The Savvy Traveler : Hotels Trying to Shorten Check-in and Check-out

Like to stand in long lines? Then have I got a hotel for you--the Las Vegas Hilton. No, I’m not talking about the hotel’s midnight show. Try checking into the Hilton on any Friday night between 8 p.m. and midnight. Or on any Sunday afternoon.

“That’s when it can get really crazy,” says Tony Santo, executive assistant manager of the hotel. “On Friday nights we get the leisure traveler and on Sundays we get the conventions and groups.”

Those are the times when it’s not unusual for folks to wait 30 minutes or more at this 3,174-room hotel that claims it’s the largest hotel in the world.

For sure, the Las Vegas Hilton is by no means the only hotel with this aggravating problem. Hundreds of hotels are unable--or unwilling--to deal with the ordeal of checking in.

Checking in should be fast, smooth and relatively effortless. From the hotel’s standpoint, it’s the first opportunity for contact with a guest, and it should be a pleasant experience.

From the guest’s point of view, if checking in is a hardship, it can be a precursor that the rest of the hotel experience might be less than positive.

But few hotels have been able to solve the waiting problem during check-in. And it seems like such a simple one to handle.

Clerks and Cashiers

Consider this: Most hotel guests check in between 2 and 7 p.m. And most guests check out before 10 a.m. Why is it, then, that there always seem to be extra front-desk clerks on duty in the morning, lots of extra cashiers on duty in the afternoon? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Few things are as frustrating as standing in a long check-in line waiting for a front-desk clerk and watching three cashiers standing idly by at the next counter. Just as frustrating is waiting in a long check-out line for a cashier and seeing extra desk personnel doing absolutely nothing.

Some hotels have begun to cross-train their personnel, so that cashiers or front-desk clerks can fill in during peak check-in/out times.

“When you cross-train,” says Kurt Wachtveitl, general manager of the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, “you can cut down the check-in wait to almost nothing. When people come to our hotel they’ve had a long flight and all they are thinking about is their room.

“The check-in procedure should be as fast as possible, and nothing should come between them and their bed.”

Readiness Is All

That also assumes your room is going to be ready when you are. Some hotels have no effective contingency plans for guests who arrive before their rooms are ready. This was the case in Europe this summer. Many flights arriving from the United States land in the morning. When the tired travelers arrive at their hotel, they are sometimes told that their rooms won’t be ready for four hours.

I witnessed this on three consecutive days at a London hotel. Each morning at least half a dozen American vacationers arriving from New York were told that their rooms weren’t ready. Did the hotel offer them a free meal or cocktail? A temporary room to catch a nap or change clothes?

No. They were simply told to wait. And wait they did, in various states of consciousness in the crowded lobby. They weren’t alone, either. Rooms were also not ready for airline crew from the same flight, also registered at the hotel. They, too, camped out in the lobby.

‘Lobby Squad’

You won’t find this guest-room refugee scene at the Four Seasons Clift Hotel in San Francisco. General manager Stan Bromley has started something called the “lobby squad,” a group of hotel management staff on duty during peak times in the lobby.

“They literally patrol the check-in and check-out areas,” Bromley says. “If they see a line forming, they step in and handle the arriving or departing guest on the spot.” And the lobby squad members don’t just show up at peak times, but also to welcome the regular late-night flight arrivals from New York.

“When you have a bad check-in experience,” says Bromley, “everything good you’re about to do for a guest doesn’t matter.”

Similarly, a great hotel experience can be marred by the final contact the hotel has with a guest--checking out.

Spectradyne (the same company that provides room movies at many hotels) now offers something called Video Check Out. It allows hotel guests the option of checking out of their rooms from their rooms--using a keypad and following the instructions on their TV sets.

Memories Matter

“One way to make a guest forget all the good memories of a stay is a good long wait in the check-out line,” says Rollon Parker, product manager for Spectradyne. “If a hotel makes that last half hour at the hotel the worst half hour of the guest’s whole stay, it is definitely the time period that will be most remembered.”

The system has been installed in 130 hotels, and also lets guests review their hotel bill at any time during their stay. The Drake Hotel in Chicago uses the system. The 618-room Vista International Hotel in Pittsburgh also has the video checkout program. And in December, all 686 TV sets at the Hotel Inter-Continental New York will be equipped with it.

“At our hotel the video check-out has become more popular than pay TV,” says Penny Cummings, spokeswoman for the Sheraton in Washington. “We’ve tracked the activity, and on a typical night almost 50% of the guests use it to review their bills. And 30% use it to check out.”

“The system has revolutionized our checking-out process,” says Gary Wilson, spokesman for the Omni Hotel at St. Louis’ Union Station. “It can eliminate up to a half hour or longer of standing in the check-out line.” About 70% of the Omni’s guests use the system to check out.

And automated check-out is working so well for Marriott that all new hotels are being equipped with the system.

Spectradyne is test-marketing a new system that also makes it possible to order room service via the TV set.

What About Contact?

But automating the check-out system is not the only way to make the process run smoothly. Service is, after all, the cornerstone of the hospitality industry.

“When a hotel installs one of these systems,” says Paul Limbert, general manager of the Park Hyatt in Washington, “aren’t they saying to their guests that the staff prefers not to have personal contact with them?”

Limbert isn’t the only general manager fighting the new video check-out systems.

“I haven’t seen one of these systems that I really like,” says Urs Abey, general manager of the Halekulani in Honolulu. “Most people want to hold their bill and individual receipts in their hands. They don’t just want to know the totals--they want to see the supporting evidence.”

Toward that end, if you’re staying at a Doubletree hotel and using a credit card to settle your account, the staff will slip your bill under your door at 2 a.m. on the day of departure. If the bill is correct, you can bypass the cashier desk and simply leave the hotel.

One hotel has solved the check-out problem entirely. At the new Portman Hotel in San Francisco there is no set check-out time each day, so chances of long lines are minimized.

sh In Before You’re There A few hotels are trying to ease the hotel check-in crunch--from outside the hotel.

One program is being test-marketed at the Sheraton-Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J. If you’re renting a car from Avis at Newark, La Guardia or JFK airports, Avis will check you into the Sheraton at the same time. When you arrive at the hotel, you pick up your keys and head to your room.

The Radisson Hotel in Minneapolis has experimented with a time-saving program that registers guests in the courtesy van that transports them from the airport to the hotel.

Finally, if you did manage to check into the Las Vegas Hilton relatively smoothly, at least leaving the hotel might not be as cumbersome. The hotel (along with 43 other Hilton hotels throughout the nation) now offers a “no-stop” check-out program. This has cut down check-out lines at the Las Vegas Hilton considerably.

The night before leaving, guests will have their paperwork slipped under their doors. If there are no problems with the numbers, the bill will automatically be charged to their credit cards. Thus, if you’re lucky--after all, you are in Las Vegas--you can then walk right past the check-out counter and leave.