The Dutch hotel industry has had a successful year, with the number of bookings likely to continue rising. This is great news for hotels but also means increased pressure on your front office. How can you relieve your reception staff, giving them more time to provide guests with the best possible experience?
Challenges in the hotel sector
Parking is Difficult
Reading through reviews often reveals a troubling conclusion: parking issues significantly detract from the guest experience. Parking can be challenging, especially when guests have to go to reception to request a parking pass or provide their car registration details. You may have experienced this yourself. At Toogethr, we often hear that these challenges do not contribute to a good guest experience.
Overburdened Front Office
Conversely, the front office spends a lot of time manually managing this process. Registering details in Excel or other spreadsheets is time-consuming, often unclear, and does not contribute to good hospitality. In some cases, multiple hotels share one car park. If one hotel manages the Excel sheet while others submit their reservations, it is not only error-prone and labour-intensive but also unnecessarily cumbersome.
Negative Parking Reviews
Guests also avoid hotels with poor (parking) reviews. Research from Tripadvisor shows that 20% of guests read more than 11 reviews before making a decision. It is therefore crucial that these reviews are positive.
The solution? Automation
What can you do as a hotel to tackle these challenges? The answer is simple: automate your car park. With a smart parking solution, you streamline the entire parking process from arrival to departure.
Guests book a parking space in advance
Using Toogethr’s Smart Parking software, guests can book a parking space in advance when making their reservation. They provide their car registration number during booking. Upon arrival, the number plate is scanned, allowing the guest to drive straight in. No more hassle with intercoms or parking passes at reception. Who wouldn’t want that?
No more manual work for your front office
By automating the parking process, your front office no longer needs to perform manual tasks. Reservations are tracked in the platform, and with number plate recognition, there is no need to distribute passes. Research among our clients shows that an automated parking process can even save up to 8 hours per week.
Insight into your parking data
Smart parking software also provides insights into your parking data. This includes peak times and no-shows. Using this data, you can open up empty parking spaces to people who need them, generating extra revenue.
Generating extra revenue
Open parking spaces for short-term parkers
How can you open up those empty spaces for short-term parkers? With Toogethr Smart Parking’s EasyPark module, it’s a breeze. Visitors can find, park, and pay for your parking spaces via the EasyPark app. When the number plate is recognised, the barrier opens automatically. The parking transaction stops automatically when leaving the car park, with payment processed via the app. Curious how much you can earn from your empty spaces? Use our calculator to find out.
How a hotel in austria solved parking challenges with Toogethr
For hotel owner Alexander Youssef of Hotel NILS am See, Toogethr proved to be the perfect solution. NILS am See aims to provide guests with an optimal experience, including the car park.
Challenges such as optimising parking space and improving the entry experience were solved with Toogethr. "We create an oasis of tranquillity, surrounded by nature and modern design. A seamless parking experience is part of that," he explains. "With Toogethr, we synchronise reservations with parking logistics, giving us a blueprint for improved automation and optimised use of parking space." This solution not only enhances the entry experience for guests but also provides the hotel with a clear overview of parking space availability.
Hotel NILS am See, located on the shores of Lake Neusiedl in Austria, is a sophisticated boutique hotel striving to offer the ultimate guest experience, including smart technological solutions.
Parking made easy
With Toogethr Smart Parking, your guests can easily reserve a parking space, allowing your front office to focus on what truly matters: helping your guests.
Would you like to save your front office 8 hours a week and provide the best guest experience? Toogethr helps you tackle parking challenges with a simple, all-in-one parking solution. Discover everything about Smart Parking for hotels. What are you waiting for?
