Johan Michelson, VP Brand & Marketing for Scandic Hotels, talks to H&C News about his hotel brand, and the need for digital innovation in the hotel space.
“Consumers are used to being connected at home – the same should go for hotels.”
With 230 properties in the 4-star segment, Scandic Hotels is the largest hotel chain in the Nordic countries. However, it is not so much for its size but for its innovative hospitality culture that the Scandic brand shines well beyond Northern Europe.
Last month, US-based HOTELS magazine considered Scandic’s CEO Frank Fiskers to be one of the 10 hottest people in the hotel industry. Less publicized but just as impressive, Scandic was recognized as the number 1 hotel brand in last year’s BDRC Continental Guest Survey.
What makes Scandic hotels unique and different from its competitors?
Johan: In terms of our position in the market and of our competitors, the difference with Scandic is that we are very conceptualized: once we do something, we do it at all properties at the same time. We are a true hotel chain – not a chain of hotels.
Scandic is also known for its culture of openness. Your hotel lobbies tend to be buzzing all day long…
Johan: Yes indeed, one of the key characteristics of Scandic is that we are very inviting and open-minded. We want people to come and stay with us, maybe for just two minutes in the lobby or stay for a few nights, as well. One of the trends that we see is that people don’t really need an office anymore – they can have their office at the Scandic lobby.
So we see a lot of customers coming there and they spend a few hours with us, buy some coffee, have lunch or meet with friends, which could then also result in other business for us thanks to our location.
What other market trends do you see and how are you adapting to these?
Johan: One of the major trends that we observe has to do with health. We ensure that we have good gyms at all our hotels, we serve a healthy breakfast, and we have good offering of natural food in our hotel shops.
Another big trend is guest technology where we have to be pro-active to satisfy our guests. This is why we just invested in a major, chain-wide upgrade of our Wi-Fi services to offer our guests and visitors alike a premium Internet experience at Scandic.
What is the underlying guest trend here?
Johan: What we see is a rapidly increasing demand for streamed media: guests now travel with their tablets and their mobiles. They watch Netflix, their favourite TV series, their favourite team playing, and so on. So I think in the future everybody is connected and will stay connected, and it’s going to be much more for entertainment, not just for the working part of it.
Remarkably, despite your investment, Scandic Wi-Fi remains free to guests…
Johan: For us, it’s a given. Our customers expect to work efficiently, they want to play, relax, be entertained and stay connected. So this Wi-Fi service is also a clear symbol for the hassle-free experience that you should have throughout your stay with Scandic.
You also introduced an intelligent system called “Click-to-Connect” which recognizes returning guests by their wireless devices…
Johan: We have a very high share of frequent travellers coming to our hotels, so actually four out of ten are repeat business. For them, we made it far easier to get connected. In the past, you needed to insert a code or register with your loyalty number. Now the system recognizes you as a guest of Scandic. So once you enter hotel with your Wi-Fi enabled device, you can just ‘click to connect’. Imagine you stay in Stockholm today and then you maybe go to Helsinki or Oslo… the system will recognize you and let you into the network once you arrive at the hotel, just like home!
Just like home – is this your guiding philosophy also for guests that don’t stay overnight?
Johan: It is. Consumers are used to being connected. Once you arrive at home your devices switch from your mobile network your home network – the same should go for hotels! So when you come from the street and enter a Scandic hotel, we automatically connect you to the hotel’s Wi-Fi rather than being connected to 3G or 4G mobile services. That’s a great support for international travellers to avoid quite expensive roaming.
What else are you doing or planning to do with your new Wi-Fi platform?
Johan: We already send our returning guests a welcome message on their personal devices before they even arrive at the front desk. And we are planning to add other special services to our Click-to-Connect portal, for instance an e-concierge service.
Something else we have enabled already is the online checkout from the guest’s mobile device – I believe we are the world’s first operator doing this – and that of course is enabled by our new Wi-Fi platform. The hotel experience will become more and more digital. With our new Wi-Fi platform we have made the first step in this direction.
Scandic’s goal is to become one of the most loved and respected consumer brands in the Nordics. How do you go about this?
Johan: Our ambition must be to continuously develop our product, the design of our hotels, and our offerings. I think that is a very good way of telling the story about Scandic, because it is very visible to the customers when they come to our hotels.
So, rather than doing traditional marketing campaigns, we put the efforts and the investment into providing a better product, and our brand will spread afterwards.
Scandic Hotels works with Swisscom as a technology partner for its chain-wide Wi-Fi upgrade, and standardizes on Wi-Fi equipment from Ruckus Wireless.
About Scandic Hotels
Every day, Scandic’s 13,000 team members work with one single goal in mind – to make you feel welcome. As the Nordic region’s most sustainable hotel chain we’re always focused on the environment, social responsibility and accessibility. With 220 hotels in eight countries, 30,000 hotel rooms and a turnover of EUR 923 million, Scandic is the largest hotel chain in the Nordic countries. We want to be more than just a hotel – Scandic is a place where people meet, work and get inspired.
For more information about Scandic Hotels click here
About Swisscom Hospitality Services
Swisscom Hospitality Services, a division of Switzerland’s leading Telecom operator Swisscom (Switzerland) Ltd, designs, implements and manages converged hotel IP networks to offload hoteliers from the increasing IT complexity and to enhance their guest’s technology experience. Swisscom Hospitality is the market leader in EMEA and key challenger in North America for industry-leading High-speed Internet Access, Conference and TV solutions, serving all key hotel chains and many flagship independent properties.
For more information about Swisscom Hospitality Services click here
About Ruckus Wireless
Ruckus Wireless is a global supplier of advanced wireless systems for the rapidly expanding mobile Internet infrastructure market. The company offers a wide range of indoor and outdoor “Smart Wi-Fi” products to mobile carriers, broadband service providers, and corporate enterprises, and has approximately 36,000 end-customers worldwide. Ruckus technology addresses Wi-Fi capacity and coverage challenges caused by the ever-increasing amount of traffic on wireless networks due to accelerated adoption of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
For more information about Ruckus Wireless click here
Since June 2015, Swisscom Hospitality has joined Hoist Group – the leading hospitality provider in the EMEA region
To discover more click here