There is no shortage of technology investment options available to hoteliers today, but it can be challenging for operators to discern what is actually delivering an improvement in operations and guest satisfaction.
When investing in new technology today, hoteliers must clearly understand what it adds to the guest experience and how it impacts operations. How technology impacts the guest experience while improving operating revenue is always top of mind for hotel leaders, but often hospitality technology is not being developed by hoteliers, for hoteliers. In practice, this can lead to some well-meaning capabilities creating unnecessary operational overhead that might not be clear to developers until the technology is already on property.
Clearly, hotel leaders have to walk a fine line with their technology investments today. Operators need tools to help communicate with guests, manage worker schedules, and maintain efficiency even amid labor shortages. However, the wrong investment can leave hoteliers lacking core capabilities or grappling with unwieldy tools they are committed to. That’s why, this budget season, it’s important to ask the right questions to decide which technology and capabilities will move the needle for your property, rather than chasing trends.
A Better Data Strategy
The most exciting technology impacting hotel operations today isn’t centralized on one platform, but the growing ability to fluidly share operational and financial data across departments and turn it into actionable intelligence. Connecting departments behind the scenes lets hotels tap into the tremendous amounts of data gathered across a variety of systems, from revenue management to marketing, and creates an opportunity to move from simple reports to exhaustive, strategic examinations of a hotel’s market positioning.
For example, the growing use of Artificial Intelligence capabilities helps reduce reliance on manual processes and build better forecasts through data analysis, but its impact on the guest experience remains minuscule compared to a positive interaction with hoteliers. While AI shows promise for reducing reliance on manual processes, we see it more as an amplifier of human presence on property than as a tool designed to automate hospitality.
Data connectivity and mobility are the cornerstones of the modern hotel operations experience. Hoteliers must assess technology partnerships based on their ability to improve these two operational elements before addressing other concerns. Does this new technology help reduce or eliminate manual processes and help inform team members through forecasts or alerts so they can make better decisions each day? How does it impact revenue, reduce costs or operate more consistently? Most importantly: Will our teams actually use this technology once it’s on property?
Technology At Work
Usability is a key metric in hotel technology, to which many business leaders can attest. They invest in new technology only to watch team members fail to engage with it. Hotel leaders cannot afford to repeat this mistake this budget season. The value of forecasts, data analytics, communications tools, and revenue management capabilities cannot be overstated today, and hoteliers must work with technology providers to ensure their teams fully engage with the tools at their disposal.
Hospitality is a people business, and hoteliers must align with technology partners who share this ideal if they want to improve adoption of new tools on-property. Sometimes a team simply requires more training. Other times the issue lies with the partner. If a hotel invests in a platform and finds its teams aren’t using it, owners and operators should review a technology partner’s long-term history of updates and implementations to understand how well they have managed the growing number of capabilities and integrations on their platform.
The responsibility for adoption ultimately belongs to both the technology provider and the operator. Our job as leaders is to ensure our teams have the training, support, and accountability needed to get full value from the investments we’re making. Hoteliers must start investing in new technology by addressing a problem first, rather than chasing new capabilities.
Finally, hoteliers must also establish clear key performance indicators and targets upfront, and revisit them after implementation. Holding your technology partner accountable will help them prove their value while improving their capabilities organically.
Story contributed by Tommy Holmes, CEO of Ivy Hospitality.