Small hotel owners face fierce competition. With hundreds and even thousands of hotels for travelers to choose from, it’s hard to stand out. If you want to stay ahead of the curve and offer the best guest experience you can, you need to constantly upgrade your facilities and offering, and ensure that you have a unique selling point to offer your customers. Micro markets are something new that offers exceptional value to your customers by ensuring that they have access to food and other essentials around the clock, even if they arrive in the middle of the night. Micro markets have relatively low set up costs and enable you to offer a wider variety of products to your guests when compared to more traditional solutions such as mini bars. The following article will highlight the advantages of micro markets in small hotels or hostels.
1. Offer More Value
Travelers are always looking for that little je ne sais quoi that differentiates your hotel from others. Installing a micro market kiosk in your hotel lobby is a great way to stand out, and provides your customers with a convenient option for purchasing basic goods, snacks, and beverages without leaving your hotel.
2. Leverage Light Travelers
With the popularity of spontaneous travel and low-cost airlines, many travelers nowadays travel light so as not to pay extra to check their luggage. This means that they can’t travel with a lot of their toiletries that may be over 100 ml. You can leverage this by selling toiletries and other goods that tourists would otherwise purchase elsewhere such as deodorant, toothpaste, sunscreen, shampoo, and more.
3. 24/7 Unmanned Service
Having everything your guests need right in your hotel lobby will provide them with an excellent, convenient experience, especially if they arrive at your hotel late at night when other shops are closed. A micro market also doesn’t need a staff member to be present 24/7, helping you address challenges you may be facing with labor shortages in the service industry.
4. Increase Revenue
Offering extra products such as fresh food, snacks, beverages, and toiletries will create a new revenue stream for your hotel, especially if it comes with a convenient and easy-to-use payment system.
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5. Offer an Open Cashless Payment System
Tourists coming to your hotel from around the world are looking for convenient ways to pay. People want to avoid exchanging their cash at unbeneficial rates, and often prefer to simply use their credit cards so that they don’t have to deal with conversion rates. A hotel self-service kiosk that accepts credit cards, debit cards, mobile wallets, and more is a perfect option to address this need, and offers a simple, tap-and-go payment experience.
6. Accept Closed-Loop Payment Options
On top of accepting open cashless payments, hotel self-service kiosks such as Nova Market can accept closed-loop payment options such as prepaid cards or loyalty cards. You can also connect to your hotel software to charge the guests’ balance upon checkout, providing them with added convenience. Their purchases will then appear on their final bill, much like a mini bar in their room, and you will be able to charge them conveniently and seamlessly for all of their expenses in one invoice.
7. Multi-Language Interface
Self-checkout kiosks such as Nayax’s Nova Market are easy for anyone to use, no matter where they come from. Its intuitive interface supports 15 languages, and the device provides a simple shopping experience so that anyone can use it even if a staff person is not on duty.
8. Promote Products and More On Screen
Touch-screen hotel lobby kiosks provide you with additional advertisement space. When the screen is in idle mode, you can leverage the Nova Market’s central location to advertise new products, discounts, important hotel information such as check-in and check-out times, wi-fi passwords, or even events happening in your area. This will help you keep your customers informed, providing them with added value on a conveniently placed, attractive display.
9. Engage with Customers and Cultivate Brand Advocates
Customers are looking for unique and personalized experiences. You can leverage this expectation with loyalty programs, discounts, promotions, and more. For example, you can encourage your customers to download Nayax’s Monyx Wallet payment and loyalty app so that they can have access to promotions and other discounts that you can set up for your hotel’s self-service market. Campaigns such as punch cards (buy 5 get 1 free, for example), happy hour discounts, and top-up bonuses will help further incentivize your customers to buy more products more often.
10. Automatically Print Kitchen Bons
If your hotel has a kitchen, you can connect the kiosk in the hotel lobby with the kitchen, automatically printing kitchen bons when a customer makes an order. This will help streamline and automize your operations, making your hotel more efficient.
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11. Integrate with Hotel Software Platforms
Nayax’s global solutions offer APIs that allow you to simply integrate with your existing software, whether it be PMS or ERP. If your hotel doesn’t have a software platform, you can manage your micro market inventory, sales, products, on-screen advertisements, and more with Nayax’s Cloud Management System.
Installing a micro market in your hotel or hostel lobby will help your small hotel stand out among the competition. Nayax’s Nova Market is an out-of-the-box solution, allowing you to have your market up and running in no time. This hotel kiosk solution is cost-effective, easy to set up, and allows you to offer something extra to your customers.
To get started with Nova Market, contact us today.
