What if the secret to operational excellence and scaling training to a workforce of 24,425 employees across 100 hotels wasn’t a rigid Learning & Development program, but the same interactive tool used to entertain guests on a Saturday night? That’s the unexpected journey of RIU Hotels & Resorts, the international hospitality giant founded in Mallorca in 1953 and a top-three Spanish chain by revenue. 

RIU Hotels & Resorts discovered a way to transform the use of  Kahoot! 360, into a powerful engine for global employee training while delivering high guest engagement to more than 2.3 million guests visiting their properties worldwide.

A dual-purpose implementation of Kahoot! 360

For RIU Hotels & Resorts, the Entertainment Team is the heartbeat of the guest experience, so much so that Kahoot! 360 was first implemented to transform and digitalize an existing activity during the evening programming at all RIU hotels and elevate the vacation atmosphere among guests. Yet RIU Hotels & Resorts recognized that the same successful engagement tool used to deliver guest experiences could address a global challenge: training their worldwide workforce, standardizing professional excellence, and ensuring uniform standards.

1. Elevating the guest experience

RIU Hotels & Resorts integrated Kahoot! 360 to deliver their guests with live interactive experiences ahead of their evening programming shows. RIU required a platform that could help them transform passive viewership into active participation among their guests while increasing attendance at their night shows. While the nature of hospitality makes a direct ROI on “guest satisfaction” complex to quantify, the qualitative data showed a higher increase in guest interaction with the on-site teams.

In the last two years, RIU Hotels & Resorts has hosted more than 23,000 kahoots, with more than one million participants worldwide, who gather every night across its different properties, according to its usage report. 

Among the main challenges across Entertainment teams in the hospitality industry is limited resource availability. According to Ylenia Ibáñez, Animator at RIU Hotels Costa del Sol in Málaga, other hotel brands may have limited access to entertainers, forcing them to find new ways to engage guests.

2. Workforce professionalization and training

Recognizing the platform’s success among guests, RIU Hotels & Resorts expanded the tool into internal operations. This transition moved the platform from a guest experience tool used by the Animation and Entertainment department to a Learning & Development (L&D) asset with a global scale.

The commercial team at RIU Hotels & Resorts also began delivering training sessions to its partner travel agencies worldwide using Kahoot! 360. Training is measured by information retention and knowledge about the RIU property that the travel agency needs to promote.

The commercial team at RIU Hotels & Resorts needed a way to ensure their global network of travel agents possessed deep, standardized product knowledge, the kind that converts curious travelers into committed guests. Agents frequently visit RIU properties worldwide to learn about the region and specific amenities, the challenge was ensuring high retention of all that complex, factual information. For the Commercial department, better knowledge retention translates directly into better qualified leads and, ultimately, increased sales.

New ways of learning with Kahoot! on the RIU app

RIU Hotels & Resorts has taken a step forward in delivering engagement and learning to its millions of visitors worldwide. Through the RIU app (Google Play & iOS), guests can access different Kahoot! challenges. The goal of the challenges is for guests to learn more about the country they are visiting and the hotel they are staying at, and to unlock new language skills.

Looking into the future

RIU Hotels & Resorts initially adopted Kahoot! to enhance high-quality guest experiences, but the platform has also become a key tool for scaling staff training globally. As Kahoot! is increasingly used by various departments for training and onboarding, RIU Hotels & Resorts plans to expand the use of Kahoot! 360 for onboarding, staff training, and presentations across its worldwide operations.

Interested in discovering how Kahoot! can help you boost employee engagement
and productivity? Learn more at kahoot360.com or book a meeting with our sales team.