GPS bracelets, dematerialized keys: with the Covid, soon a contactless tourism?

The summer season should be that of recovery for the tourism sector, at least in France.

After a year of crisis due to Covid-19, professionals have reviewed their health protocols.

New technologies, particularly contactless, will be more and more present in vacation spots.

INVESTIGATION

The deconfinement calendar makes French people want a vacation.

Reservations for the May long weekends are booming and summer is starting to fill up in tourist accommodation.

Covid requires, these holidays will still be a bit special this year, between gauges and respect for barrier gestures.

Hotels, campsites, airports, transport companies: in one year of the health crisis, tourism professionals have adapted, in particular thanks to new technologies.

In particular, it is necessary to prepare for contactless tourism.

>> Find the morning show of the day in replay and podcast here

Save time by using contactless terminals

To reassure holidaymakers and welcome them while respecting barrier gestures, tourism professionals have taken advantage of recent months to develop new contactless reception protocols. We will find it everywhere this summer. At the airport, to go to Corsica, overseas or certain European countries, at the Air France boarding counter, you will have to present your "sanitary pass" via the TousAntiCovid application. Dematerialization that makes life easier for airlines: checking health documents increases boarding time at Air France by 30%.

If you go by car too, you may encounter innovations, including terminals that avoid queuing at the counter.

And that's not all.

"You can book entirely through the Sixt app by scanning your identity documents at home. Then, at the branch, you can pick up your vehicle without going through the counter, the app automatically unlocks it and the key is waiting for you at the interior ", explains to Europe 1 Jean-Philippe Doyen, president of Sixt.

A service initially intended for business customers but which could also appeal to anxious tourists.

Swiss Army knife applications and dematerialized keys

The dematerialized key is one of the most trendy innovations. Since April, the Accor hotel group has been rolling out a fully digital key. "The Accor Key is a key on your phone that works with a QR code received by email when you make your reservation. No need for a key or a magnetic card, you open the door to your room with your smartphone", explains Patrick Mendes, Chief Commercial Officer of the Accor group. "The development took time, we had launched some tests last year but it has become a priority with the crisis." More than 300 group hotels are already benefiting from it, with a target of 50% of the group's 5,000 equipped hotels within three years.

Applications are increasingly appearing on our vacation spots to streamline tourist activities.

MSC Cruises has thus developed MSC for Me, a Swiss Army knife application for life on board ships.

"It already allows us to find our way on our ships, which are real villages, without going through the information desk. It also includes dematerialized tickets, which allows us to better control the flow of passengers on boarding", details Patrick Pourbaix, Managing Director of MSC Cruises for France.

"And then, on board, it gives access to all the activities. You can reserve a table in a restaurant, a place for a performance, a tennis court, a game of bowling ..."

"Contactless has become a customer expectation"

All these innovations were not designed specifically as a response to the health crisis.

In reality, they had often been in the pipes for several months and they have simply been adapted to the situation.

"With the Covid, the dematerialized has become a selling point for those who do not want to multiply the contacts", estimates Jean-Philippe Doyen, president of Sixt.

“Contactless has even become an expectation,” says Patrick Mendes, General Sales Director of the Accor group.

As a result, the hotel group has accelerated the development of its digital key.

“We won a year and a half to two years,” said Patrick Mendes.

© Miguel MEDINA / AFP

In fact, contactless technology limits the risk of virus transmission.

MSC Cruises goes even further by equipping its passengers with a bracelet fitted with an NFC electronic chip.

This chip allows you to open your cabin without touching the handle, or to place an order at the bar.

But that's not all.

"the bracelet allows each passenger to be tracked when they enter a restaurant or a gym. Knowing that we take the temperature when you enter, this gives us a follow-up of the temperature throughout the stay and detect possible cases of Covid fairly quickly ", welcomes Patrick Pourbaix, Managing Director of MSC Cruises France.

There will always be a human to welcome you 

But who says more technology also says less people and therefore jobs lost. For the time being, all the tourism players interviewed by Europe 1 swear to their gods that this is not the goal. It is not a question of suppressing all human relations, rather of reducing the time lost due to administrative formalities. "All technology is not the solution, we remain hoteliers and human relations are fundamental for us", assures Patrick Mendes, of the Accor group. "The idea is rather to reduce the waiting time at check-in, for example, so that our staff can better welcome visitors when they arrive." 

Tourism professionals also have in mind that holidaymakers, especially seniors, do not all have smartphones. "We have put touch screens on all our boats which give access to the same functionalities as the application and which are complementary to the information desks run by the crew", specifies Patrick Pourbaix, of MSC Cruises. And for tourists less comfortable with new technologies, especially among the oldest, there will always be a human to welcome you. But it is true that we can also increasingly do without it.