Marriott hotels in the US will support Apple Pay beginning summer 2015 – for check-in and check-out facilities.
At check-in, guests will be able to use Apply Pay on their iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch to pay. There will be no need of credit card upon check-in.
Apply Pay at check-in will be available at hotels including the Ritz-Carlton, EDITION, Renaissance Hotels and Marriott Hotels.
In 2013, Marriott offered its mobile application for check-in and check-out on smartphone. Its guests can access these services at 4,000 hotels worldwide. Guests have been testing for service request, enabling them to chat in real time with hotel staff to make requests.
Marriott also plans to release an application for Apple Watch, which will help Marriott rewards members to use it to check-in in advance, receive prior notification about the availability of the room ad check-out at nearly 4,000 hotels globally.
“Millions of customers already use Marriott Mobile to quickly book a hotel, check-in or check out. Now Apple Pay can make it virtually effortless,” said George Corbin, senior vice president, Marriott Digital.
Marriott Rewards members who carry the loyalty program’s co-branded credit card load it into Apple Pay and designate it as primary card, earning Marriott Rewards points every time they use Apple Pay at retailers.
In January 2015, Marriott announced that Hotel Company is letting some guests’ stream Netflix, Pandora and Hulu ob their hotel television sets. Offering access to Netflix and Hulu for video content as well as Pandora for music, hotel management is attempting to decide how to offer the service to guests.
In Ovum’s 2014 Consumer Insights survey only 15 percent of respondents said they had any plans to buy a smart watch in the next six to 24 months.
Apple will have to change this mind set if it wants the Apple Watch to be successful, and next to beautiful design, clever applications will be a critical means to achieve this.
Apple Pay is intended to figure in this equation, but although the m-payment application appears to be enjoying early success on the iPhone 6, it will not necessarily follow the same trajectory on the Apple Watch.
Eden Zoller, principal analyst, Consumer Services and Payments at Ovum, said: “The prospect of wearables, smart watches or otherwise, becoming a mainstream platform for m-commerce is debatable. The most immediate problem is lack of scale, not helped by steep price points and a perception among consumers that wearables are still novelty products.”
“Wearables are a challenging environment for developers as the market is fragmented, while wearables present completely new form factors and usage scenarios. Wearable devices will ultimately have a more narrowly defined m-commerce remit than smartphones and tablets, and be best suited to lower value “tap and go” mobile proximity payments, for example in travel and transit,” Zoller said.
Shilpa Khatri
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