Keycafe Brings Flexible Check-In and Easy Adminstration to Ehon Hotel

Located in Nara, the 8th century capital of Japan, Ehon Hotel (“Picture Book Hotel” in Japanese) brings to life the magic of imaginative stories and beautiful illustrations of picture books from around the world. Children and adults alike enjoy access to pop-up books, bath books, and books on gender and environmental issues, many of them from Italy. As these are rarely discussed in local picture books, Ehon Hotel hopes to connect its guests to the world outside of Japan.

Many guests arrive with children, and are prone to being late for preset check-in times. In addition, the hotel accepts only one set of guests per day, so it was ineffecient to schedule on-site staff just for the check-in/check-out procedure. In order for on-site staff to focus on cleaning tasks, the hotel wanted check-in related operations to be handled by remote back office staff. Attaching a smartlock on the door was considered, but the option was not feasible with their door type.

A flexible check-in option was clearly needed, so the hotel started to look into different systems on the market. For Ehon Hotel, stability and ease of use for guests were priorities in selecting a system.

Keycafe’s user-friendly online store, quick delivery, and easy installation process were all deciding factors in their final decision. However, the main reason Ehon Hotel chose Keycafe was the option for accesses to be issued and edited remotely in real-time, allowing staff to be off-site and still assist guests when needed.

Ehon Hotel takes advantage of Keycafe’s Airbnb integration. As soon as a reservation is booked, a unique access code is automatically created and sent to the guest close to their check-in date. Once the guest arrives at the hotel, they can pick up their room key using the code at the Keycafe SmartBox.

Whenever a cancellation or reservation change occurs, the Keycafe software updates the access accordingly. “We no longer have to worry about whether or not we sent key accesses to the guests, which is a great relief“, says Ms. Hijiya, Ehon Hotel’s manager.

Toen het hotel in december 2021 werd geopend, maakte het managementteam zich zorgen of hun klanten zich op hun gemak zouden voelen met een self-check-insysteem. Ze bestudeerden andere hotels met vergelijkbare systemen en testten hun eigen werking herhaaldelijk.

„Om eerlijk te zijn, maakten we ons een tijdje zorgen of gasten vlot zouden kunnen inchecken. Het bleek dat alles prima werkte. Achteraf gezien heeft de pandemie de digitalisering van diensten voortgestuwd, en werden self-check-in processen wijdverspreid en geaccepteerd. Tot nu toe hebben we geen grote problemen ondervonden, en is Keycafe de kerncomponent van onze bedrijfsvoering geworden”, aldus mevrouw Hijiya.

„Wij zijn niet sterk in IT, dus het was een beetje intimiderend om Keycafe op te zetten. Gelukkig bleken alle benodigde functies gewoon aanwezig te zijn, en Keycafe is erg intuïtief.”