What is the future hotel like? The robot leads the way and the customer opens the door, which may be an explanation given by the Flyzoo Hotel.
Whether it is the late Alibaba, or the predecessor Netease’s strict selection and Ctrip, these distinctive hotel industry cross-borders are doing a “small and beautiful” breakthrough test in their respective areas…
Avant-garde Ali
“Technology” is the key word for Ali Future Hotel.
Near the “Double Eleven”, Ali announced that its hotel brand, which has been quiet for more than two years, will be officially unveiled in Hangzhou. According to industry and commerce information, Zhejiang Future Hotel Network Technology Co., Ltd. was registered and established in May 2016. It is a joint venture between Feizhu (also known as Ali Travel), BTG Hotel Group and Shiji Information. It is the Ali Hotel Project. Trader.
Prior to this, Li Shaohua, former president of Feifei, said that the traditional hotel industry needs transformation and upgrading. To this end, the three parties in the process of research and development of hotel products, tried a lot of Internet technology integration, such as face recognition, digital management, fast payment, etc., and conducted experiments in individual hotels.
The “Future Hotel” version 1.0 is mainly through “credit residence” to achieve a deposit-free, free-to-check room and queuing-free user experience. Version 2.0 is superimposed with online selection, smart door locks, and self-checking. “The overall idea is to help the hotel carry out a single point of data transformation and optimize the user experience.” Wang Qun, CEO of Ali Future Hotel, said.
Philippine Living Thirst is the 3.0 version of “Future Hotel”, which includes “black technology” including intelligent robot service, guest identification based on the full scene of the hotel, no touch-to-door control, and no-induction ladder control.
The landing of the hotel project also fits the concept of Ma Yun’s “new retail”, which is to empower the offline products through online technology. The person in charge of the Flying Pig Public Relations Department told the reporter that “Filipino Life” is almost able to achieve full-machine service through the intelligent products in the Ali system, and at the same time become a concentrated display scene of new retail.
Despite this, the hotel still has a lot of doubts about the future. For the “robot service”, some people think that the service under the “unmanned scene” will make guests feel the emotional experience of staying in the hotel.
To this end, the head of the Flying Pig Public Relations Department explained that Ali Future Hotel is not exactly like “unmanned supermarket”. The hotel lobby has service ambassadors that can help residents solve problems that cannot be replaced by robots and systems, or give some unwanted use. Smart guest service. “Intelligent systems and service robots aim to eliminate simple and repetitive labor, improve the overall efficiency of hotel services, and bring some technological benefits to consumers. The real service that can promote tourism iteration is the practical service, including the service consciousness of people in the hotel scene. The service level has been upgraded in an all-round way, and always insists on putting people first.” Wang Qun said that artificial intelligence is not a panacea, but no one can’t do it. Artificial intelligence is only one aspect of hotels used to improve service efficiency.
On October 17 this year, Alibaba CEO Zhang Yong said that he would integrate the efforts of the whole group to create an ecosystem of travel industry. It is reported that the research and development of this product is divided into experience links, hotel design, big data underlying services, intelligent robots and AI systems, E-Commerce and other links. Among them, Flying Pig, Dharma Institute, Alibaba Cloud, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (A.I. Labs), Tmall and other departments are involved in the development of the hotel.
In addition to some eye-catching designs, Wang Qun believes that the future hotel will improve the different pain points of the traditional hotel model. For example, the digital operation platform mainly solves the problem of data dispersion in various departments of traditional hotels and the historical difficulty of dynamic revenue management. By integrating data from business units such as rooms, sales, catering, marketing, and revenue, on the one hand, it can reduce the number of employees in the frontline, finance and other second-line functional departments, and improve the efficiency ratio; on the other hand, it can predict future inventory and sales through historical data. The trend automatically matches the energy consumption required on the day and reduces the energy consumption ratio.
The AI Intelligent Service Hub can directly link customer needs directly to various departments and save front-end customer service costs. It can also form a demand database for optimizing and adjusting the operational indicators of response. The “Hotel Stud” digital management system, on the one hand, continues the internal office function of the nail, and at the same time accesses the intelligent data monitoring platform, which can identify non-workers in the work area and trigger early warning, as well as monitoring personnel in the preset area. Absence of the situation, improve the efficiency and safety of hotel operations.
Wang Qun said that through the improvement of the hotel management platform system capacity, the future hotel’s efficiency ratio is 1.5 times that of traditional hotels of the same grade and size. Through this digital and intelligent solution for the entire hotel system, Alibaba is putting the brain on the hotel. This is exactly the same new attempt by Alibaba to emphasize the enabling industry. In the future, these accumulated capabilities will be able to be transferred to other companies in the hospitality industry.
Ctrip with its own hotel gene
“Dataification” is the key word for Ctrip’s cross-border hotel.
On October 9, 2018, Ctrip officially announced the establishment of its own hotel brand “Li Cheng”. According to the official information of Ctrip, Licheng Hotel will be divided into three brands according to different positionings, namely “Licheng Huating Hotel”, which is positioned as an ultra-high-end hotel, “Lize Hotel”, which is positioned as a high-end full-service hotel, and a high-end special hotel. The brand’s “Li Cheng Rui Xuan Hotel”. It is estimated that more than 50 hotels will join Licheng at the end of this year, reaching 250 next year and more than 500 in the following year.
Li Cheng Hotel COO Sun Gang introduced that Licheng Hotel is neither a traditional hotel management company nor a self-owned hotel group. The operating logic of Licheng Hotel is to look at major data operations, provide data support to the participating brands, improve user management through user data analysis, including optimizing hotel hardware facilities and service details, and relying on its own membership system and marketing system. , integrate resources and enhance the hotel’s customer base.
Brand technical service fees and brand usage fees will be the two major sources of revenue for Li Cheng, including marketing support and data support.
The largest amount of travel data in the country is Ctrip’s confidence. On November 8, Ctrip CEO Sun Jie said in a conference call: “From the transaction dimension, only Ctrip and Qunar are having 130 million annual trading users in China. These users are on average on our platform every year. Consumption exceeds RMB 5,000, and users under the age of 29 account for more than 50%.” “In China’s hotel market, the branding advantages of high-end and economic two-headed are very obvious. Chain-type budget hotels are gradually replacing low-priced ones. The brand separation of single-hotel hotels and chain-based hotels is basically clear; and the market of high-end hotels, in addition to many foreign and domestic large groups, still has a lot of room for growth.” Li Cheng Hotel project leader told the Economic Observer reporter.
The person in charge also said that at present, there is no hotel management company of the same type as Licheng. Licheng adopts the model of “franchise management + direct store”, which is subject to major data operations, provides data support for hotel management, and promotes hotel product marketing in membership system and channel system, and improves operational efficiency through scene operation. And to achieve cross-platform resource sharing, and ultimately improve hotel revenue. Through this kind of thinking, not only the hotel’s customer acquisition method, but also the efficient operation method to solve the customer’s needs, these are not only realized by a concept of technology packaging.
On November 8, Ctrip released its third quarter earnings report for 2018. According to the financial report, Ctrip’s net revenue for the third quarter was 9.4 billion yuan, up 15% year-on-year, and its operating margin was 16%. Among them, accommodation contributed 3.6 billion yuan, and the Licheng brand is the new business segment under the Ctrip residential business group.
Netease’s pursuit of IP
Compared with Ctrip, which owns the flying pig’s Ali and founding genes, Ctrip, which is the self-operated E-Commerce brand of life, is the first of the three to launch a hotel brand, and “integration” has become a hotel of choice. Key words.
In August 2017, NetEase selected Yandu, a mid-end hotel brand that has grown rapidly in the past two years, and launched the new space concept of “Ado·Netease Strictly Selected Hotel”, which is a “use-to-buy” scene. Business hotel. At that time, the price of the hotel was strictly selected from 599 yuan to 1186 yuan, and was adjusted in the future.
This cooperation opened the first place for Netease’s strict selection and cross-border cooperation with residential brands. It is also the third IP-themed hotel of Atour Hotel after the Yaduo Hotel and THE DRAMA. Established in 2013, Yaduo has been advocating a literary and leisure lifestyle and is keen on cross-border cooperation to create IP. As of May 6, 2018, ado has opened 185 companies across the country, covering 121 cities. On August 6, 2018, Atto officially announced the opening of the AT-LAB (Atour Lab) strategy, together with Tencent to launch the first smart experience room.