Hotels ditch imposing desks for friendly 'pods'

By Roger Yu, USA TODAY, 10/26/2006

Traditional hotel check-in counters — long and fortress-like — are on their way out.

Hotel chains are replacing them with smaller desks or individual pods that take less space and let employees provide more personable service.

Also, hotels can design more open desks because cash transactions are becoming rarer, and security is no longer the concern it once was. Smaller computer monitors and printers also make it easier to cut down on the desk size.

The pods are individually manned stations equipped with a computer and a room key programmer. Many Embassy Suites, Hyatt and Westin hotels now feature such pods. Wyndham, which recently hired designer Michael Graves to re-do its hotels, will introduce them in late 2007.

How hotel guests wait for service varies. Some hotels maintain a single-file line while others have a separate line at each pod. Other chains, such as Holiday Inn, Hotel Indigo and Marriott, are borrowing a chapter from the retail sector and are testing or installing check-in desks that look and function like cashiers' desks at the Gap. Larger than pods, they are open desks with several computer stations for check-in.

"They break down the barriers between guests and hotels," says Jim Holthouser, an executive at Embassy Suites, a Hilton-owned chain.

Why they are becoming more popular:

•Younger customers.

The industry is seeing more Gen-X and Gen-Y customers — travelers in their 20s or 30s — who are accustomed to more informal interactions in commercial activities. With employees now freed from the long counters of the past, they can now deal more naturally with guests, says Alan Benjamin of Benjamin West, a Colorado-based firm that buys furniture and fixtures for the hotel industry.

"The (old) check-in counters were often elevated. They're trying to remove that 'You're-in-court-and-there's-the-judge' type of feel," he says.

Holiday Inn, which has recently installed a new semicircular check-in desk at 13 hotels, reduced the height of the desk to make it "much less obtrusive," says Mark Snyder, a brand management executive at Holiday Inn.

With its new pods, Westin employees now work under "the 5-10 rule," in which they are encouraged to spend at least five minutes with guests and walk 10 steps with them.

Marriott, which will introduce its open desk at a renovated hotel in New York City in 2008, has been giving employees classes on reading body language, "to make people feel comfortable in the transactional process," says Andrew Houghton of Marriott.

•Employee productivity.

With employees no longer stationed at one part of the lobby, they can multitask, conducting other jobs as they arise.

At Indigo, a chain newly introduced by InterContinental, employees who aren't busy with check-in will greet guests by the door, help them with directions, find seats in the lobby or even clean tables, says Jim Anhut, an InterContinental executive. The six Indigo hotels now open feature a semicircular check-in desk bearing its nautilus shell logo.

At Hyatt, where the new check-in pods are in place at a few of its hotels, employees are increasingly providing more concierge services, such as providing directions and restaurant recommendations. Employees can step out and help customers who may not be familiar with automated check-in kiosks. "If you confine (employees) to one area, you take out a little bit of energy," says Holthouser of Embassy Suites, where employees are cross-trained in other areas of operation.

•More revenue.

Hotel chains have been aggressively transforming lobbies into more communal spaces, where guests will linger and spend more time and money on food and beverages. By reducing the amount of space taken up by the check-in area, hotels can enlarge other revenue-producing areas.

The check-in areas of Embassy Suites with the new pods are about 40% smaller than in the hotels without them, Holthouser estimates. Embassy Suites typically have one pod for every 50 rooms.

Despite their benefits, the new pods alone don't cut down on check-in time, hotel executives say. And Pat McDonough, a sales executive in Minneapolis who has seen new pods, says, "Business-types just want to get into their rooms as soon as they can."

Amy Rodgers, a consultant in Milwaukee, doubts if the new pods alone can help improve employee friendliness.

"A clerk can be just as friendly from behind the counter," she says.