Nowadays, people are travelling from place to place and according to the statistic the numbers of national and international tourists are increasing every year. (Marcelo Risi, 2010). Also travelers are willing to spend more money in order to save time by looking for the quickest and most comfortable way like as: using new technology, booking online, new types of transportation, GPS, etc. (DiRamio, 2008).
When travelers reach the destination point (the hotel), they will always need their rooms as fast as possible and if they don’t get it on time this can affect the first impression about the hotel property.In order to avoid the risk of making wrong first impression and to reduce check-in time, and also by following some of above perception and trends we decided to introduce “The Client Information System” (CIS). This is a webpage system where every traveler can create their own account, providing all their information, such as personal data, passport copy, contact information, etc. also by implementing small touch screen on every hotel receptions, where the guest has to fill his user name and password and the system immediately link their CIS profile to their reservation in the hotel.1.
How does the CIS work? This idea is combined LogBook with Personal Information System and will be published in a Webpage system. The CIS will work as a blog that only users can open, edit and close their account, however, users can invite their friends to visit their profile and view with their permission the information it contains. Furthermore, when clients create an account in the CIS, they will have an identification number (ID) with password such as when people sign up a mail account or social network such as Yahoo, Gmail, Facebook, etc. After that, clients will create their own information.In the web page, they will be asked to provide some information such as: Name, addresses, day of birth, gender, picture, preferences, VISA number, bank account, passport number, room preferences, diet, etc. clients can add or edit their information anytime.
The CIS can work by two ways. Firstly, it can link user’s information to a reservation (hotel room, airline ticket, etc) website such as: ebooking.com, hotels.com, booking.
com, quatarairways.com, expedia.com etc. After clients have already chosen their room preferences or ticket, they need to type their personal information with many steps (Appendix 1, 2).However, when clients have an account in the CIS, these steps can be reduced quickly and safe. While clients add their information, the reservation website will ask them if they want to link their information through CIS account.
(Appendix 3) than they just click to the CIS icon and choose which information they want to share. Finally, all information which has been accepted by clients will automatically send to reservation website and clients can go to the next step to finish their reservation.The second way will be when clients go to a hotel where they don’t have reservation yet, they still need to provide their personal information. But they can reduce time by only one simple step. First, the hotel should provide the services of the CIS, then clients log in their account and they choose which information category they want to share, immediately, all information will automatically be linked to the reservation system of the hotel.
"If the guest typically orders room service shortly after checking into their room, then you can proactively suggest—or offer—the in-room dining specials for that day, even take their order at the front desk to shorten the waiting time for dinner" says Bill Frizzell, the industry technology strategist for the Microsoft Worldwide Hospitality Team (Bill Frizzell, 2010). "This has been a long sought-after capability for the industry," he adds. "Defining a single view of the guest, without duplicate stores of information, is the key to understanding their habits, trends, and behaviors."2. Application The CIS can be a helpful application for family, school, personal use, leisure centre, etc. especially in hotel and airline industry.
With regards to users - family, individual or school, they can use the CIS to control and arrange their personal information also within the social networks such as: Facebook, Flick, Twitter, etc. Users could be also hotels and airlines; they can use this application for their reservation system to improve their customer’s service quality and also to reduce check-in time.3. New trend in hospitality industry There are many industries such as: airline, hospitality, transportation, etc. which are closely associated with other industries offering services to people that are also receiving benefit from this innovation.
Tourism industry is a fast developing sector for the economy worldwide. Tourism industry’s trends also suggest that as many as 200 million people are engaged worldwide in the tourism industry (Tourism industry trend, 2007).The changing profile and dynamics of English tourism featuring new trends and tourism patterns over the past decade has led to the marketplace experiencing increased occupancy rates and hotel usage (ETC, 2001). These changing patterns of customer activity have been influenced by changes in their traditional profiles and show them to be more knowledgeable, more product aware and demanding better value for money (Henley Centre, 1996). Industry operators have responded to this through an increased focus on the provision of customer service and benchmarking its products and services (BHA/Scher, 2000).
Hotel operations during this period have also seen significant changes in the role and influence of technology (Henley Centre/ JHIC, 1996) with the growing use of more sophisticated communications and integrated administration packages from specialist providers. Usually no more than 20 questions at check-in – remember all those question when you pick up room key, such as, what kind of newspaper do you prefer? Would you like a poolside or Oceanside room? etc. Asking such questions make guests get tired of answering them (Bill Frizzell, 2010).The main disadvantage of the system has to be taken under consideration as well, that if someone finds out your password, this can lead to fraud or identity theft. That’s why users have to be aware that they need to share only the information requested. On the other hand a way has to be found to educate employees, customers, and constituents how to protect their personal information, what information to give and to whom.
According to the motto of Microsoft about fraud prevention they said “Crime follows crowds, and as people have moved online, criminals have too.To protect yourself, it's a good idea to create strong passwords and keep them secret, to know what identity theft looks like and how to prevent it, and what to look for in online financial transaction sites.“ (microsoft.com, 2010) According to Swapna Sanand (2009): “The guests of 2009 are predicted to be extremely particular about being engaged and taken care of.
They don’t care about hotel policies, timings, procedures or rules.They want to be given the service that they want, whenever they want it and whenever it suits them to feel pampered, well taken care of and comfortable” Hospitality industry has recognized the importance of customers care and there has been a subsequent increase in focus by operators on its improvement. These issues have led to the setting of standard procedures and benchmarks for the different functions and services of front office.4. Function The CIS can be variable depend on the purposes of using.
For example: regarding to users are individuals, they can use it as a personal information web pages like as social networks; users are group, family, school, etc. they can share and see others’ information; especially in hotels, airlines, leisure centre, they can use this application like a small tool for their property management system (PMS), using this application they can maximize profit of front office operations, increase guests satisfaction level, reduce time to check-in, improve customers’ impression, accuracy, efficiency, improve security, also ease of use, avoiding mistakes in personal data records, etc. (Chris Doolan, 1999).MethodologyIt is well known that amenities in hotel properties are a key driving engine to attract customers. (Hong J.
(2010)). Small details make a big difference. People are willing to spend more money in order to safe time. With the CIS we would like not only to benefit the hotel property by making it more attractive within the guests but also benefit customers and reduce the risk of giving the guests first bad impression about the hotel property. The research involves statistics and quantitative data in order to prove the implementation of this product will be success on the market, therefore to present this innovation to the hospitality industry we decided to adopt the positivist’s point of view as research philosophy.We will be working with an observable social reality and the end product will be low-like generalizations similar to those produced by the natural scientist (Saunders et al, 2009 p.
113). The research approach will be deductive – we will develop a hypothesis by theory, than test the hypothesis and prove that the idea of CIS is feasible. By doing a survey as research strategy, within random travelers, hotel guests and front office staff, we will find helpful information to reach our aim. We decide doing a survey because of its uniqueness – it allows you to gather information that is not available from other sources.
As well because of the probability sampling of the survey which allows us to get unbiased representation of populations interest. Our sample will be 100 people, because it is big amount of people and that will increase the validity and reliability on the data. By using surveys data, we will compliment existing data from secondary sources with our primary data collected from the research. Other advantages of using a survey are that we need generally lower cost to do it, it can be administered by smaller team of people and by a survey we can access to otherwise difficult to locate, busy populations.
(Owens L. (2002)).The data collection method used within the research will be structured questionnaire (look Appendix 4) and structured interviews, which will provide us quantitative data, that will help us, prove that the idea of CIS for national and international travelers and hotel guests is feasible. The data is going to be collected at one point in time from a sample selected to represent a larger population, that’s why the cross-sectional time horizon makes sense.
We are going to use the sample of 100 people because it is not practical to survey every single customer, but the larger the sample, the more likely it is that the sample reflects the characteristic of interest in the target population (Pagano, M., and Gauvreau, K. (2000)).To get clear information, we will do primary research, where we are going to have an interview and a questionnaire within hotel employees, hotel guests and random travelers to get their opinion about this new service, which we are going to implement within the hospitality industry.
The questionnaire will be promoted within hotel guests and random travelers at the airport, asking them close-ended questions such as, what do they think is the most important during a trip, how much you are willing to pay in order to save time, what annoys them the most while check-in in a hotel and also we are going to conduct their loyalty level towards hotels.By doing a questionnaire the responses are gathered in a standardised way and therefore relatively easy to analyze, and questionnaires are more objective. It is quick to collect information and it is possible to compare your results with similar surveys used in other hotels. As well respondents can answer anonymously which may produce more honest answers.
(Study Resources of Bolton University (2000).)Because hotel managers are usually very busy people, we will hold with them structured interview in 3 five star hotels in Switzerland - Fairmont Le Montreux Palace, Royal Plaza Montreux ; Spa, Grand Hotel du Lac in Vevey - where we are going to read out each question from the questionnaire and then record the response on a standardised schedule, asking them the questions from our survey in order to get their opinion about this new service. The researchers are going also to provide them preliminary explanations about the purpose of the survey.We choose only 5 star hotels because they usually care more about new innovations in their properties and because our target in the research is first to promote the idea within 5 star hotels.
This is why, luxury hotels usually care more about amenities and services, and they would like to provide the highest level of comfort for their guests, where we come across our objectives – to benefit guests and hotel properties.
