Latest Technology Trends in the Hospitality Industry For Hotelier

Gone are the times, where hotels & motels business was a place for travelers to lay their heads away from home. But for anyone who is in the industry for recent years will know the role of technology and how it is drastically changing the hospitality industry.

Most activities are relying on Hotel Software technology directly or indirectly, which makes IT more important for Hotel operations and guest experience than more before.

So here we share few top Hospitality technology trends in hotel business today. Think of which makes sense to you and if you see an opportunity go out and begin planning accordingly. After all, in hotel business every advantage counts.

1. Social Listening – Guest share lots about their stay experience, but they always don’t say it directly to you or on feedback forms. Also the hospitality business is mostly influenced by word of mouth and online reviews every day. This is one of the most important trends in upcoming years for hotels to invest in social listening tools. Social listening tools will help hotels understand the guest behavior and jump into a conversion with guest. Some of the social listening tools also help you gain competitive edge.
2. High Speed Internet – Whether they travel for business or pleasure nowadays guest bring every bandwidth sucking device like smart phone, Tablet, laptop, e-reader they own. Guest expects to connect all these devices quickly and reliably as they used to get connected at home. It’s a huge strain and one of the many best hospitality brands are working on. The demand for bandwidth in hospitality is only going to grow.
3. Service Automation – Today guest prefer technology over the human interaction for simple tasks. Remote check-in & check-out is the most popular and hospitality technology businesses and hotels have started working together with apps that lets guest order and services right from their smart phones and tablets. The service automation is becoming the basic guest request and this can be done by right automation technology, which will enable staff to concentrate on enhancing guest experience.
4. Demand for extended stay will continue to grow –Airbnb will continue to be threat to the Hotel industry, but reality is that Airbnb is equating the evolution of the hospitality market in the modern day. This has made an outside impact to think about how we travel.

The extended stay segment is focusing on future expansion with room revenue of close to $11 Billion in 2016.

1. Expansion of technology in Revenue Management – The technology is constantly changing and is ever evolving with the recent one being increased presence of automation. Revenue management system with automation has added advantage and most preferred by Managers. Automation increases the efficiency and helps managers focus on strategy & driving profitability.
2. Increased direct Hotel Booking – Hotel managers know that key area to drive profitability and to steer guests away from OTAs & book Hotel directly. This increases brand loyalty and regenerates business. It also offers a unique opportunity for marketing the Hotels directly to customers, it also offers deals and up sell additional room services and room upgrades. These can be managed by budget-friendly hotel software which can cloud-based or on-premises.

OTAs are one of the important sources for a Hotel reservation, but they only come next to the direct bookings for a hotel that is looking at maximizing profit seriously. But why guest need to book directly on the Hotels website, is there a benefit if guest book directly instead of an OTA? What are advantages is the one area the Hotel Managers need to concentrate and focus to get guest’s book direct.

1. Data will still be a game changer– One of the main trends of 2019, we are at the end of another year, but for lots of hotels, data is still under –appreciated and under used. In a hotel industry where providing great customer service is always a key factor and in a industry where guests are highly demanding and have high expectation utilizing data effectively has a very high impact on how hoteliers provide customer service. To get to know guest better customer behavior data is the key to provide unmatched guest service which ensures building brand loyalty.
2. A continuing shift in focus of mobile – As the year marked yet another significant rise in mobile interactions and bookings and is said to be evolving in the upcoming years. 2020 will see a sharp rise and greater transactions via mobile devices. Mobile responsive websites and booking sites that delivers high performance will notice a significant rise in revenues.

For this reason, Managers will be planning to ensure that hotel websites are updated constantly and are optimized to deliver unmatched customer engagement, performance.

We have mentioned some of the important trends that is to be coming into hospitality technology. We wish these trends will help driving success to your Hotel Business.