One Stop Hospitality Shopping

Hyatt Hotels announced the rolling out of a kiosk based check-in system at 124 hotels in North America and Hawaii today. The system enables guests at the hotels to check-in and obtain a boarding pass together with flight arrival and departure information at major airports. Baggage is to be ferried to the airport by a deal worked out with a skycap company. The arrangement does not extend to international flights due to the limitations posed by immigration formalities. While laudable, it leads one to wonder what next? Car keys from a rental company on arrival? While many hotels already have car rental companies on premise, it would be a step further to have the car and keys ready at check-in and the same returned on check-out. That would be true one-stop shopping – an idea that some companies may already be mulling.

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Vijay Dandapani

Co-founder and president of a New York based hotel company for 24 years. Grew the firm to five hotels in Manhattan and also developed a greenfield project at MacArthur airport, New York. Speaker at numerous prestigious forums including Economy Hotels World Asia, Lodging Conference, NYU, Columbia University Real Estate Roundtable, Baruch College's Zicklin School and ALIS. President and ceo of New York City Hotel Association since January 2017.