- Mar 10, 2023
Say goodbye to nuisance parking and random vehicles stealing spaces from your guests.
When you are part of the front desk team at a busy hotel, the last thing you want to do is worry about car parking management.
Your job is to welcome guests and help them get settled into their rooms, making sure they have everything they need for a comfortable night’s stay. You’ve got hundreds of guests to take care of every night. You can’t be dealing with car parking issues along with all the other tasks you have.
And that’s why hotel staff love ANPR (Automated Number Plate Recognition) car parking management. This technology makes managing hotel car parks much easier for a number of reasons:
1. Authorising access for hotel guests is simple
With ANPR car parking management, new arrivals at the hotel can simply drive straight onto the car park. They don’t need to worry about checking in first, getting a pass or a card, or paying in advance.
Once they’re parked up, a simple process registers their car details and gives them authorisation as a hotel guest. This can be done either via a self-service touchscreen tablet or by front desk staff on the guest’s behalf.
After the car registration’s details are added to the system, that guest is an approved user of the car park for the length of their stay, and they don’t need to worry about access or payments when they leave the car park.
2. Spaces are always available for hotel guests
With the digital technology used for car park management, hotel staff can see exactly how many cars are authorised to park in their car park, and they know when these cars should be leaving. This means they can ensure that spaces are always available for new guests.
The ANPR cameras monitor unauthorised access and discourage any cars that are not permitted to use the car park through the automatic parking charge notices. This helps keep spaces open only for hotel guests.
3. They have flexibility for special events
When hotels use a permit-based system for their hotel car parking management, they can quickly and easily change the parameters of those permits whenever they need to.
It’s especially useful when the hotel holds a special event or one-off activity. If there’s a large business conference for example, where some delegates might not be staying overnight, hotel staff can issue permits for all attendees to allow them to park for free for the day.
Weddings are another occasion where flexibility is important. If a hotel is holding a wedding reception, guests don’t expect to pay for parking and nor do they want the hassle of dealing with tokens or tickets. With automated technology, guests can just register their number plate details, and the system will handle everything else to ensure that they have free parking.
And if a wedding guest does forget to enter their details and they receive a PCN (Parking Charge Notice) in the post, this can be waived by hotel staff.
4. Staff admin and management time is reduced
Automated processes are a great asset for hotel staff, because their administration time is dramatically reduced.
Hotel staff don’t need to spend time checking guests in and out of their car park, and they don’t need to patrol their car park to check for unauthorised use, cross-checking cars with registered guests. They can almost forget about the car park, knowing it’s being managed effectively by the system.
5. Parking charge notices are handled automatically
Staff don’t need to concern themselves with issuing parking charges to guests that have abused the car park’s terms, overstayed their welcome, or parked without permission. The admin time and cost of issuing and following up charges can be troublesome, but with ANPR technology it’s all handled automatically.
Staff also don’t need to be worried about angry or irate car owners who have been issued with a parking ticket, because everything is done remotely, once a car leaves the premises. Instead they can focus on helping their guests, rather than dealing with complaints.
6. There are no barriers to worry about
By using permits and ANPR technology for their car parking management, staff don’t need to worry about barriers on their car parks either.
These can often break, or cars can get stuck behind them, or something doesn’t work correctly and access is restricted. They can be a hassle to deal with and a costly to fix. Removing car park barriers makes the process simpler for both employees and guests.
7. Airport parking problems are not an issue
Finally, for hotels located near airports, long stay parking can be a significant problem. Guests may pay for one night at the hotel and gain access to the car park, and then leave their car there for two weeks whilst they jet off on holiday.
But with permits and automated number plate recognition, hotel staff can manage their car parks far more effectively and prevent this from happening.
Signage is erected throughout the car park that informs guests they can only park here for the permitted duration, and any overstays are monitored thorough number plate technology.
Users quickly become aware that they cannot get away with using the car park for long stays, and know they’ll get a parking charge notice if they do.
Need a helping hand?
Creative Car Park is one of the UK’s leading car park management companies and we fully understand the problems faced by hoteliers when dealing with their car parks.
If you’re looking to reduce the pressure on your hotel staff with improved car parking management, speak with our expert team to find the ideal solution for your hotel car park by clicking here. You can also request a free, no-obligation audit of your car park.