Technology for tomorrow's hotels? Does progress ever stop? By Antoine Wasserfallen - ehlite.com

From Products to Processes… - Under the 19th century's impulsion, hospitality has shifted from providing artisan type service to a combination of methods and processes seen in the production industries (cars, goods, etc…). 20th century gave the impression that the industrialisation of construction was somewhat spread out to the whole occidental civilization. But it appears not to have reached its completion yet. This leads us to realize that today; the hospitality industrialization is still not complete. What is our alternative? Are we going to get back to a more artisan type service production or are we going to finalize and complete this industry revolution that has been going on since two centuries now?

Technological areas with high potential growth: - The major innovations in hospitality primarily came from the transfer of existing technologies. Think about what Edison's invention and its integration within homes have brought to mankind. No one would doubt on the tremendous value that lifts, telecommunications, air-conditioning, heating, etc have added to construction and comfort. The Faustian issue remaining - this progress impacts the environment through pollution and deepens the gap between occidental and other civilizations- has to be controlled representing a major geopolitical challenge in our sustainable development strategies.

Here is a list of technological areas in steep mutation that are related with societies as a whole. These could be case studies for the 21st century. Future hospitality case studies, who knows?

We are talking about one of the oldest infrastructure network there is - whose history reflects our civilisation's hygiene evolution - serving our urban development. Eating and drinking on one hand and evacuating on the other are human fundamentals. When looking at global population growth and urbanisation, the maintenance and logistics of these networks sometimes a hundred years old are a major issue. Think about the United State's legionella crisis in 1986 and the resurgence in Europe lately - implying a minute by minute control of water quality in hotels - the blame being put on the sanitarian infrastructures. What is the solution? A first solution would be to increase the complexity of our existing networks, or to introduce some innovative technologies orientated towards future and sustainable development. This brings us to micro filtration, area in which the use of membranes is a promising solution.

Fuel cell (hydrogen batteries and engines) as a power supply… Forget about toxic carbon dioxide emissions, hello water!

With fossil fuels projected to run out within the next century, the world is in need of a permanent replacement fuel such as hydrogen. Though the need of such a system is not expressed yet, why not try to imagine it in hospitality?

The current power supply systems are internal diesel or gas combustion engines, with all the pollution associated to it. Hydrogen engines are based on inversing the electrolysis of water (input: Hydrogen, outputs: Energy and pure water). Besides current American military programs, not much has been done so far in trying to transfer this technology. But when thinking about it, the potential applications are huge; enhancing mobility (electrical devices), the supply of electrical power centred on needs of end-consumers would be revolutionized, bearing in mind that this combustible is totally environmentally friendly - forget about heavy metals and other chemical effluents - with outcomes being energy and water. On the top of it all, these engines would be silent…

Containing the flow of waste being incinerated is a current preoccupation when looking into sustainable development. Why should hoteliers only be energy consumers? What if they were to become power suppliers when they recycle their waste? Imagine on a broader scale a city that would produce energy through recycling; imagine the cost savings in terms of energy, the economies of scale as the population grows. The main advantage of such an existing technology is that they do not require any reengineering of the existing processes, but require instead intercommunion of current technologies and processes.

A huge power supply is standing next to us, not a couple of kilometres under ground, but in our waste bin; waiting to be valued. Why not such a system in hotels?

Transportation is a mean enabling successful tourism as they help in conveying travellers to their destinations. Hotels being destinations, they should act as a lobby in promoting the private-public mix of transportation infrastructures. Public transportation being a complement to individual conveying methods in the future (cars, etc), innovation is meant to make it evolve towards more conviviality, user friendliness and better comfort.

Imagine public companies that could be more selective in the choice of their suppliers, implying the integration of technological improvements leading to better subways and trains infrastructures. Imagine if they could be perceived as "people movers" instead of strike generators, developing other transportation devices such as machine-woven carpets, elevators, while continuously upgrading their performances, liability and security. Imagine low slung buses or serpentines appearing in city centres promoted by local councils. Tomorrow's hotel managers will realize the impacts of such potential developments, in terms of ease of access for their clients (moreover for pregnant women, disabled, elderly guests and children). The increase in the amount of clients using public transportation to get to their hotel would be a direct consequence.

We can see it coming: tomorrow's tourist destinations will have to structure themselves around transportation infrastructures that will have to be compatible, intertwined, entertaining, user-friendly and practical. This new organizational structure will have to seduce habitants and visitors. This challenge is one of the biggest there is for tomorrow's cities especially as they will test the local council's efficiency.

It is obvious that the symbiosis between airports, duty free and hotels is a successful one, especially when it comes to the financial outcomes. Why? When freeing the passenger from his bags, you leave his hands and brains free to shop, consume, work... No wonder more hotels, business centres, malls are gathering around airports. These conglomerates fuel themselves from the inside via trade agreements, organized in pools allowing better access to financing and business development. The chain reaction goes as follow: passengers attract outlets, attracting more passengers, hence reinforcing the airport's competitive positioning, attracting other businesses in their surroundings, etc… a real hub in a sense of way.

Hotels could also benefit from airport security processes. Airports are experts when it comes to managing passenger flows and effective compartmentalization. The risk forecasting techniques, security management and containment strategies they use have aspects that can be directly transferable to hospitality security management. In future hotels, screening of clients and visitors could become a daily routine thing, especially when thousands of people have to share the same area for different purposes. Monitoring access points and flows (entrances and exits) by "private" security companies could be a valuable solution for hotels, and financial pooling (between hotels in the same area) could be an option for spreading the investments related to it. Think about an ISO certification of security measures in terms of marketing: wouldn't it secure - and promote - to the end-consumer that hospitality is a safe industry (whether it is from the client or employee perspective) in these troubled times?

Hospitals as we know them now may disappear… shifting from a structure catering medical emergencies to a hotel organization/building vowed to group's or individual's health projects. Who knows? But hoteliers have to be ready to take the challenge.

Conclusion - Air, water, fire, material… All are fundamentals that are impacted by the technological transformations mentioned herein. The effects on our living standards and on hospitality will be tremendous. These massive developments are all intertwined and will give the impression that 19th century's techniques and processes are gigantic artefacts. But 20th century techniques will fuel them and humanise them in a way, surrounding hoteliers and their clients in every possible way.

Hotels are complex structures, same goes for their sanitarian, energy, transportation needs and facilities.

All the examples mentioned herein seem to divide our environment in two components: technology on one side and infrastructures on the other. Their interrelationship contributes to the development of the hospitality and tourism environment.

We hope that these technological snapshots will be hotelier's future, even if the demand on their part isn't yet formulated. Believe it or not, but tomorrow's Cesar Ritz's are taking initiatives in this way…

Antoine WASSERFALLEN
Professor
Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne
Antoine is an architect and obtained his diploma in 1986 from EPFL. He now is co director of two master programs at EPFL and is teacher at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne. He has led various real estate projects (restaurants, hotels, and the Swiss exposition Expo 2002), conferences, wrote several books and articles. He also serves as president of the Swiss Commission for Technical Sciences.

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