How New Technology And Innovation Are Accelerating Adoption In Hotels
Hoteliers have a lot on their plates when it comes to technology. Sorting hype from reality in generative artificial intelligence is just one challenge on a list that includes addressing technical debt, optimizing revenue and incorporating data science.
Cloud technology can help, according to Sean Fitzpatrick, CEO of Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight), because it enables hotels to make changes and drive innovation through gradual steps.
“There’s a tendency to take large transformational projects that take multiple years to implement," he said. "It doesn't have to be that way. You can actually release and unlock a lot of value through smaller steps and increments.”
Fitzpatrick was joined in the PhocusWire Studio at The Phocuswright Conference by Klaus Kohlmayr, chief evangelist at IDeaS, who added that there is momentum in hotels investing in technology and upgrades and that the big chains are investing heavily in both technology and cloud platforms.
“AWS [Amazon Web Services], who is our partner, has said a lot of them [hotel companies] have completed or are about to complete cloud migrations, and there is going to be a whole bunch of new innovation built on top of what they have done foundationally over the last couple of years. So I feel over the next 18 months to two years we're going to see some pretty exciting innovation coming out.”
Kohlmayr also shared that hospitality is not an industry that naturally embraces innovation, but that there is an acceptance that technology can improve the sector.