For hotels, the guest experience starts long before someone reaches reception.

It begins when they search for somewhere to stay, make their booking, plan their journey and decide what they'll need when they arrive.

For a growing number of EV drivers, that planning includes one important question:

Can I charge my car when I get there?

Offering EV charging can make your hotel more convenient and attractive to EV-driving guests. But simply having a charger in the car park isn't enough.

If it's difficult to find, confusing to use, unavailable when promised or there's nobody to help when something goes wrong, that frustration doesn't just reflect on the charging provider.

It reflects on your hotel.

That's why driver experience should be considered part of your overall guest experience.

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EV Charging Is Becoming Part of the Guest Journey

Think about everything your hotel does to make a guest's arrival seamless.

Clear booking confirmations. Directions. Parking information. A welcoming reception. An easy check-in.

EV charging should be treated with the same attention.

An EV driver may have chosen your hotel partly because they can arrive, plug in overnight and continue their journey the following morning with the energy they need.

When that experience works well, charging becomes another convenient part of their stay.

When it doesn't, a relatively small problem in the car park can quickly become a front-desk problem.

And that's where EV charging starts affecting your brand.

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Your Charger Is an Extension of Your Hotel

Guests don't necessarily distinguish between the different companies involved in delivering their stay.

If the Wi-Fi doesn't work, they don't blame the broadband provider.

If the shower isn't working, they don't blame the manufacturer.

And if an EV charger isn't working, they're unlikely to think first about the charge point operator.

They'll associate the experience with the hotel.

That makes the quality and reliability of your EV charging infrastructure important from a brand perspective as well as an operational one.

A guest standing in the rain repeatedly trying to start a charging session isn't the experience any hotel wants to create.

Reliable infrastructure helps protect the standard of service you've worked hard to establish elsewhere.

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A Good Charging Experience Should Feel Simple

The best EV charging experience is often an uneventful one.

The guest finds the charger. They understand what to do. They plug in. The charging session starts. They walk into the hotel.

That's it.

Behind that simplicity, however, several things need to work together.

The charger needs to be online and operational. Instructions should be clear. Payment should be straightforward. Drivers should have convenient ways to access the charger. And if something does go wrong, help needs to be readily available.

Connekt supports multiple ways for drivers to start and pay for charging across its network, including the Get Connekted app, payment terminals and QR codes, depending on the site and charger.

The aim is simple: reduce friction between arriving at the hotel and getting on with the stay.

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Don't Turn Your Reception Team Into EV Charging Support

This is an easily overlooked part of introducing EV charging at a hotel.

What happens when a guest can't start a charging session at 10:30pm?

Without dedicated support, there's a good chance they'll walk into reception.

Your team then has to troubleshoot technology they may know very little about, while also looking after every other guest in the hotel.

That's not a great experience for the driver or your staff.

With Connekt, drivers have access to support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so there's someone available to help with issues such as starting a session, plugging in or disconnecting a vehicle.

Your reception team can concentrate on hospitality.

Our Network team can concentrate on charging.

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Reliability Matters to Your Reputation

Having EV charging listed as an amenity creates an expectation.

If a guest has specifically chosen your hotel because they expect to charge overnight, arriving to find the charger unavailable can have a much bigger impact than simply missing out on a charging session.

They may need to find another public charger late at night, change their plans the following morning or leave earlier than expected.

That's why EV charger uptime and ongoing network management matter.

At Connekt, our Network team monitors charging infrastructure around the clock, with alerts helping the team identify and respond to potential issues.

Because from the guest's perspective, the most important feature of an EV charger isn't necessarily its maximum charging speed.

It's whether it works when they need it.

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Match Charging to How Long Your Guests Actually Stay

A positive driver experience doesn't automatically mean providing the fastest charger available.

For hotels, dwell time is particularly important.

If a guest arrives at 6pm and isn't leaving until 9am the following morning, their vehicle could be parked for 15 hours.

That creates a very different charging requirement from a motorway service station where drivers want to get back on the road as quickly as possible.

At Cameron House Hotel & Resort, for example, different charging requirements across the site were matched with different charging solutions. Overnight guests have different needs from valet operations requiring quicker vehicle turnaround or staff whose cars remain parked throughout a shift.

Understanding those behaviours helps hotels provide charging that fits naturally into the guest experience rather than simply installing the highest-powered equipment available.

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Make Your Chargers Easy to Find Before Guests Arrive

Driver experience doesn't begin when someone plugs in.

It can start days or weeks earlier when they're deciding where to stay.

Clearly displaying EV charging on your hotel website, booking information and pre-arrival communications can give drivers confidence that their charging needs are covered.

Visibility beyond your own channels matters too.

Connekt works with EV roaming and driver platforms including Zapmap and Octopus Electroverse, helping EV drivers discover and access charging locations through services they already use.

For hotels, that creates an interesting opportunity.

EV charging isn't only something you can offer existing guests. It can help EV drivers discover your hotel in the first place.

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Think About the Entire Charging Area, Not Just the Charger

The physical environment matters too.

Ask yourself what a guest experiences when they arrive.

Is the charging area clearly signposted? Are bays easy to identify? Can guests understand how to start charging? Is there enough room to connect comfortably? Do your pre-arrival communications explain where the chargers are?

These details may seem small, but collectively they determine whether charging feels like a carefully considered hotel amenity or an afterthought.

The experience should feel consistent with the rest of your brand.

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What Happens After Installation Matters

The day your chargers go live isn't the end of the project.

Usage changes. Technology develops. Software is updated. Drivers need support. Faults can occur. And as more guests switch to EVs, you may eventually need additional charging capacity.

That's why choosing an EV charging partner for your hotel should involve looking beyond the initial installation.

At properties such as Lodge on Loch Lomond and Rufflets St Andrews, ongoing charger usage provides an indication of how EV charging is becoming part of the wider guest experience and helps inform conversations around future demand.

A managed approach means you aren't left trying to understand all of that yourself.

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Great Hospitality Shouldn't Stop at the Car Park

Hotels put enormous effort into creating memorable guest experiences.

The bedroom matters. The food matters. The service matters. The little details matter.

And increasingly, the experience in the car park matters too.

For an EV-driving guest, being able to arrive, plug in easily, enjoy their stay and leave the following morning ready for the next journey can be a small but meaningful part of great hospitality.

Get it right and EV charging becomes another reason to remember your hotel positively.

Get it wrong and a frustrating few minutes at a charger can undermine an otherwise excellent stay.

Because to your guest, driver experience and brand experience aren't two separate things.

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Make EV Charging Part of a Better Guest Experience

Whether you're introducing EV charging for the first time or reviewing an existing setup, Connekt can help you create a solution designed around your hotel, your guests and the way they actually use your site.

From planning and installation to network monitoring and 24/7, 365 driver support, we're here long after your chargers go live.

Speak to Connekt about EV charging for your hotel.

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