Should hoteliers develop in-house or outsource IT applications and solutions?
19 experts shared their view
Some hoteliers (brands & management companies) believe that developing tech solutions in-house is cheaper and provides better customization to the hotelier's concrete needs and control over the ongoing maintenance and performance. Another school of industry-thought believes that hoteliers should focus on their core competencies: providing the best customer experience and best returns possible to ownership and outsource technology applications, products and solutions to specialized vendors.
So the question is, in this era of rapid technological advancements and adoption of next-gen technologies such as AI, IoT, automation, robotics, blockchain, etc., should hoteliers keep technology developments in-house or outsource to specialized, well-funded vendors?
Last October, Hotel Tech Report published a great article around this topic entitled "This is Why Hotel Brands Shouldn't Build Tech in House". The article's author Jordan Hollander, estimates that 1) hotel brands lack the resources to compete with pure play technology companies, and 2) the brands usually underestimate the ongoing effort required to maintain and scale a technology business (let alone multiple business lines and products). The article provides a nice reference to a Starwood $19M related to “technology related expenses” that the firm “decided to absorb” because they couldn't collect from managed and franchised properties.