A recent report from Oracle Hospitality – Millennials and Hospitality: The Redefinition of Service – highlights the ways in which hospitality operators should look to adapting their services to meet the individual needs of millennials.
Oracle Hospitality funded the research project to aid hoteliers and food and beverage operators to gain a better understanding of millennials.
Let’s first define millennials: In October 2004, researchers Neil Howe and William Strauss define the group as “as those born in 1982 and approximately the 20 years thereafter.” In 2012, they affixed the end point as 2004. According to Pew Research they send an average of 50 texts per day.
Millenials represent the largest segment of the workforce in many countries. Such insight is essential not only to engage the tech-savvy demographic as customers, but to enhance their abilities as employees to deliver stellar guest service. Conducted by an independent research firm, the survey polled participants, ages 18 to 35, in eight countries, including a subset that had worked in hospitality within the past five years. In the report, more than 9,000 millennials from around the world discussed their use of technology in hotels, restaurants, bars and cafes in a survey that quantifies the impact mobile devices are having on hospitality.
Technology and mobile use is here to stay:
39% have ordered delivery or take-out using their smartphones, and 20% have used a mobile device to check-in at a hotel.
“Mobile is very much here and happening in hospitality,” said Ray Carlin, Vice President of Solution and Strategy Management at Oracle Hospitality, which commissioned the global study.
The results show that technology is altering consumer expectation and presenting hospitality operators with an unprecedented opportunity.
“It will require a redefinition of service – one that offers millennials tremendous choice, speed and personalisation based on their individual preferences,” Carlin said.
“Providing such tailored service not only means accommodating consumers’ use of smartphones, but for operators to leverage their own mobile devices to better serve them.”
Loyalty programs are a priority
52% of millennials want to use their mobile devices to take advantage of loyalty programs offered by restaurants, bars and coffee shops. Millennials want to be acknowledged, with personalized rewards that reflect their individual preferences. For the hospitality industry, this offers huge potential in collecting invaluable data about customer behavior and delivering targeted promotions to drive value and revenue.
Hotels face a mobile frontier
Millennials in every country are already using their mobile devices to conduct core functions with hotels. Among the findings: 20% had checked into a hotel using their mobile, while 46% had booked a hotel room through similar means. Only 12% had ordered room service by smartphone, yet room service was the number one request when millennials were asked how else technology could improve their stay.
Mobiles for payment
In several instances, millennials’ desire for mobile-driven activities and their actual experience using them varied significantly. For example, only 29% of U.S. millennials reported having paid with a mobile device, but 44% expressed a desire to do so – suggesting an opportunity to grow business by meeting demand.
Culture makes a difference
Many similarities exist among millennials around the world, but behavior and preferences also vary greatly by geography and culture. Japanese millennials, for example, were surprisingly less likely to use their smartphones in hotels or restaurants – only 19% wanted to pay for food or drink by mobile device.
Many have worked in Hospitality themselves
When evaluating hospitality employers’ use of technology, more than one third (36%) of millennials who had worked in the industry said that there was much room for improvement. Interestingly, only 15% said their employers solicited their suggestions for improving technology use.
Smartphones are here to stay
Millennials rely heavily on their smartphones – 87% of survey respondents said they use one daily.
Carlin continued: “The other significant finding is that the demand for ordering and paying by smartphone is not universal – there are plenty of millennials that still want personal service when they’re in a hotel or a restaurant. Our job is to help operators adapt and define how technology supports a personalized, flexible service offering.”
The report is available at www.oracle.com/hospitality-millennials
