Voice is the next technology frontier and companies who do not plough resources into it now will be in danger of being disintermediated and disrupted, said Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InterActive Corp and Expedia Inc, at the Expedia Partners Conference in Las Vegas last week.
The amount of software that hotels use is increasing every year. Not all of it is necessary, but some of these tools are of course extremely useful. And as the industry continues to utilize more digital tools and the internet, those who don't adopt the major tools or channels will get left in the dust. To stay competitive hotels need more tools to better understand their guests and improve service. Today it's a competitive advantage, tomorrow, not having them is a disadvantage.
Need to dial down the thermostat in the middle of the night? Want to open the curtains at daybreak? How about turning out the hall light at bedtime? These are some of the tasks that no longer require you to get out of bed in the new generation of automated hotel rooms.
“It’s not a question of laziness, it’s a question of efficiency,” said Eric Marlo, the global brand manager and head of innovation at Aloft Hotels, which recently introduced hotel rooms that respond to voice commands.
Using Apple’s audio assistant Siri in 10 pilot rooms each at the Aloft Boston Seaport and the Aloft Santa Clara in California, guests can request a change in the temperature, adjust the lighting or ask for information on local attractions.
Mobile is changing travelers’ behaviors and expectations worldwide, making mobile moments the next battleground for hospitality and travel industry. Following up on my earlier brief for airlines, my latest Brief: Hotels Differentiate With Mobile Moments shows hotel brands how to better embrace mobile moments. Hotel customers’ usage of mobile is increasing rapidly all over the world. They use mobile devices for multiple hotel- related activities beyond booking, such as using their mobile as a room key, ordering services, and controlling smart hotel rooms. Hotels have the urgency to embrace mobile moments because they need to:
How necessary are humans to hospitality?
More than 10 years ago, I heard Barry Sternlicht, founder and former CEO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts and current developer of Baccarat and 1 Hotels, tell a collection of travel industry CEOs at a World Travel & Tourism Council Global Summit that if it weren't for human employees, he could run a flawless hotel operation.
Artificial intelligence (AI) from IBM’s Watson (of Jeopardy-winning fame) is about to transform customer service, the customer experience, and hospitality. Customers today–especially but not exclusively Millennials– are embracing, even demanding, what I call a “Jetsonian” (for The Jetsons) customer experience, a customer experience in which those tasks that don’t require human intervention are powered by automation and algorithms, while those tasks that do benefit from human beings get true human warmth, from capable human employees, applied to them.
Chatbots are a powerful new channel to increase sales and assist more customers. They are are also a minefield of mismatched expectations. Inconsistencies in the customer experience hurt a brand’s ability to develop fruitful, long-term customer relationships. Within the field of customer communications, the bar is set high, and we’ve worked hard to gain consumers’ trust in instant, real-time chat interactions. The evolution of customer service, stemming from call centers and services disguised as chat, created an unfriendly, disappointing connotation that cast a dark cloud over the customer service experience.
Credit card industry giant Visa on Friday issued a security alert warning companies using point-of-sale devices made by Oracle‘s MICROS retail unit to double-check the machines for malicious software or unusual network activity, and to change passwords on the devices. Visa also published a list of Internet addresses that may have been involved in the Oracle breach and are thought to be closely tied to an Eastern European organized cybercrime gang.
Apps were supposed be the future of mobile advertising, but too many useless, self-serving efforts are once again killing the golden goose. In March 2013, the Harvard Business Review published an article all but declaring the death of mobile ads, advising marketers to direct their budgets instead toward the thriving world of apps.
When it comes to hotel companies’ recent attempts to tweak consumer behavior by encouraging early, prepaid bookings while discouraging last-minute cancellations, the carrot appears to be working far better than the stick. Hilton Worldwide and Marriott International are among hotel companies that have tested stricter cancellation policies, charging the guest at least one night’s stay if the reservation is changed or canceled after a certain deadline.
A Russian organized cybercrime group known for hacking into banks and retailers appears to have breached hundreds of computer systems at software giant Oracle Corp., KrebsOnSecurity has learned. More alarmingly, the attackers have compromised a customer support portal for companies using Oracle’s MICROS point-of-sale credit card payment systems.
With HITEC in New Orleans now behind us, it’s time once again for us to talk tech. Specifically as it relates to the ageless custom of eating, I’d like to formally introduce a topic and word that has been on my mind for quite some time (and indeed if you’ve gotten me over the phone anytime recently then you’ve likely heard me blab about this!).
The Marriott in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, offers a familiar scene to anyone who's ever set foot in one of the chain's properties. Guests are often in town for business and can be found at the lobby cafe grabbing a quick coffee before morning meetings or a glass of wine after work at the bar.
Because of many million more sensors, faster computers and better resolution satellite imagery producing vast swathes of data, we now know much more about Hurricanes than ever before. In fact typically we see them around a week earlier than just ten years ago. Yet due to the vast complexity of weather interactions and their near perfect chaos, we’ve made little progress on predicting the path. So we now have a week longer to be anxious.
Building and maintaining strong customer relationships is crucial for long-term success in the hospitality industry. To seal customer loyalty, hospitality businesses of every type can now take advantage of a wide range of affordable, easy-to-deploy technologies that result in a competitive advantage and meet guest expectations for quality, value, promptness, responsiveness and flexibility. These solutions also offer a wide range of other service attributes that lead to repeat sales.
The Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas is helping consumers reshape their relationship with their mobile devices with its first Digital Detox Weekend Retreat.
Those who participate will get guidance from spa therapists, with a regimented time spent away from their smartphones. In today’s increasingly connected society, providing a reprieve from technology may be just what guests need.
Hotel giant Marriott International Inc. is working to craft a customer experience that is the right mix of high- tech and highly personal.
The company is rolling out many tech-driven amenities, including the ability to skip the front desk at check- in, order room service via a mobile app and log in to Netflix from the hotel-room television. Bruce Hoffmeister, global chief information officer and an almost 30-year Marriott veteran, says the rise of mobile has given the company more opportunities to interact with customers before, during and after a stay. His teams must make sure the new technology not only works but is easy to use.
Coliving, the latest trend in real estate, is often compared to "dorms for adults." Instead of isolated apartments, housing projects like WeWork’s WeLive offer tiny, furnished rooms and abnormally generous common spaces. Others, like Brooklyn-based Common, cater to a more mature crowd (sans WeLive's laundry-room arcade) but follow a similar concept: Residents rent furnished rooms inside of larger community complexes, just like many of them did in college.
Your coworkers sitting nearby probably know how you take your coffee or the song you play when you need creative inspiration. However, in the modern office you are engaging more than ever with a different, quieter teammate that also recognizes your preferences, from email spam to office temperature. This colleague doesn’t gossip or eat lunch with you—but they greet you every morning, and sort your emails overnight. This coworker plays a critical role on your team, adding intelligence and data that make everything you do possible. This coworker is, in fact, a cognitive computing program—a close cousin to the robots that science fiction once predicted would take over our world.
Rachel Crane explores the future of space travel. Where are we going, how will we get there and can we handle the trip? Bigelow Aerospace is building space habitats for the public. Get an exclusive tour inside one of their prototypes, and see where we would live in space.