Have you ever checked into a hotel expecting a trouble-free holiday, only to be driving around the car park in frustration before you have even set off on your break?

It’s a hassle that no visitor should have to face — but many hotels still contend with it. Parking, while often overlooked in the overall hospitality experience, plays a pivotal role in shaping first impressions and guest satisfaction.

Hotels today have a very diverse clientele — ranging from holiday couples and transient business travellers to wedding groups, convention attendees, and residents. With all the different clientele, hotel parking spaces can be some of the busiest and most disorienting places to walk through.

If the parking space is not controlled, it leads to delays, frustration, access issues, and is a barrier to repeat business. In a competitive market, poor parking management is a risk that no hotel can afford to ignore.

The Parking Challenge for Hotels

Within the UK hospitality sector as a whole, there are some typical parking challenges that most frequently affect guest satisfaction and business effectiveness:

• Congestion at peak hours: Guests waste valuable time searching for spaces at wedding receptions, conferences, and busy check-in/check-out times.
• Non-guests using the car parks: Free car parks are often misused by people visiting nearby locations who have no connection to the hotel.
• Disable bay misuse: When disabled spaces are not effectively monitored can potentially result in them being used for unauthorised access.
• Unmonitored long-stays: In the absence of surveillance, unauthorised vehicles park with impunity, using space for longer durations.
• Missed Revenue Opportunities: Unattended car parks are missing revenue opportunities that they can generate using a professional parking management company.
• Congestion Risks: Poor traffic flow at entrances and exits causes delay concerns for customers.
• Security Issues: Unsupervised parking facilities are more likely to be misused or damaged, which can lead to guest dissatisfaction and asset damage.

First impressions matter; a parking space is a customer’s first touch-point with the hotel’s infrastructure. Any discomfort with the same is a potential customer loss. Keeping a professional parking management in place mitigates such conditions.

Site Map

The Situation – Hilton Hotel, London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5

Being a high-profile UK hotel owned by Hilton, the Hilton Hotel at London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 needs no introduction. Not only does the hotel serve as a stopover rest for guests, but it also serves as a great conference complex, wedding area, and events centre. Its reputation rests on delivering a seamless, five-star experience from arrival to departure.

Despite the hotel’s premium experience, it needed to cope with the following parking issues:

• Unauthorised access:  Motorists from surrounding residential areas occupied the hotel’s parking space. With no restrictions, these vehicles would come and go undetected. This also reduced space turnover, making it harder for new arrivals to find vacant parking spaces.

• Traffic congestion for popular events: The hotel faced a high demand for parking during major occasions and peak check-in/check-out times. Guests arriving for these events often found no available parking, starting their visit on a distasteful note.

• Blue Badge Bays abuse: Unwarranted motorists occupied blue badge bays at the hotel, which resulted in accessibility issues for customers with mobility problems and imposed challenges for the hotel from a compliance point of view.

• Missed revenue opportunity: With no parking payment machines, the hotel missed out on generating revenue from its parking space.

• Bad first impressions: Dissatisfaction and poor experience at the parking space led to guest complaints and, in some cases, cancellations, hampering the business and its reputation.

Hilton recognised that these car parking issues were more than an operational issue, but also a reputation one, and asked us to design an end-to-end parking management solution.

The Omne Technology Solution

With the aid of our sister company, Euro Parking Services Ltd’, we started with a site visit of meticulous detail, evaluating the layout of the car park, traffic flow, and guest usage. From this foundation, we created a tailored parking management system that met Hilton’s specific needs, keeping the hotel’s luxury brand image in place.

1. ANPR Cameras with Embedded Barriers

• Installed on all exits and entries to automatically read vehicle number plates.
• Stopped unauthorised visitors by issuing PCN to them, and decreased such usage.
• Automatic overstays detected for effective enforcement.
• Enhanced traffic flow and space utilisation.

2. CCTV Surveillance

• Constant 24/7 camera monitoring in all sections of the car park.
• Averted unauthorised use, vandalism, and abuse.
• Enhanced the car park’s safety and facilitated the settlement of disputes.

3. Omne Pay on Entry Machines

• State-of-the-art contactless payment machines that accept credit and debit cards, and other forms of contactless payments.
• A simple user interface for a better customer experience.
• In-house customisable tariffs for in-house guests at the hotel, event attendees, and employees.
• Established a solid new source of income for the hotel.

4. On-Site Car Park Wardens

• Employed during peak time to guide guests and maintain fluidity in the car park.
• Ensured compliance with Blue Badge bays and protected accessibility for those who needed it.

The Impact– Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Hilton London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 has measurably improved since Omne Technology came on board:

• Space for Genuine Guests: Unauthorised usage was significantly reduced with the help of CCTV, ANPR integrated with Barrier, and Parking Wardens. The ecosystem made sure that authorised motorists found parking spaces.
• Enhanced guest experience: Stress-free parking and easy user interface of the Omne machine elevated customer satisfaction levels.
• Revenue Generation: Omne Technology’s Pay on Entry machines provided stable revenue to reinvest. The back office enabled the hotel to whitelist its choice of users instantaneously
• Improved Compliance: With blue badge bays being monitored for guests with mobility challenges aided in improving parking compliance in line with Hilton’s standards.
• Improved safety and security: CCTV and controlled access assured visitors that their vehicles are safe and are under 24/7 surveillance.
• Improved brand reputation: Following the installation of all systems from Omne Technology and EPS, the customers of Hilton have seen a positive change in their experience, strengthening Hilton’s image as a premium, customer-focused brand.

The Bigger Picture – Parking as a Strategic Asset

It remains not uncommon for the majority of hotels to view car parking as a necessary amenity and not a revenue potential or guest touchpoint asset. Hilton’s experience with Omne Technology indicates that proactive parking management has a direct correlation with guest satisfaction and operational performance.

Transform your car park into a worthwhile, revenue-producing asset that maximises your visitors’ first impression. Contact us today and see how our proven and effective parking systems can help your parking space work smarter for your business.