Hotel vs. Machine: Looking beyond the Hype to find true value

As a CTO and a hotelier, myself. I strongly believe that hoteliers are the only ones who can change the hospitality industry. While the benefits of technology in the hotel industry are undeniable, hoteliers often lack the technical expertise (which in fairness isn’t their fault, they went to school to become hoteliers not tech wizards!) required to navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of hospitality technology. Many, with no IT department, simply want technology that works, even if it’s not the best in the market. As technology continues to evolve, it’s becoming more critical for technology companies to do more for hoteliers, ensuring that they have the right tools and resources to stay competitive in a fast-paced industry. Ultimately, it’s a battle between the hotel and the machine and it’s my job as CTO to be at the forefront of driving innovation to help hotels win. To win in guest experiences, to win at optimising operations and to win at driving business growth.

It's not particularly favourable to say this but I think hoteliers are being let down by providers. What we need to be focusing on is how we have fewer consolidated vendors who do things well and are really well connected, rather than open chaos which hospitality thinks is right, right now. Everyone seems to be starting a start-up and expecting it to just grow and being grumpy with PMS’s for not integrating to the hundreds and hundreds of products available now. That isn’t hotelier focused. It is unrealistic to assume that hoteliers possess the necessary technological expertise to assess the superiority of any of the 30+ available Guest Experience apps. Moreover, their time is limited due to ongoing staffing difficulties, making it impractical for them to undertake such evaluations. Another reason of hesitancy from hoteliers to switch their existing legacy systems could be lack of trust in the vendor market. Even if the ‘promised’ gains of a new solution sound really tempting, in first instance they fear to compromise on the functionality they already have and need. It’s hard to believe that in 2023, hoteliers still think going cloud means compromising on quality and functionality, however, this is not the case. As the CTO for a pioneering cloud PMS vendor, we proudly assert that our cloud solution offers unparalleled performance and functionality without any compromises.