HOSPITALITY 31


THE O2 CONVERTS ARENA TO CONTACTLESS


East London visitor attraction and event arena, The O2, is rolling out contactless technology across more than 250 card payment terminals.


The introduction of the speedy


payment system, in partnership with Barclaycard and Visa Europe, will enable the hospitality venue’s visitors to benefi t from shorter queues at bars, restaurants and merchandise stands within The O2 itself and at other quick pay terminals, such as car parks.


The contactless technology will


enables consumers to pay for goods under the value of £15 by simply holding a contactless-enabled card or mobile phone over a reader to make payment. On show nights 75% of electronic transactions processed in the arena’s concessions are under £15 so the technology’s speed of throughput is anticipated to help reduce queues. Alex Hill, senior executive director


and fi nance director of AEG Europe, which owns and operates The O2, said: “Our aim is to give our customers the best time possible from the moment they arrive at The O2. Contactless will play a key part in improving our guests’ experiences by speeding up the payment process and reducing queue times, giving everyone more time to enjoy the unique and electric atmosphere of The O2 on a show night.”


Contactless debit and credit cards


were accepted at The O2 at the end of November as sports fans watch the world’s top tennis players compete at the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals. To encourage the use of contactless, anyone who makes a payment at participating retailers in the arena received a free tube of HEAD tennis balls.


ABODE HOTELS GETS CUSTOMER FEEDBACK APP


hospitality industry with Abode Hotels and Michael Caines’ Restaurants. The application, which is free to


S


download to a customer’s iPhone or Android smartphone, enables hotel guests or diners to give real-time feedback from their smartphone, and allowing the hotel to improve customer experience or reward consumers for helping them. “We’re currently implementing Survey Me across our Exeter, Manchester, Canterbury and Chester hotels as a starting point, and fully expect that it will provide us with a comprehensive snapshot of customer service across the group and the opportunity to analyse the data in order to address any issues and ultimately delight our customers,”


urveyMe, the fi rst ever UK-based smartphone application for customer feedback, has launched to the


said Steve Edwards, Abode Hotels head of group service manager.


“The best thing


about SurveyMe is that it can be downloaded to the customers’ smartphone and linked to our website, whereas previous solutions meant the customer had to fi ll in the survey on a handset while on our hotel premises. It’s a very cost effective solution to deploy and we get valuable real-time feedback on our customers experience from any hotel department that uses SurveyMe.” Abode Hotels aims to have SurveyMe fully


up and running across its estate by January 2012.


W


NEW COMMS HELPS DRIVE CUPCAKE UPTAKE


ith the help and expert advice of Cisco select partner Unifi Communications, The


Hummingbird Bakery on London’s Portobello Road recently upgraded its communications technology to a centralised and unifi ed internet protocol (IP) based phone network. “Thanks to Cisco and Unifi


Communications, we now have a phone system that helps us sell more, and do more for our customers. For a business


Benjamin C. M Backhouse


that’s growing as fast as ours, that’s hugely important,” said Adrian Mierzwinski, The Hummingbird Bakery IT systems administrator.


HILTON SIGNS UP TO BT OPENZONE WI-FI Hilton Worldwide recently entered into a strategic agreement with BT Openzone for a managed suite of Wi-Fi and internet services across nearly 100 hotels in the UK and Ireland. The deal is providing guests and partner roaming access members with BT Openzone Wi-Fi access, high-speed fi xed line, conference and event services in more than 17,000 bedrooms, public areas and meeting and conference spaces. Robert Webb, Hilton Worldwide chief information offi cer, said the deal builds on the hospitality chain’s agreement last year with AT&T in the US and Canada. “We are committed to providing our guests with access to the very latest technology, complementing our world class hospitality, and are delighted to collaborate with BT Openzone to deliver an outstanding service in the UK and Ireland,” he added. BT Openzone is using an ‘above property,’ centralised cloud computing architecture, and


will oversee network operations, network engineering, software development and 24-hour network monitoring, as well as guest internet support.


NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011 RETAIL TECHNOLOGY


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