Victor Kato

Project at a glance

Problem: Hotel check-in involved lengthy registration forms, queues and disconnected systems.
My role: Product Design, research and opportunity validation.
Team: Victor Kato, Michelle Musafir, Caio Santos, Cauê Melo and Rayssa Vanucci.
Period: Research began in February 2022; case documented in March 2023.
Outcome: The project was stopped because its regulatory dependency, rising totem costs and opportunity cost made it a lower priority for the company.

Exploring a simpler hotel check-in experience

Fast Check-in explored a way for guests to submit registration details before arriving at a hotel. The concept would reuse existing guest information to help prepare the National Guest Registration Form (FNRH), reducing manual entry for guests and hotel staff.

Challenges

Lengthy registration forms can slow down arrival and create queues, especially when groups check in together. We explored whether completing these steps before arrival could make the process easier for guests and hotel staff.

Project exploration

We structured the exploration around four activities:

1 - Problem identification

Queues at reception
Lengthy registration forms
Lengthy process
Limited integration with hotel systems

2 - Research

User interviews
Hotel research
Interviews with online check-in providers
Interviews with property management system (PMS) providers

3 - Business model and validation of hypotheses

Business Model Canvas
Hypothesis prioritization

4 - Validation with the hotels

Landing page
Interviews with hotels
Assessment of the development timeline
Decision not to pursue development

Prototype: exploring the check-in flow

Prototype for exploring how guests could provide registration information before arriving at the hotel. These screens represent the proposed flow, not a launched service.

Why we stopped development

Research began in February 2022, when the team saw an opportunity to improve online check-in. The concept depended on an expected legal change that would allow guests to check in at a kiosk, provided the process preserved the safeguards of a physical check-in: confirming the guest’s identity, checking whether children were travelling and verifying the required documentation.

We studied the workflows, spoke with online check-in providers, PMS providers, internal teams and partner hotels, and explored a business model in which the kiosks would be offered to hotels at no cost in exchange for discounts and other benefits for the travel agency.

As the project progressed, the cost of the kiosks increased and the regulatory dependency remained unresolved. The opportunity cost also grew: the company had other priorities and the project no longer received the budget and attention required to move forward. We therefore decided to stop development and redirect the team’s effort to a higher-priority opportunity.

Landing page concept

The landing page supported a final round of concept validation with hotels. This static reference has the company logos removed; it contains no live forms or external links.