Guest analytics for hotels and resorts

Hotel analytics from Bumbee Labs measures guest visits, dwell time and flows across the lobby, restaurant, bar, spa and meeting rooms. Wi-Fi covers the property, and a 3D sensor gives precise in and out counts at a door. Bumbee Labs is the company behind the only footfall method in Europe approved by a data protection authority.

The short version

• Guest analytics for hotels, resorts and conference centres: visits, dwell time and flows per zone, from the lobby to the spa and the meeting rooms.
• Wi-Fi covers the whole property, and a 3D sensor gives precise counts at a door.
• With the POS feed connected, sales data sits alongside the footfall.
• The same metrics in every property let a hotel group compare its hotels like for like.
• Seven questions follow, from the restaurant and reception to a rebuilt lobby, and then a list of further questions.

What do hotel teams ask hotel analytics to answer?

How many of our guests actually eat here?

The restaurant is zoned as its own area, so the hotel reads its visits by day and by meal against visits to the rest of the building. That gives its zone share, the share of the property’s visitors who reach it. With the POS feed connected, the conversion funnel carries on to the till.

A crowd of guests wants to check in at once. How do we see it coming?

Reception is its own zone, so visits and dwell time at the desk are read by hour and weekday. A coach group, a conference start or a checkout rush shows up as a peak, and the desk is staffed to the curve. A 3D sensor at the entrance adds precise counts, and dwell time shows how long guests stay.

Everyone comes down for breakfast at the same time. How do we staff the rush?

The breakfast room is a zone of its own, so visits and dwell time are read by hour, weekday and season. The hotel sees when the rush starts and how long it lasts, and sets staffing and refills to that curve. Standard metrics arrive the day after; the Crowd Alert add-on works in near real time.

Are the conference rooms standing empty?

Meeting and event rooms are zoned, so visits per room are read by hour and day. The hotel sees which rooms fill and which stand idle, and can decide whether to keep, rebuild, combine or let out a room. A count of the people inside the room shows when it is in use.

How many people do the bar, the desk and the restaurant need, and when?

Zoned separately, the bar, the front desk and the restaurant each get their own curve of visits and dwell time by hour. The hotel can then see whether the bar peaks while the desk is quiet. Wi-Fi people counting supplies the curves and staff planning with footfall data turns them into a roster.

Did the rebuild of the lobby and bar change how guests use them?

Measure the rebuilt areas before and after with the same metrics: visits, dwell time and the paths through lobby and bar. Heatmaps put those paths on the floor plan, so the owner or group can compare the new layout with the old. The figures reach the dashboard, or your own BI through the API.

Which hotel in the group does best?

A fair comparison needs one counting method and one set of definitions in every property. With both in place, visits and dwell time in the lobby, bar and restaurant of each hotel can be compared like for like, and the habits of the best property copied. Benchmarking footfall covers what makes a comparison hold.

Which other guest questions can the count answer?

• How many people go past the bar from the street, and how many come in? Wi-Fi counting measures passers-by outside and visitors inside, so a bar or restaurant with its own street entrance reads its capture rate from the pavement.
• Is the bar busy when we think it is? Visits to the bar and restaurant zones are counted by hour and day, so restaurant footfall sits beside the till figures.
• Is the gym full? Spa, gym and pool are zones of their own, so visits and dwell time by hour let the hotel set opening hours by actual use, as swimming pools do.
• Do guests find the rooftop bar? Flows between the lobby and the outlets show how many guests go on from the lobby and where they drop away, and the same flows can be compared before and after a change of signage or route.
• Do sales follow the visits? Till data from the POS integration is laid beside the visits, so the two can be read together.
• Do the neighbours come back to the bar and restaurant? Return visits can be measured (with visitor opt-in).
• Was the restaurant full during the brunch campaign? Visits before, during and after a brunch, a Christmas buffet or an after-work evening are compared with the usual baseline, as set out under measuring event impact.
• Where in the building are the guests, hour by hour? Each zone has its own curve of visits and dwell time, and the flows between zones show the route guests take through the building.
• We set out breakfast for a full house. How many come? Visits to the breakfast room by weekday and season show how many arrive in total, which is the number the kitchen can plan its refills against.
• The room was booked for a large group and far fewer came. A count of the people in the meeting room gives the number actually present, to set against the number the group ordered for.

How does hospitality analytics count guests, with Wi-Fi or a 3D sensor?

It uses both, each for a different job. Wi-Fi covers the whole property, giving the lobby, bar, restaurant, spa and meeting rooms their own visit and dwell-time figures. A 3D sensor counts people in and out where a precise number matters, such as a main entrance or a meeting-room door. The output is anonymous, aggregated statistics. How to count visitors compares the methods.

Proof from multi-site operators

Operators with many similar locations need to measure consistently, benchmark and spread best practice. That approach is proven at a flagship Stockholm shopping mall (rolled out to further malls) and at a large Scandinavian retail chain, both of which use dwell-time, flow and conversion data to lift performance. See the case studies →