No-code automation’s role in speeding innovation and enhancing the guest experience
“To automate or not to automate?” is the question most hoteliers have found themselves asking at some point during the past couple of years.
It’s a fair question – one the entire industry has grappled with as guest preferences shift from traditional hospitality to self-service experiences. The conventional response to this shift has involved the adoption of all-in-one property management systems, but a growing pool of hoteliers are realizing the limitations of the one-stop shop. In a landscape where guests expect hyper-personalized experiences and technology evolves at lightning speed, hoteliers need workflows and processes that are more nimble and customizable than all-in-one systems.
Enter the next frontier of the automation journey: no-code automation tools that smaller brands with less in-house technology capability are already leveraging, and big brands are beginning to adopt.
GO WITH THE FLOW
Using no-code automation, new-age hoteliers are streamlining product development in-house without the need to hire programmers to write complex code for every task. This essentially means hoteliers are stepping away from clunky built-in integrations between different software systems, and instead designing workflows visually, using drag-and-drop interfaces and pre-built triggers and actions.
Open APIs make this possible. Think of them as bridges, connecting a chosen no-code platform with a vast ecosystem of specialized apps and services holding vast amounts of relevant hotel data.
A guest books a room, for example, and specifies the booking is a romantic getaway. The booking then triggers the workflow to automatically send a personalized welcome message via WhatsApp. The workflow also knows to send a confirmation email with a romantic playlist curated for the room’s Bluetooth speaker, via Gmail.
All this is possible in the self-service playground of no-code but would have previously been a lengthy project requiring tech-savvy coders to connect the dots and ensure the seamless integration of various apps. Hoteliers are in the driver’s seat, building and customizing automations with drag-and-drop ease. And the industry is quickly catching on to the potential that no-code automation offers.
SKY’S THE LIMIT
Think of the untapped potential beyond the usual suspects like bookings and guest communication. A birthday notifier searches all reservations and checks if the date of birth in a guests’ profile matches today’s date. Once a match is identified, an email is sent to the front desk and the team can act accordingly, placing a gift in the room or sending a personalized birthday message.
Behind the scenes, a to-be-inspected workflow is automated. Rooms that have been clean and unoccupied for 10 days or more automatically set to the status as “to be inspected,” and housekeeping is notified to check the room again. Processes are more efficient than ever, all achieved with minimum effort.
What no-code automation really unlocks for hotels is the freedom to test, learn, and refine in a way they’re not used to. It’s a plug-in-and-play setup; hotel teams can set up a workflow, automate it, and then test it out immediately. If something isn’t quite right, it can be adapted in minutes. What hoteliers are then left with is a continuous enhancement of operations and services.
Brands of all sizes are adopting the DIY hotelier approach and automating processes in-house to provide unique guest experiences, while simultaneously streamlining manual and tedious back-of-house operations like night audits. The emergence of no-code automation can be seen in all swim lanes, from independents to bigger chains.
As such, we could be witnessing a watershed moment for the hotel industry. What was previously unachievable for brands – whether due to budget, resource constraints, or lack of coders – now is possible. They now have an opportunity to really tailor the tech stack and elevate the experience for both guests and employees.
When you think about it, it makes total sense. Given the uniqueness of each property, why would hoteliers remain dependent on the pre-defined functionalities and workflows offered by their software vendor? The era of the cookie-cutter hotel is over with no-code automation opening the floodgates on innovation.
