Unified QR code system for a seamless hotel experience!

Hey there! This is your Techie Daydreamer, writing his first post on this blog! In this post, I am going to share the idea which we proposed in my very first “official” hackathon (Yeah, I had attended one hackathon before this but I could not give my all as something came up at that time. Hence this is my first “official” hackathon). 

Problem statement:

A Hospitality Environment (Hotels / Resorts / Clubs), where the

Guest Journey from check-in to check-out integrates multiple service layers

(room access, internet, dining, spa, billing, loyalty etc.), all tied to a single guest

identity. Your task is to design a solution where a single guest identity (Guest ID / Mobile Number / Booking ID) becomes the central key to avail all hotel services.

Okay. So the gist of the problem was to create a unified system to permit the guests to enjoy the hotel services in a seamless manner. You might have faced a similar issue with hotels, right? If you just recall your latest hotel experience, there is a fat chance that you would have called the receptionist or maybe filled out some paperwork to avail every service of the hotel, which can be very hectic and frustrating. Just don’t get me started on the WiFi connection issue. While some hotels are really doing well to keep things systematic, an unified system to deal with all these services seems a better option to make things simple and straightforward for the guests.

Our solution:

A unified QR code system designed uniquely to each room which will allow guests to access all the services with just a scan.

Let us go through the hotel experience step by step to understand the implementation of the idea:

1. When the guest checks in the hotel, the receptionist would verify the guest by his/her ID proof and enter in some specific details of the guest in the hotel database (like mobile number, email Id) against the room number allotted to the guest which acts as a primary key to the table.
2. When the guest enters his/her room, he/she would be greeted by a QR code, designed uniquely for each room. This QR code contains two informations - WiFi password and the room number. Want to connect to the wifi? No problem. Scan the QR code and by using TP-Link Omada API, you would be authenticated and connect to the WiFi in no time. This API uses the backend database to authenticate the guest and would make sure that the guest can use only their WiFi, not others.
3. Along with this seamless WiFi connection, the guest would be directed to a portal after scanning the WiFi. Again, no login required as QR code already has the login details. Want to book a spa appointment? Easy. Click on the service you want to avail and book your appointment. DONE! The hotel staff would be informed about your request and would provide services accordingly.
4. I don’t know about you guys but paying separately for each and every service seems a fragmented experience to me. Well no more keeping track of your expenses! This portal would display the due amount and would prepared a consolidated bill which would be paid during check-out. Sweet!
5. Let us say you stayed in this hotel for sometime and now you want to check-out. What if I say you need not go to the reception to check out? Just click on pay now in the portal and you would be automatically directed to the payment gateway. After you make the payment, the records of the guest are cleared from the hotel database (for keeping a record, a copy of the guest’s data can be saved in some other table) and is automatically check out. 

This was our idea. By the way, if you are feeling that this is seeming more like an ideathon, you are not alone. I too felt the same way initially but we were expected to do basic implementation of the idea so I guess….. Yeah more of a hackathon than an ideathon. After competing with quite a few team, I and my friend eventually got into the finale of the hackathon. When we got in there, we were disqualified in the subsequent elimination rounds (majorly due to the lack of experience in hackathons). But nevertheless, it was a great experience for me and my friend to participate in an on-site round of a hackathon. Apart from this experience, we managed to meet and interact with few people out there and I got to try Foosball for the first time (we played during the break time)!