AntSol Travel

Featured Image: Virdee’s booth at the Hospitality Show exhibit hall, featuring one of their front desk kiosks and their tablet in the background.

Struggling to keep up with front desk staffing, wanting to add a contactless option for your reservation process, and/or free up staff time to enable more personal interactions with guests? Virdee can help with a fully contactless guest experience platform from pre-arrival communications to check-out. Virdee allows guests to skip the front desk entirely with a fully digital workflow, thus reducing and sometimes fully eliminating the need for front desk staff. It can help increase hotel revenue by reducing staffing needs while providing an easy guest transaction process, fully online.

I recently spoke with Nadav Cornberg, one of the co-founders of Virdee, about the company.

According to Nadav, the average cost per check-in is around $9, attributed mostly to staffing costs. With Virdee, the average check-in cost is less than a dollar. Additionally, with Virdee, the ease of purchasing add-ons such as room upgrades, early check-in, late check-out, third-party packages, and other paid amenities, generates additional revenue at a higher conversion rate vs checking in at the front desk. With Virdee, guests skip the line at the front desk and can either use a mobile key on their phone or head to the kiosk to get a physical room key.

How does it work?

When a reservation is made, the guest receives a confirmation email with pre-arrival information and the benefits of mobile check-in to entice them to skip the front desk. The secret sauce for Virdee is the company’s partnership with a number of secure identity verification providers, including CLEAR. Differing tiers of identity verification (based on property needs) ensure peace of mind in knowing who is on your property and virtually eliminate fraud and chargebacks. Payment submission and signature capture are also completed during mobile check-in, and the payment method can be changed, as well.

With Virdee, guests can select their rooms and even pay for upgrades. While they are at it, they can sign up for the hotel brand’s loyalty or marketing program. Mobile keys can be provided via mobile app, or a physical key card can be provided at the kiosk. There is no need to repeat any of the check-in processes at the kiosk. All that’s needed is the QR code from the welcome email or app.

Virdee ensures that all the check-in steps can be completed via mobile web, app, or at the kiosk in the lobby. Redundancy ensures that 100% of guests can be addressed.

Human beings are always going to be needed in the hospitality sector; they provide a personal touch to understand customer issues and requests. If a front desk agent is not available, guests can use Remote Assistance for help. This connects guests to hotel staff who can be located at a central hub or even at home. All that’s needed is a laptop. Need a new roll of toilet paper or food delivery? Request it through the app. Finally, checkout on the app or kiosk, and receive an emailed folio.

Virdee is not only great for small hotel operators but for large hotels as well, since guests using Virdee systems can bypass the long line at the desk since they are registered online and get their mobile key. Consider Virdee for your hotel today!