NIANTIC, CONN.—When the Bardessono Hotel in Yountville, Calif., deployed the Room Expeditor (REX) tool from MTech in March 2009, it became the first property in the world to equip its room attendants with an iPod Touch to instruct them on which is the next most important “vacant” room to clean, based on a collection of variables. Today, the 62-room luxury property, managed by MTM Luxury Lodging, is first once again to benefit from streamlined technology integration between MTech’s REX and INNCOM’s Integrated Room Automaton System (IRAS) that now alerts staff when stay-over rooms also are ready to be refreshed.
“Being able to integrate REX with the INNCOM IRAS provides tremendous value from a guest-service standpoint,” said Chuck Marratt, MTM’s vice president, Information Technology. “Previously, when a guest checked out, the vacant room would be placed into queue and cleaned based on the readiness of its next occupant, the next guest’s VIP status or other pertinent criteria. Today, because the INNCOM system detects if a physical body is in the room or if the room is empty, it has been tied directly to REX to notify staff in real time when a stay-over room is unoccupied and therefore able to be cleaned.
REX works in tandem with MTech’s Hotel Service Optimization System or HotSOS (pronounced “hot sauce”). HotSOS manages guest profiling, guest response, incident tracking, service recovery tracking, workflow automation, preventive maintenance, room inspections and MOD logs.
Guest-centered Decisions Made Faster
“By integrating REX with the INNCOM Integrated Room Automation System, we are streamlining the flow of information from guest-to-attendant, manager-to-attendant and vice versa that much quicker,” said Luis Segredo, MTech president. “Through this real-time communication, guest-centered decisions can be made faster and with more accuracy. We are delighted that our new integration to the INNCOM solution is working so flawlessly at Bardessono and positively impacting their guests’ experiences.”
INNCOM’s IRAS with INNcontrol II is responsible for controlling guestroom lights, room thermostat, and high-tech, external Venetian-like blinds, designed to keep heat in or out when unoccupied or empty. INNcontrol II is a real-time, server-based application that allows a central point of monitoring and control for all guestroom devices. The software collects the data and shares it with REX and other applicable online hotel systems.
“A rented but unoccupied room is detected when the door’s magnetic switch detects door activity, but no motion in the room—meaning the guest has left the room,” said John Tavares, INNCOM vice president, Sales & Marketing. “That’s the perfect time for the room to be cleaned. Therefore, a message is sent over the INNcontrol network to REX that notifies a housekeeper on his or her iPod Touch that the room is temporarily unoccupied and can be serviced. While waiting for the attendant to arrive, the INNCOM system will turn all lights off, set the temperature back to a pre-determined conservation level, and the solar shades will be dropped to enhance energy management.”
Tavares said that by using “Fastpack Protocol,” INNCOM can share information with a host of hospitality applications, including most property-management systems around the world.
“We are delighted that our guestroom controls are now integrated with MTech’s REX solution,” he said. “As more and more hotels become dependent on mobile devices for back-of-the-house operations, INNCOM’s INNcontrol software has placed us in a solid position to integrate with other property solutions for enhanced service and increased energy savings. We look forward to future projects at hotels looking for similar functionality.”
