What Voice Search Means for Hotels

According to Google’s data, mobile voice searches more than doubled in the past year. With the advent of technology like Siri and Google’s mobile voice on Android, people of all ages are starting to talk to their devices more regularly. In fact, 55% of teens and 41% of adults use voice search more than once a day. 56% of adults admit that talking to their phones makes them “feel tech savvy.”

Google’s blog post goes into quite a bit of specificity with regards to how adults and teens interact with voice search, but here are the relevant points for hoteliers:

• 40% of adults  and 38% of teens use voice search to ask for directions
• 20% of teens and 9% of adults use voice search to find out movie times
• 89% of teens and 85% of adults use voice search because “it’s the future”
• 45% of teens and 36% of adults wish voice search could do things like “send me pizza”

Why are these the relevant points for hoteliers? Because these behaviors illuminate the evolving expectations of today’s consumers. Your guests expect to be able to pick up their mobile devices for faster access to information and services. They use mobile search to plan activities and find nearby destinations. They also wish that they could do things like pick up their phones and order a meal. Scott Huffman, Google’s VP of Conversational Search, writes, “We’re not quite there yet, but next time you don’t feel like cooking, just pull out your phone, tap the Google app, and say: ‘Ok Google, call Round Table Pizza.’ You’ll still have to place your order over the phone, but we’re getting closer!”

Hospitality is closer to this wish than ever before. Revinate’s inGuest enables guests to pick up their mobile devices for direct interaction with hotel staff. Guests can order room service, book appointments, and initiate service and concierge requests with just a few taps on their mobile phones. While we’re not there with voice search yet, the Google study makes one thing clear: The expectations of consumers are evolving. To continue delivering surprise and delight, hotels need to evolve too.