Viewpoints

Even though still in the Buzz word stage, AI will play a massive role in our industry. Most will state that it will be a customer facing technology. From concierge robots who can interact with guests to chatbots and messaging.

Revenue management systems (RMS) were once amongst the hottest technologies in our industry. Unfortunately, we have not made much progress beyond hurdle rates, last room availability and length of stay powered by basic algorithms that haven't changed much.

Artificial Intelligence is not new to the hospitality industry in the specifics of narrow intelligence. The industry has long had technology capable of providing decision support or executive information around specific and targeted sets of consolidated information.

Does anyone remember the NCR 4200. Used as the front desk and night audit posting machine? That dinosaur was replaced by what we thoughtlessly named the “PMS” (which would have been better named 'PMIS” for “information system.”) Well, it is about 46 years later and things surely have changed.

There will always be a system that is at 'the heart' of a hotel, whether we call it PMS, CRS, CRM, CRPMS or something else with a C or a P in it... We need a place where we can store inventory, rates and customers. Our problem today is that we don't have a single platform.

Hotels need to get back control of the data on their businesses and especially on their guest. the latter can be enabled by "service bus technology". Adding onto this the approach of working with SAAS platforms this starts to become possible.

The hospitality industry is definitely lagging behind other industries when it comes to technology. The check-in and check-out process for example has not fundamentally changed since, well ... ever ... In my opinion there are three main reasons (or should we say excuses?) for this, as well as many smaller ones.

A big part of this issue is due to the fragmented stakeholder situation in our industry. There is a) the brand (Franchisor) and their priorities to push the brand distribution and franchise fees. b) the management company that aims to maximize revenue and profit (as it will in most cases increase their income of management fees); and c) the owner or asset manager of the hotel who's priority is to maximize the EXIT value of the property.All these stakeholders compete for the available investments (FF&E) funds.

This is a two sided problem. Hoteliers are not investing enough into technology and will keep using it till it breaks or stops working. There are no or limited return on investment calculations that are used. Investment in technology is also too low and does not receive the priority that it should.