Hotels, Restaurants Turn to QR Code for Contactless Menus
Hugs, high-fives, friendly pats on the back, and anything that breaches the six-foot rule are now taboo according to the public health guidelines issued to minimize the spread of coronavirus. But there is another problem, researchers have found that the coronavirus can stay alive on surfaces. A New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) study from April showed that coronavirus can survive on plastic and stainless steel for up to 3 days, and on cardboard for up to 1 day.
The research showed that when someone who has COVID-19 coughs or exhales they release droplets of infected fluid. Most of these droplets fall on nearby surfaces and objects – such as desks, tables, or doors. People could catch COVID-19 by touching contaminated surfaces or objects – and then touching their eyes, nose, or mouth. This became one very big challenge to the hotel and restaurants as people share the menus on the tables and disinfecting them from time to time may not be an effective way especially when there’s a bustling of activities everywhere.
Even when the President allowed them to reopen and released the guidance they were supposed to adhere to, to be allowed to operate, the menu listing the foods available and their prices is still a problem for some of them. Innovative owners have however turned to the QR Code technology to keep their businesses safe in the new normal. The hotels created a PDF file of their menus and generated a QR code from the QR code generators making it easy for customers to access all the lists of their foods, salads, and beverages digitally on their phones.
There was a time you needed to download an app in order to scan a QR code. These days you just need a camera on your smartphone to scan the bar codes and that’s it. One of these hotels is the Attibassi Coffee in Upper Hill that I visited today. The coffee house printed the barcode on a board at the entrance making it easy and convenient for customers to scan before entering the hotel. Many other restaurants and hotels in Nairobi have begun replacing the paper menus permanently with this technology to ensure smooth, hygienic, and perfect dining experience for their customers.
See: Pizza and other Foods you must avoid
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