This past holiday season it seemed like everyone got either an Amazon Dot or an Amazon Echo. For the past couple of month, every time that I ask my Amazon Alexa a question I was always waiting for her to do an advertisement. It has been crossing my mind lately that voice search marketing is on the horizon or some how us marketers are going to figure out a way to take advantage of this technology. This week Amazon announced a new program called, Alexa for Hospitality. This program will bring Alexa to chain hotels across this nation.
Amazon reports that chain hotels can customize Alexa to include guest and hotel information such as pool hours, restaurant hours, and checkout times. Guests would also be able to use the in-room Alexa to request room service, housekeeping, and control room functions like the lights, adjusting the thermostat or opening and closing the blinds.
Marriott International is Amazon’s first hotel partner in their program. Starting this summer, the new Alexa for Hospitality will be available at select Marriott brands including Westin Hotels & Resorts, and Aloft hotels. Amazon is opening the program up to other chain hotels as well.
Now, the question is, which destination is going to be the first to partner with Amazon and a chain hotel to have destination information featured on Alexa.
Just think of the possibilities that this could create. Guests are already in your destination, either for leisure or business travel. They may or may not have visited your website before arriving. A destination that can be incorporated here would find some additional success. Guests return to the room from their meetings and get area information right from Alexa. Say the destination has a theme park, how cool would it be if you could ask Alexa what the wait time is on certain ride at the park. Or the destination could have a sponsored spot, so when the guests askes Alexa for destination information, Alexa provides it directly from the DMO and mentions their website. Maybe you could customize it so that Alexa has the customized travel itinerary directly from the the DMO.
In the future, guests will also be able to connect to their own Amazon account from the comforts of hotel room hundreds of miles away from home.
The opportunities are endless but having Alexa in hotel rooms opens the doors to even further personalizing the visitors experience. With most consumers comfortable using voice technology in their everyday life, it makes sense for hotels to be incorporating the technology while guests on vacation.
