Technology

My top 5: 1). Session specific: As these will be online, make the sessions very specific. So not “what will be the future of hotel wireless infrastructure” but “what will WIFI 6 mean for your hotel guests and the three things you need to know”.

Thanks HFTP for virtualizing this year's edition of HITEC! It would have been very hard, especially for non-US based hoteliers to join this year for obvious reasons. What I have enjoyed most at HITECs in the past was the opportunity to network, catch up with old friends, and make new connections (remember the HotSOS parties?).

In my view, the trickiest part of Cyber HITEC will be the organization and online presentation of the trade show. Keynote speeches, sessions, workshops, and seminars can easily be organized via online conferencing technology like Zoom.

I believe there are three immediate action steps hoteliers, especially independents, can implement in a relatively fast and inexpensive fashion: 1. Develop a “Here is how we make your stay with us safer than ever” program with sanitation and safety protocols at the property, including: Infrared fever detection for each guest arrival (devices on Amazon start at $299)Contactless guest servicing technology applications such as mobile-check-in and virtual concierge as well as mobile assistants in the guest rooms, etc.

First and foremost, building trust is the most imperative factor to get your guests in the rooms. Physical sanitation of rooms and common spaces on a regular basis should be made routine. SOP's need to be designed around room dining and buffet break fasts can be replaced by in-room service.

The main things that could or should be done are. 1: guest communication platforms, either a Whats App for business or a dedicated platform, guest's communication should be digital and remove the need to go to the reception or concierge.

I am a firm believer that hoteliers should stay focused on their core competencies to prosper in today's complex, hyper-dynamic environment. Unfortunately, technology is not and has never been one of hotelier's core competencies.

To develop your own solutions, a big and expensive team of specialists is required. A typical software development cycle has project managers, product managers, developers, testers, security specialists, DBAs, and functional and technical analysts involved, amongst others.

Life long tech investments and systems are a thing of the past. The average age of any new technology is five years. Today technology disrupts verticals and human behavior. The total cost of owning technology has come down considerably with mobile and cloud solutions.

1) No the one stop shop is not already here. Some vendors do cover multiple products but there is no all in one. 2) The biggest barriers for vendors has been geographical presence and legal / compliance per country, language and support.

When we worked with retail, education, theme parks and licensing businesses we needed a handful of systems to manage all their business processes. ERP, CRM, POS and much more is done on a single platform. In hotels not so much...

The hospitality industry has a “tech vendor deficit disorder” in the sense of being overwhelmed by the number of tech vendors and solutions out there. The existing fragmentation of the industry: stakeholders, technology and data, is exacerbated further by the super fragmentation in hotel tech vendors.

I have two big frustrations: 1) In the Booking Phase: dealing with mobile-last Hotel websites that take forever to download on mobile devices. Wake up, hoteliers, visitors to your websites quit if your website pages and booking screens are not downloading within 2.5 seconds!

Whilst you may have viewed my HITEC video regarding my frustrations with tech when staying in a Hotel – let me add my two cents regarding booking a Hotel. In many cases, I find the booking process to be just too cumbersome and does not always follow a natural sequence – such as location, dates (in/out), number of people, type of room etc.

I don't believe that this is about Billions of dollars or even percentages of revenue. It's about a willingness to change, and unfortunately we are not very good at that. In our industry innovation or R&D does not have to be very technical and therefore does not have to be done by specialists.

Lots of us think that there is not enough investment in innovation in the hospitality industry. I disagree - at least as it relates to the investment by chains. When you include technology refurbishment and renewal, it is the independent properties and to a lesser extent the loosely managed brands such as Best Western individual member properties that fall behind.

Digitization means democratization. Today it is not the budget that decides but the competence of the management about success and failure. Hotels should invest first and foremost in the quality of management, in their continuous education and training.

Even though still in the Buzz word stage, AI will play a massive role in our industry. Most will state that it will be a customer facing technology. From concierge robots who can interact with guests to chatbots and messaging.

Revenue management systems (RMS) were once amongst the hottest technologies in our industry. Unfortunately, we have not made much progress beyond hurdle rates, last room availability and length of stay powered by basic algorithms that haven't changed much.

Artificial Intelligence is not new to the hospitality industry in the specifics of narrow intelligence. The industry has long had technology capable of providing decision support or executive information around specific and targeted sets of consolidated information.