UK Hotels Add Self-Service

Version imprimable

Premier Inn has selected cost-saving hardware to improve customer service and provide more environment-friendly printing solutions. With 580 budget hotels and more than 40,000 rooms across the UK, Premier Inn, a brand of Whitbread PLC, is one of the UK’s largest and fastest-growing hotel chains.  They recently made the decision to introduce self-service check-in kiosks to a number of their hotel reception areas, as well as to replace some of their traditional A4 laser printers at the reception desks.
 
By introducing self-check-in kiosks in hotel reception areas, Premier Inn has reduced queues at busy times. Guests can now enter their booking confirmation number and their name, insert their payment card and thus book themselves in.
 
A key component of this kiosk is the TUP992 printer from international printer manufacturer Star Micronics. This printer holds large capacity paper rolls measuring up to 25cm and ranging from 65gsm/0.065mm to 150gsm/0.15mm in thickness. Capable of two-colour output at 150mm per second, the TUP992 offers a multi-position adjustable near end paper sensor, presenter and document capture facilities. The printer features an A4 to A6 scalable raster driver facilitating reduced legible A4 or Internet output on 112mm wide paper.
 
For the reception desk, Whitbread has deployed Star Micronics’ TSP800 printer to replace the previous traditional A4 laser printer. Small and compact, this thermal printer offers a versatile 150mm/second barcode, label, receipt and ticket printer with a unique 104mm print width on paper stock up to 150g/m2.
 
Key features of this printer include an automatic scalable raster driver for immediate A4 reduction to virtual A6 on 112mm wide paper with no additional software required. This makes the TSP800 with its compact footprint, vertical ‘desk boot’ and wall mount options a good space-saving alternative to an expensive traditional A4 laser printer.
 
Trefor Price, IT Project Manager at Whitbread PLC, commented, “We selected the TUP992 and TSP800 printers from Star Micronics for their unique features and benefits, reliability and efficient printing capability. Reducing queues at busy times and providing an improved service to our customers are key. At the reception desk, the TSP800 allows us to not only save space, reduce costs and CO2 emissions but also provide a more efficient billing service to our customers.”