, the Marriott app had been logged out (I think because of an update to the app on my phone), and so I would have had to log back into the Marriott app on the phone to then check out on my watch.
I just picked up the phone, pressed 0, and told them I was leaving. It works every time…