How We Are Helping Our Customers During The Coronavirus Outbreak

Here at SuitePad, we're facing the coronavirus outbreak head on. Here's how SuitePad can help you deal with the impact it's having on your hotel business.

Coronavirus has taken the world by storm, impacting the travel industry through travel restrictions and customer fears about the ongoing pandemic. In times like this, businesses need to adapt to the rapidly changing situation for themselves and their customers. This also applies to us here at SuitePad, so we’ve taken measures to help our clients and their guests stay safe in these troubling times.

Keeping your guests safe during the coronavirus outbreak

If your hotel is still open for business, we’ve added an extra tile to our SuitePad frontend that offers up-to-date information on how to deal with the coronavirus situation in a hotel setting. Your guests will have access to instructions on what the virus is, how to correctly wash hands, how to deal with the stress of the outbreak, and useful questions that they may want to ask you should they be concerned.

Having this information in a digital format means it will be updated in real-time as the situation changes and negates the need to repeatedly print material to keep guests informed on the situation.

In addition, SuitePad’s push message function can be used to send instant messages to guests in their rooms. Whether you want to inform your guests about the changing coronavirus situation, remind them of coronavirus protocol, or even remind them to regularly wash their hands before meal times, you can do so with SuitePad.

The most hygienic option for the hotel room

The duration for which viruses can survive outside of the body depends on the type of virus itself and the surface it is on. According to medicinenet.com, some viruses such as norovirus—the most common cause of stomach flu—can last of surfaces for up to two weeks! 

It’s unlikely that coronavirus lasts outside the body for this long, but a recent study by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), suggests that coronavirus can survive outside the body for up to 24 hours on card or paper, and 2 to 3 days on stainless steel or plastic. 

With this information in mind, it’s important that any high-touch items—such as leaflets, TV remotes, and telephones—are regularly cleaned with disinfectant wipes by housekeeping. 

As SuitePad combines all of these tools in one easy to use device without any buttons or crevices where bacteria can linger, it’s easier to clean and safer to use. This will help you keep your guests safe at a time when the world is becoming increasingly aware of the presence of bacteria and viruses.

Preparing for life after coronavirus

Whether or not your hotel is open for business, it's a good idea to use this downtime to your advantage as much as possible. Once the coronavirus is declared under control, there will be lots of people looking forward to a nice long vacation after being stuck at home for so long! This will present you with an opportunity to reassert your hotel as an industry leader, and digital technology can help you do just that.

Rather than waiting for the storm to pass, why not use the time to research business enhancing technology that will give you a head start on your competitors? Here at SuitePad, we're currently offering no-obligation online demonstrations of our digital guest directory, so you can discover how SuitePad's hotel technology can help your business excel once the coronavirus pandemic is declared over.

How we're dealing with coronavirus at the SuitePad head office

At SuitePad, we’ve taken measures to ensure that the virus doesn't infect or spread among our employees. Like many companies in Germany, this means many of our staff members are now working from home. 

As we are a technology company, remote working is something we have been doing for years, so processes such as providing assistance to current clients or providing online demos to prospective clients are not hindered in any way. Our staff have all the resources they need to keep our services running as usual from the comfort of their own homes.

The outlook for the industry with coronavirus

Coronavirus has sent shockwaves through the hospitality industry, but it’s important to remember that it will be only a temporary situation—things will certainly improve soon. In these difficult times, modern technology can certainly help mitigate the effects that coronavirus is having on the industry by providing hotels with more effective and hygienic alternatives to the traditional guest folder, TV remote, and hotel room telephone.

If you’d like to find out more about how SuitePad can help your hotel in these troubling times, arrange a free demo now.

_{- Published on March 20, 2020}