Restaurants & Hotels

Decision Made Easy

As restaurant or hotel operator with your own guest parking (or a shared parking facility in any commercial real estate setting) you enjoy many benefits by employing ParkPod systems. The following should make your investment decision an easy one:

Climate Protection (more about this here)

• By helping to electrify your guests' traffic you can make a substantial contribution toward climate protection.
• Especially in dense/urban areas you can contribute to improving air quality considerably.
• "Green PR" – Your company will be viewed by your guests, the media and the general public as being "with-the-times” and climate-conscious.
• As an enabling provider of decentralized energy storage (think of all the batteries of vehicles plugged-in on your lots) you can cooperate with electric utilities to foster the economical operation of renewable energy sources (e.g. wind, solar).

Customer Satisfaction (more about this here)

• Enhanced customer experience, your guests can not only park, but also re-charge their vehicles conveniently during their stay with you. You attract progressive, higher-income customers.
• You can significantly influence the time customers spend at your restaurant.
• You are acquiring a new element for your marketing mix, which works well for promotions, loyalty programs and loss leader tactics.
• You acquire an easy-to-administer tool for marketing alliances.

Capital Effectiveness (more about this here)

• You acquire a new revenue source, which can significantly contribute to your margins. Equipment and variable cost are limited and you set the price charged to customers, thus driving profits and ROI's.
• You improve the ROI on your parking lot real estate, which you have to offer anyhow. You can administer your parking lots more effectively, and can recognize and prevent abuse more easily.
• Your investment risk can be limited significantly through participation in one of our pilot programs.
• You open up profitable cooperation possibilities with third parties, e.g. energy utilities.

Control of Your Business (more about this here)

• You control every important aspect of ParkPod deployment toward your business goals, and thus increase your competitiveness.
• You acquire a future-proof, flexible system, which is configurable and expandable to meet your needs.
• You control the degree of integration of your ParkPod system with your IT.
• You don't have to share your guest relationships and/or data with anyone.

Case Study for Restaurants & Hotels (illustrative only):

John Doe is just finding the way to your hotel. He's a proud owner of a new plug-in-hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). He is on a business trip. John sells high-tech systems and likes to visit his customers in a climate-friendly, high-tech car. Especially driving in "pure electric mode" (there is also a gasoline mode John only uses for emergencies). This quiet rolling of pure electric, however, impresses his customers and saves travel cost. For his PHEV, he ordered the largest battery available but even this one is almost empty now. His in-dash display suggests "10% charge left", just as he enters your underground parking garage. It is Monday evening, 7:30 p.m.

Luckily, John knows your hotel and the ParkPod stations you feature for your guests in your garage. He quickly finds one of the designated parking spots. He authenticates with your hotel's frequent guest card, connects the cable from the station to his car and checks in walking to the reception desk, that ParkPod's status display is now on "orange" – charging in progress.

"Everything under control", smiles John, assured that even his large 30kWh battery will easily be charged overnight. At a price that makes sense for him and for your hotel's P&L. You have already preset charging times at 8h max, as you know that this allows even large charges to complete while effectively curbing abuse.

"If I dine at the hotel's restaurant, 'California Grill', I'll get my charge at half price." John has understood your promo message perfectly. "Let's see… …OK, I might as well have another drink, won't be driving much tonight anyhow". And your revenues have just increased, while your guest sips his Cabernet with a smile and a "sweet deal" on his tab. All this for a variable cost of roughly 27kWh or $4.05 (estimate, actual figures may vary). The next morning, John's invoice will read: "$20.00, less E-Gourmet-Discount California Grill 50%, net $10.00 plus tax"

Of course, you can sell your guests pre-paid charging cards, possibly combined with other loyalty-instruments or you can run your ParkPod systems as profit centers, with attractive margins to boot. You can even let your most loyal guests charge subsidized or free, at low risk, after all you control both the price and the variable cost.

In addition, your urban parking garage can be shared more equitably and utilized more profitably. Should John overstay a 12h limit, you could gently remind him, for example at checkout. Your guest system has long identified John through ParkPod's networking capabilities. You know exactly who charges, when, where and how long, even days and weeks later. This guest data is yours and yours alone, and can be used to gain insights on your guests' behavioral preferences, and thus to fine-tune your hotel's guest experience or your marketing efforts even more effectively. Sharing this data with third parties (subject to applicable laws and regulations) is purely optional with a ParkPod system.

After breakfast, John happily continues his trip, now "99% charged" and after his morning appointment stops by the Bistro, where he will have lunch with a business partner. John is delighted, that like your hotel, the "Bistro" chain is member of the marketing alliance "Clean City". By authenticating himself with your hotel card at Bistro's charging station, he can now fill up with more clean electrons before heading onto the freeway and back to his home office. No customer data needs to be shared to enable such alliances, thanks to ParkPod's encrypted user key architecture. In fact any authentication can be switched on and off remotely through the Internet.

"Simply awesome, this system!" reflects John, humming on his way home. And I don't even have to detour to the gas stations anymore. Why exactly, did it take us so long to come up with electric cars…?"

You meanwhile, are preparing for an on-premise shoot with the local TV channel, which wants to report on your business as a noteworthy e-mobility and sustainability pioneer in your city. "Practically free PR…", you ponder "…hard to turn down, isn't it?"