CheKin CEO Antonio Bustamente on tech solutions and self check-ins

Spain: ShortTermRentalz spoke to CheKin CEO Antonio Bustamente about his motivation for setting up the company, the rising trend of self check-in services and plans for expansion over the next six months.

• Please introduce yourself, the CheKin brand and what services you provide within the short-term rental industry.

Hi, I am Antonio Bustamente, CEO at Chekin. CheKin is a tech company that solves legal compliance for the guest’s registration with a reliable and easy tech solution on a global scale.

We offer a solution for every actor involved within the hospitality industry (OTAs, property management systems, hotel chains or property managers, software companies) to automate the bureaucracy, provide them coverage of the mandatory legal requirement, and improve the experience of the final user, the guests, and the hosts.

We have registered over one million guests since the beginning of the year and we are expanding our operations worldwide.

• What was your motivation for setting up CheKin and what gap in the market do you believe it fills?

I started CheKin personally as I had a company managing 30 vacation homes and we could not automate and improve processes due to bureaucracy. Guests did not have the best experiences so I thought we could solve it with technology.

We are creating a global standard for tourism legislation with the goal of helping the industry to become 100 per cent digital.

• What makes the CheKin check-in solution unique to what is being offered by other competitors in the travel bookings market? How is this being guided by the level of short-term rental regulations coming into force?

We help tourism professionals to be more efficient and offer the best experience to their guests. We differentiate ourselves by translating global fragmented regulations into an easy-to-integrate solution.

• Would you say you are coming across any specific challenges to your business within the space, and if so, how are you addressing these issues?

We are lucky to have so much demand to cover many countries, we are expanding our operations rapidly so we try to keep up with the challenge of growing on a fast path.

• In terms of bookings, are any particular booking trends emerging that you are noticing and you think will be prevalent in the next 12 months as well? Such as what guests are booking and what they are asking for in the booking experience?

Yes, self check-in is something we see as an important trend in the industry. We solve identification of guests, legal registration and connection with smart locks and it is something we are experimenting a huge demand.

• What are you envisaging as a company in terms of expansion over the coming years?

We plan to cover all Europe within six months and expand to North America during 2020.

For more information, visit the CheKin website here.