For
years large hospitality brands such as Marriott and Hilton have allowed
customers to replicate a bit of the luxurious feel of their properties by
purchasing the same linens, pillows and toiletries provided in the hotels for use
in their homes.
Now Nordic
Choice Hotels, one of the largest hotel groups in Scandinavia with 200 properties,
is enhancing that concept with a pilot project dubbed "Hotellkänslan," or "Hotel Feeling" in English.
Since
October, Nordic Choice has invited a small set of members of its Nordic Choice
Club loyalty program that live near the Clarion Hotel Amaranten in Stockholm to
have housekeeping services in their homes with duvets, sheets, pillows, towels and
luxury bathroom products provided by the hotel.
Subscribe to our newsletter below
"We
have been thinking what would be the next step for our industry and what can we
do with our guests especially around loyalty," says Christian Lundén, director
of future business at Nordic Choice Hotels.
"We
realized we are spending quite a lot of time focusing on the guest nights - loyalty
in our program is built on how many nights you spend with us. But that’s a very
short time of a guest’s everyday year that we are actually in contact with
them.
"If our most frequent guests are visiting us maybe 60 days a year - that’s
a great frequent guest – what happens with the other 305 days? How can we
become a bigger part of our guest’s life in their own town and not just when
they are traveling?"
During the pilot,
Nordic Choice has partnered with a local housekeeping startup, L2Go, which is
providing an app that loyalty members use to schedule their cleanings and the
staff to do the in-home work.
Along with the
cleaning and products, subscribers earn loyalty points and receive two vouchers
for free breakfast at the hotel and discounts for meals in its restaurant.
As the "Hotel Feeling" project develops – Lunden says it has been very well-received and he’s
confident it will continue beyond the pilot – the idea is to add additional
benefits.
"We are already in
their homes so what else could we bring to our members when we are there? What
about the hotel restaurant making lunch packages that we can bring and put in
the fridge and they can have for work the coming week," Lunden says.
How can we become a bigger part of our guest’s life in their own town and not just when they are traveling?
Christian Lundén - Nordic Choice Hotels
"And then we can have
partnerships. If you want to have flowers, we can bring flowers in the
apartment. If you like to have every month new socks in the drawer, we can have
a partnership with a clothes company to bring things like that into your home. If
you are going to have a nice dinner on Friday, we can go there and prepare that
for you."
And along with bringing perks into the home, Lunden envisions adding benefits to entice guests to visit
their local Nordic Choice property, such as discounts for the spa and use of
the fitness facility and business center.
"It’s like they don’t
see the hotel when they are home – they see it as something they travel to. But
if I am a member in Nordic Choice Club, why shouldn’t I get benefits with my
membership when I’m home?" he says.
Lunden says the
long-term plan is still in development, but he expects it will expand to other
Nordic Choice properties throughout Scandinavia and that eventually the hotels
will use their own staff to do the cleaning, since that can fill gaps when the
properties are not fully booked and can ensure the services are identical to
what is provided in the hotel.
There are also
multiple sustainability benefits, says Lunden, for example if the hotel can
provide a single delivery of services that would otherwise be done by multiple
vendors it will help to reduce emissions. And allowing customers to order home
delivery of food from the hotel’s restaurants can cut down on food waste.
During the pilot, the
cost has been around $60 per visit for the basic at-home cleaning and $90 for
an enhanced service with more luxurious products. The long-term plan for
pricing is still being developed.
"We would not like to
be the cheapest one - we don’t want to compete with low margin cleaning
services that do nothing else - but we don’t want to be a luxury, not available
for the masses either," he says.
Nordic
Choice Hotels has about two million members in its loyalty program. The pilot
program has been used by about two dozen members who live near the Clarion Hotel Amaranten, but the
company has a waiting list of people from throughout Scandinavia that are
interested in participating once it expands.
Introducing the hotel feeling @home