Vouchers plug hotel cleaning gaps

Guests are getting free coffees, cocktails and other discounts in return for less frequent room cleaning as hoteliers struggle with staffing shortages.

Accommodation providers are finding inventive ways of getting around a lack of housekeepers, and contactless check-in systems are also being more widely adopted to replace receptionists.

Novotel Queenstown Lakeside general manager Jim Moore says about 20% of guests take up the offer of $20 vouchers to spend in-house, extra loyalty points, or a $10 donation to the Cure Kids charity for each day they forgo room cleans.

‘‘Some hotels are saying ‘we’re not cleaning your room’, but we didn’t want to go down that track, we wanted it to be up to guests to choose whether that’s what they wanted or not.’’

The discount scheme helped cope with sudden staff absences.

‘‘With winter flu and the odd case of Covid going through, when that happens you’re not getting vast amounts of notice, so these additional rooms have helped us manage through those times.’’

Moore says that since the start of the ski season, the 273-room hotel has also set aside about 20 rooms to accommodate staff unable to find anywhere to live in Queenstown.

‘‘If we hadn’t done that we would have had 20 less staff.’’

Jucy Snooze now has a policy of hiring multi-skilled staff prepared to do everything from clean toilets to serving drinks in the bar, and managing director Tim Alpe says that allows them to cover gaps in rosters if people fall sick or need to isolate.

Since the border reopening in March, just 3320 workingholiday visa holders have entered the country, and for June the total number in New Zealand was down 86% on the equivalent period in 2019.

A recent Tourism Industry Aotearoa survey of 360 businesses showed almost a third believed they’d need to cap customer occupancy because of workforce issues, and that is already occurring.

Alpe says that at times between 10% and 20% of sleeping Snooze ‘‘pods’’ are unavailable because there are insufficient staff to service them.

Snooze hotels in Queenstown and Christchurch have always had self check-in technology and it will be a feature of the new Auckland hotel due to open in October.

Scenic Hotel Group general manger Karl Luxon says the business learned the hard way that moving staff from one hotel to fill gaps at another risked spreading Covid-19 infections when they returned.

However, high-tech solutions are helping make better use of the workforce, and Scenic Group’s Dunedin hotel now has a system that allows guests to check-in remotely via an app.

Liverton Technology Group sells self check-in systems and chief executive Justin De Lille says business had grown substantially over the past year, thanks in part to the labour savings they provide.

A couple of hundred Australian hotels have installed Smart Check units, and at some properties up to 70% of guests are checking in that way.

The technology is taking also off in New Zealand, with 30

hotels using it and more on the way.

‘‘You can do a check-in in under a minute and do a checkout in under 30 seconds. One machine replaces two people because they run 24/7,’’ De Lille says.

Although getting by with fewer staff helps in the current environment, hotels also use self check-in to release staff for other duties, such as working as lobby ‘‘ambassadors’’ to assist guests.

De Lille says many new hotels are installing locks with a Bluetooth function, so they can use Liverton’s mobile app that effectively allows a mobile phone to be used as a key.