Lyle Worthington, Technology Executive and Consultant & Past President of HFTP Global
Does IT provide a strategic advantage?
Almost every touchpoint with our guests now involves technology in some way. As the CEO, it is ultimately your responsibility to ensure that technology is given the priority, resources, and budget required. Very often though, the CIO reports to other C-level executives and does not have the same level of influence in the company.
Do you consider the IT department to be as important as operations, finance, and marketing? And how involved are you personally in the company's overall technology architecture and strategy?
Absolutely yes. Keep in mind, tech architecture needs to be thought through in advance and needs to be woven into the customer journey and all things in the backend that allow for seamless delivery of operations. A disjointed tech architecture will fail and increase costs.
At InTown Suites, we have been extremely strategic in our connected tech initiatives that has allowed us to improve revenues and implement processes to improve product quality and guest service.
Even though women make 50% of the workforce in hospitality, gender equality remains a myth in our sector. There is a significant gap in terms of rank, pay, role and general progression in women's leadership positions and female representation falls as women rise in their careers with only 5% going on to make the top job of CEO.
Hospitality being the embodiment of people connecting to people, our human capital then automatically should be the most important asset we have. Every hotel or chain always talks a great deal about how important they judge their associates and all they do for them.
Everyone agrees that 2020 has been the "annus horribilis" for the world and in particular the hotel industry. However, despite having to tackle unprecedented challenges, many companies grasped that the crisis also presented a unique opportunity to re-invent and re-imagine their business.
World-class distribution was once one of the key value-adds of signing up with a hotel chain or brand. Today, however, this advantage has been severely eroded to the point where independent properties can access better and more cost-effective distribution channels.
