I am not convinced there will be any single piece of technology that has the potential to revolutionize the hospitality industry.

However, there are clearly apps and components available which can make a difference to how hotels & hotel groups operate with the support of software.  Others have become commodity or even restrict users to be efficient, agile and flexible.

When I look at trends, any innovative app which helps to automate procedures and take over manul tasks can provide measurable benefits. This is becoming more and more crucial due to the increasing labour shortage and at the same time growing cost pressure on hotels.

Examples which are out there now are Chatbots and AI based systems that facilitate conversations with customers, provide responses to inquiries or respond to complaints and reviews. New distribution capabilities are giving better chances for direct bookings avoiding high commissions. So called "low code no code" tools such as make.com provide easier customization of specific requirements by the hotels themselves without having own development resources. Automation through new intelligent revenue management software or channel management is still relevant, but many of these software components have been around for a long time and are a rather a commodity today.

The biggest constraint for the entire industry remain the all-in-one PMS and the PMS centric environments. It is surprising that in order to install or migrate a PMS or other systems, vendors are still charging up front professional service or interface fees. In today's world, any user should be able to onboard their hotel fully self-service including connected apps. Although a few PMS have become better recently with opening up their APIs, they still restrict users to take advantage of the complete functionality, change or migrate their systems easily and fast, and really become future proof with the agility needed in the dynamic markets we see.

More true open & headless platforms that are not centered around the PMS are desperately needed in order to address the big technology challenge of our industry.