Eugene Jones, CEO Although contactless payment and ordering has been on the rise for a long time, the grave impact of Coronavirus has intensified the need for the same, especially in the hospitality industry. For hotels and restaurants that keep operations in-house, the longstanding struggle to manage food and beverage (F&B) operations profitably has further worsened due to the pandemic. While digital ordering platforms, such as Uber Eats, and Grubhub, offer one of the safest ways to serve guests, these third party delivery services essentially slash profit margins for hotel restaurants and kitchens by charging around 20-36 percent of the listed prices for delivery/pick-up. With a mission to digitalize hotel ecosystems and boost revenue through F&B operations, RoomOrders has introduced a web-based application that allows guests to order food and beverage seamlessly and utilize a hotel’s on premise facilities like poolside deckchairs, rooftop bars as well as surrounding cafes, and eateries. Users can access the application on their smartphone, tablet, or laptop.
RoomOrders brings hospitality into the “Low Touch Economy” by providing customers with a cloud-based menu and digitalizing orders and payments of goods and services.
"In-room dining service is a loss-leader for the hospitality industry. We believe that hotels can transform this area by offering the customers a cloud-based menu"
This not only drives revenue growth for hotels but also improves the customer experience.
“We provide hotels, restaurants, and resorts with an easy and visually appealing way to digitalize their services,” mentions Eugene Jones, CEO of RoomOrders. The company offers its digital menus—RoomOrders CLICK and RoomOrders SERVE—to hotels, restaurants, cafes, and bars. While CLICK enables guests to self-serve using their smartphones, SERVE allows waiters to handle orders through their smart devices. As RoomOrders is web-based, guests can scan QR codes or tap NFC tags on tabletops to view the digital menus and place an order with a few clicks, without downloading any application. With a keen focus on quality, the company enables users to provide their feedback and rate services through the platform. The feedback is sent directly to the hotel in real-time, which makes it easier for staff to modify or improve their services instantly.
Notably, RoomOrders interconnects a hotel with its on-site facilities and ecosystem of ancillary and auxiliary assets—such as kitchens, restaurants, gift shops, golf courses, camping grounds, rooftops, pool-sides, and marinas. In essence, the company helps hotels leverage their real-state by interconnecting their digital ecosystem of ancillary and auxiliary assets.
“We also enable hotels to digitally connect their guests with surrounding vendors, from restaurants to fresh food markets, pharmacies, beauty and wellness, dry cleaners, casinos, and tourist attractions,” Jones adds. Since frequent visits by delivery partners can be a hassle for many hotels, RoomOrders also allows hotel managers to establish security protocols for the delivery crew entering and exiting the hotels.
With such robust services, RoomOrders caters to an extensive array of hotels and resorts, from Brisbane to Boston, Belgrade, and Barcelona, which include renowned brands like Radisson, Marriott, Sheraton, Hilton, and more. To illustrate the benefits that RoomOrders delivers to its clients, Jones reveals that with their platform, hotels and restaurants witness over 30-50 percent increase in their average check. For Hilton Sydney, the results were outstanding, increasing to almost 123 percent in one instance. This is possible because RoomOrders equips its clients with up-selling opportunities, whereby they can present their guests with visually-lucrative and expensive items on their menu along with different appetizers, wines, or desserts, which they are prompted to order while using the platform.
Moving ahead, the company plans to strengthen its focus on data to provide even more personalized services to users. “With our solution, we empower hotels to provide guests with the best digitalized experience while accessing various services within the hotel environment and community,” says Jones.
“Health and safety of our guests is paramount to Hapimag all over the world, and the introduction of RoomOrders is just one of the ways we intend to reassure guests that we care about their wellbeing and are doing everything that we can to improve their experience,” said Hassan Kadbi, CEO of Hapimag.
“Reducing contact with people, objects and surfaces in our food and beverage outlets is a keyway to reducing risks for both our guests and our staff,” he added.
RoomOrders is an ordering and payment platform in the cloud that allows guests contactless ordering of food and beverages in hotels, restaurants, bars, and cafes, whether they are in lobbies, poolside deckchairs or rooftops, using their own smart devices.
The innovative concept will put Hapimag among the first hotel groups in the world to digitally interconnect their hotel premises with surrounding vendors like restaurants, gift shops and supermarkets.
There is no capital investment, the solution can be up and running in three days and there is no downloading of pesky apps. Just scan a QR code or tap an NFC chip. Simple as that.
Hapimag kicks off with RoomOrders at Damnoni on Crete, as well as Porto Heli and Athens in Greece this week, to be followed within days by Cavallino in Italy, Marbella in Spain, Interlaken in Switzerland, Winterberg in Germany and Edinburgh in Scotland
RoomOrders is used in leading hospitality brands across the world, from Hilton, Marriott and Accor to Gleneagle, Archer and Rotana, in cities from Boston to Brisbane, Belgrade and Barcelona.
The coronavirus has had a major impact on hospitality providers, with many forced to close completely in nationwide lockdowns.
Many surveys indicate that one of the first things people want to do emerging from weeks or even months of seclusion is to go and dine with friends. Hoteliers have resisted digitalisation fearing it would remove a key ingredient of hospitality - ‘human touch.’ However, low-touch technology is now not only becoming an interesting idea, but a necessity.
In fact, in many countries it is being regulated and made mandatory.
“It appears the ‘low touch’ economy is becoming the new normal,” said Nikolaos Berkakis, Resort Manager in Damnoni. “We want our guests to know that we have their best interests at heart and that their experience will continue to be wonderful.”