Hilton kiosks improve upsells by 30%

BTN had a recent interview with Hilton CEO Matt Hart, who among other things, had this to say about their interactive kiosk project:

"Hart: We love the kiosk. We've been very successful from the start. I've read a lot of stuff that says that for other hotel companies it's just not working. It may be that their original architecture just was not customer-friendly and it didn't work. Thanks to our technology guys, it works. At some of our properties, particularly at the airports, we're up to 30 percent kiosk checkin. For us, it's not a labor-saving thing; it's not a style thing. We spend millions of dollars training our people to anticipate customer needs, to be friendly, to be caring to get an emotional connection, but the fact of the matter is: Some people when they travel just don't want to make friends. That's okay by us. If they want to use the kiosks, then that is fine. One of the interesting things we find, we give the customer the opportunity to upgrade and people are more likely to upgrade using the kiosk than they are face to face. That's fine with us. It's a nice feature for a lot of people. Think about the airlines now, that's how you do business. Put your credit card in, get your boarding pass: That's just the way it is. For us to give that same opportunity with hotel guests makes all the sense in the world."

You can read the full interview here.