Discover the insights from the hospitality and technology leaders who hosted sessions on digital transformation, AI and Data, and more at HITEC

Last week at HITEC, hoteliers, operators and hospitality leaders convened in Dallas to discuss the state of the hospitality industry and how technology fits into the new hotel landscape post-COVID.  Although travel has reemerged slowly and unevenly across the US and the rest of the world, the tone of the show was cautiously upbeat. How has COVID changed the way hotels operate? What new trends are in the pipeline? Here are the 4 key topics we saw at HITEC this year:

1) Big Data and AI Technology
Big data and data lakes have been around for a while in the hospitality industry. However, hoteliers are now grappling with the challenge of what to do with the mass amount of data they’ve gathered, how to structure it, and how to effectively analyze and use the data. Using AI technology, namely machine learning and natural language processing, hoteliers can begin to use their data to improve revenue management, and operational efficiency. With AI, hoteliers can analyze and pull info from data lakes to make fast informed business decisions, use dynamic pricing (based on seasonality, local competition, hotel history etc.) and offer more personalized guest experience.

2) Innovation Adoption
As hoteliers increase their tech adoption and build their tech stack, deciding on what technology they need to invest in and when, is the number one challenge. Advancements in technology have created a field of new solutions for the hospitality industry that sound exciting but may not yet function properly or be in great demand. For hotels who want to be or remain cutting edge, adopting these emerging technologies can be beneficial but carry a higher risk of proper functionality, require more investment (such as replacing legacy PMS with a cloud-based PMS, upgrading Wi-Fi network solutions), and guest adoption.

3) Labor Shortage
Labor shortages continue to plague the hospitality industry with little reprieve in sight. So how can hotels retain their current staff, continue to provide elevated guest experience, and still generate more revenue with a lean staff? With technology such as mobile apps and ticketing solutions, work management and communications between guests and staff become more streamlined. These tech solutions enable hotels to remove the need for guests to call the front desk for room services and enable them to directly put in a request via their mobile app or smart-room tablets. Guests can also communicate with staff using chatbots at any area of the property. With ticketing solutions, hotels can alleviate some of the staff workload by assigning tasks and managing projects via an app or platform.

4) Personalized Guest Experience
As a result of more consumers relying on contactless mobile technology during COVID, they have become accustomed to receiving more personalized treatment across their entire customer journey.  Hotels will need to provide customers with a hyper-personalized experience in order to remain competitive. With technology, hotels can gather data on guests which can later be used to target services and features specifically to them. In order to offer personalized experience, hotels will need to consolidate customer data that can be easily retrievable and structured. With that in mind, hotels are now shifting from PMS to CRMs as their central system. Future technology will now be built and integrated with their CRMs. With technology advancements, hotels will be able to provide more personalized guest experience, improve their revenue and boost customer loyalty.

To see how INTELITY can help you with your digital transformation, request a demo today.

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Technology solutions are often purchased for the now, but how can hoteliers make sure the tech they are implementing will be more than a passing fad or temporary fix?

The path to technological success can feel like an uphill trek. Especially in times like these, when the hospitality industry has spent the last year trying to keep up, first with the contactless solutions necessary during the pandemic and now with tech solutions to pad out a smaller workforce. But setting yourself and your properties up for success means looking to the future and selecting tech that will help you run your hotel optimally for a long time. Here’s how to start:

1. Don’t waste your money on siloed tech.

Short term and long term, the best way to ensure your tech will not be wasted or become obsolete in a few years is to prioritize new tech that integrates with the tech you already have. The fastest (and often most common) way to take a loss when it comes to hotel tech is by throwing money at a platform or product that will not communicate with your existing systems. As you look to purchase and implement new tech, double and triple check that it will integrate well with the tech you currently have.

2. Use your tech to fulfill, and exceed, guest expectations.

When guests book a stay at a hotel or resort, they aren’t necessarily just looking for a room to sleep in, they are buying a particular experience. The expectations your guests have when they enter your property are what drives revenue, especially when it comes to microtransactions and upgrade purchases. Travellers today want the convenience of self service that comes with mobile guest solutions, as well as the ability to choose the level of access they want with staff. Your tech should facilitate this balance by offering a platform that makes your staff feel present and available. You can offer this guest experience by enabling your guests the ability to request services, look up property info, book treatments, order food and more—all from a personal or smart-room device.

3. Your tech success is linked to your guest data.

Ensuring your tech is successful, not just now, but in a lasting way, means understanding where tech trends are heading. The most advanced players in hospitality tech platforms are prioritizing data, specifically data surrounding guests’ experience. Tracking and acting on guest preferences to create a more personalized experience for them and more revenue for the hotel will be necessary in order to remain competitive. For hoteliers hoping to get in on that in the next few years, the sooner you shift operational management to the cloud the better.

4. Choose vendors who will be partners and guides. 

Tech is ever-changing, right? It can feel like every time you invest in one product, another, shinier one appears on the market. But success doesn’t always mean getting the next best thing. It means investing in the next right thing. That’s why it’s vital to partner with vendors who understand your established systems, current pain points, and future needs. When you’re looking to implement new tech or are considering a different system make sure you have a trusted vendor who can be your guide.

5. The future of your tech depends on what you do now.

Finally, setting your property up for success means being proactive in your adoption of tech, not simply reactive. During the early days of COVID, the hospitality industry was forced to step-up their contactless and mobile capabilities. And now staff shortages have many scrambling for tech to optimize operational efficiency. Don’t wait for the next calamity, set yourself up for success now.

Want to learn more about technology solutions for both now and the future of your property? Let’s talk.

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For hoteliers considering transitioning from on-site to cloud-based software at their property, here are a few ways making the change can elevate guest experience before, during, and after their stay.

In the case of property management systems, there’s been a number of hoteliers who want to stick with the devil they know: on-site systems. While switching to a cloud-based system is becoming increasingly popular, there is still pushback against moving from running tech via a physical device to managing hotel operations and solutions through the cloud. What this tension ultimately boils down to is, what’s the benefit of making the switch? And will it outweigh the hassle?

Before They Even Arrive, Give your Guests the Comfort of the Cloud

More Booking Flexibility 

With the recent wave of COVID outbreak driven by the Delta variant, travelers are once again hesitant to make travel plans for fear of having to cancel their bookings or change them last minute. With a cloud-based PMS, hotels can offer flexible cancellations options. When a platform connects to the cloud, guests can utilize self-service capabilities to update bookings details. Refunds and rescheduling can be made easy without adding extra work for staff.

Security at Every Step

In the current age of technology, vigilance around digital security is more important than ever. Verifying guest IDs and banking info through cloud-computing massively elevates security because the guests’ information isn’t actually on-site. Cloud-based ID verification mimics the process of physical verification without opening up a guest’s ID and banking info to the same vulnerability that an on-site verification process does. Plus, cybersecurity offers added protection such as firewalls, SSL encryption, intrusion detection that physical on-site hardware typically don’t.

During Their Stay, Make Every Interaction Count 

Personalization

Having a cloud-based platform means customers’ preferences can be stored and automatically acted on in future stays. Room control preferences, for example, can be saved so the next time a returning customer books a stay, their room will be set to their liking—temperature, lighting, and more. Beyond that, their interests can be logged to the cloud and further utilized through targeted microtransactions via smart-room tablet or mobile app ads.

Service Recovery 

With staffing shortages affecting the hospitality industry worldwide, service recovery is vital when making up for gaps that may arise from having a reduced staff. With cloud-based technology, service recovery is made easier, and most of the work can be offloaded from the staff. Ticketing and service recovery steps can be tracked through a system that communicates well with both guests and staff devices. Cloud-based solutions can also allow management teams to generate reports that can be used for further review and analysis of customer complaints and recovery time.

After They Depart, Leave Them Wanting More 

Checkout… and Security Again 

Checking out should be painless. And guests should be able to leave a hotel feeling confident their information is going to continue to be secure. However, their banking and identification details should be able to be verified easily, when needed; specifically, when they go to book again. Keeping everything in the cloud allows for added digital protection while making it so returning guests won’t have to re-register or fill out forms again when booking a visit.

Follow-Up 

Personalization doesn’t stop when a guest checks out. A scheduled follow-up email can go a long way. Some properties are finding added value in attaching a survey to the follow-up email. With a cloud-based system customer pain points can be gathered and tracked. This allows hotel management to locate issues much quicker and more effectively.

One of the benefits of cloud-based technology is the ability to add various tech solutions to your tech stack that would improve operations functionality, guest communication, revenue management and more. Having a well-integrated tech stack can also provide you with data and deep customer insights that can be used to improve operational efficiency and customer experience. This is why the most important aspect of choosing a cloud-based system is trusting the vendor. You need a vendor who will keep up with software updates and troubleshoot any integration issues for you. Is switching to the cloud worth it? We say yes, as long as you have the right vendor in your corner, making the switch go as smoothly as possible so you can start reaping the benefits, ASAP.

Want to learn more about cloud-based systems and what they can do for guest experience? Let’s chat.

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As the hospitality industry struggles to fill staff openings and COVID variants present new health and safety concerns, see what hoteliers can do with the team they have to prevent guest experience fallbacks.

With rising concerns about the Delta variant along with continuing staff shortages, the hospitality industry continues to grapple with how to operate with capacity limitations and uncertain consumer demand. As hotels, resorts, and casinos try to keep up and ramp up, the goal now is to maintain quality of service while reinstating certain COVID precautions that make guests feel safe and comfortable. In the current landscape, these can feel like impossible objectives. But with the right technology platform all of this is possible.

Smaller Teams Can Still be Effective

Utilize Mobile Options
During the height of the pandemic, digital room keys and mobile apps that enabled guests to have a contactless experience became less of a nice-to-have feature and more of a must-have. Today, guests still seek a digital experience that will enable them to better control their hotel stay and decide for themselves how frequently they want contact with the staff. Using mobile apps, guests can check in to their hotel before they even arrive at their destination, order room service, adjust their room temperature, and review all the services the hotel offers.  For the hotel staff, mobile options can alleviate some of their daily tasks such as front desk check-in/checkouts and scheduling housekeeping, taking pressure off a leaner staff.

Opt-in Housekeeping
Another tactic born largely out of dealing with staff shortage is the optional housekeeping. As COVID concerns continue to grow, giving guests the opportunity to decline unwanted housekeeping allows them to set their own safety standards. In an effort to combat a drop in service quality, many properties are doing housekeeping by request only. This allows guests who want daily housekeeping the opportunity to have it, while making sure guests who don’t want it or don’t care still feel that the quality of service has not decreased.

Informed Staff
A small staff can make a positive impact just by the way they conduct themselves when it comes to COVID. You can give your guests a sense of confidence in your COVID response by simply making sure your guest-facing staff are talking and acting in a way that reflects the properties commitment to keeping guests safe, such as wearing face masks and social distancing. Beyond that, front desk staff should know what precautions the property as a whole is taking so they can answer questions guests may have.

Safe Activities Can Still Be Sensational 

Take It Outside
How this shakes out depends entirely on the property. For some hotels or resorts, hosting happy hour events outdoors makes sense, while other properties may decide to move their gyms and spa treatments outdoors. Hotels can even consider investing in an event pavilion, which opens up a wide range of outdoor possibilities. Properties with pools and gyms may choose to stagger their open activity hours when COVID cases start to rise or when the property experiences pool staff shortage.

Offer Dining Pick-up
Properties that are planning to reopen some form of dining, adding a pick-up option can be a great way to offer dining services to guests, especially if the hotel has a lean restaurant staff or lacks resources to deliver room service. Encouraging guests to order food via in-room tablet or mobile app also removes the need for printed menus and allows for digital menus to easily be updated. Plus, whether guests are planning to invite friends to dine in their room or they need to grab a bite on their way out, pick-up is a great way to ramp back up dining options without overloading your team.

Intentional Communication
Using hotel technology to communicate with guests can eliminate unnecessary face-to-face interactions while increasing guest interaction. Mobile apps, smart tablets, voice assistants and other technology allow guests to communicate via phone, text or voice chat to the staff to request services or answer questions. Digital devices also have the ability to collect customer data that can be used to offer more personalized services. For instance, a hotel can send personalized texts to business travelers when certain conference rooms are available for them to conduct Zoom calls. Whether it’s texts, event announcements, or a robust digital compendium, information can be delivered in ways that still feel personal but require less from staff and less contact overall.

As infection rates in many areas are climbing again, it can feel disheartening, heading into another COVID-affected season of travel. But if the last year taught us anything, it’s how to prepare and how to prioritize safety. The hospitality industry is not left in the lurch this time around because there are tried and tested strategies that can be utilized. As staffing issues continue to put the industry at a disadvantage, we’ve seen the ways tech can support smaller teams to prevent major quality decreases. So stay informed, be intentional, and get the tools you need to make your property a success even in times like these.

For more info on how tech can support your current team, request a demo today.

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Amidst constant new tech developments, find out what hoteliers can do to make sure the tech they have and the tech they want are compatible.

For many hoteliers, it can feel like every time they think they are up-to-date on the latest and best hotel tech, something newer and better comes along. And too often, as those new features or devices are added to a property, issues arise because their new tech and existing tech don’t communicate properly. If any aspect of a new system or third party application doesn’t integrate seamlessly with your tech stack, the back-end can become fragmented creating a myriad of frustrating technical issues for staff and guests. This in turn can create a reluctance to adopt new tech altogether—especially if a hotel is still dealing with inter-tech issues based on their last implementation.

Avoid Tech Convolution

To illustrate how a lack of systems interconnectivity plays out practically, let’s say a guest tries to check in to his room on a hotel’s app, but that app isn’t connected or connected properly to the property management system. The hotel’s app will be unable to access the guest’s reservation information, requiring the guest to check in at the front desk. Once checked in, the guest heads to his room and decides to order food via mobile dining. But the app doesn’t communicate accurately with the hotel’s point of sales  and the mobile app, causing it to send duplicate food orders to the restaurant. This mix-up confuses the dining staff and causes the guest’s order to be delayed. Instead of improving operation efficiency and providing a good guest experience, the app does just the opposite.

This nightmare scenario has the potential to negatively impact every aspect of the guest’s stay. If mobile service requests aren’t aligned with the hotel’s ticketing system, requests can easily fall through the cracks and guest requests can go unanswered. The lack of inter-tech communication could cause room-key malfunction, payment issues, and other tech failures that can frustrate both the guest and staff.

As consumers demand a more personalized guest experience and hotels adopt more advanced technology, hoteliers will be required to make deeper tech integrations in order to deliver best-in-class guest experience and optimize back of the house operations.

Here’s a little cheat sheet for how to do that:

Before Implementation, Get Your Ducks in a Row

• Before you adopt additional third party applications, make sure you have the network power to support them. Too often properties bite off more than they can chew by trying to implement tech their network setup simply can’t handle. It may not be the app solution that is ineffective, but rather a weak WiFi network that prevents the full use of a new tech application. So before you try to get your new tech up and running, find out if you have suitable bandwidth to handle system traffic and suitable WiFi to handle guests’ needs. You may need to invest in the next generation of network technology, or simply fix a specific problem. If you ensure you have the proper IT infrastructure in place beforehand, the implementation process will go far more smoothly.
• It’s not uncommon for an IT team to get left out of the conversation when it comes to signing new tech deals. To avoid future integration pain points, double check with your IT team to make sure the new tech you’re investing in will be able to work well with your established systems. Including the IT team in tech discussions before purchasing a solution may help prevent future integration roadblocks.
• Find a vendor who’s tech plays well with others. Just like no piece of tech is an island, no vendor should be either. When scoping out a new vendor, here are a few questions to ask: Do they integrate with all of the critical systems your property uses on a regular basis? Are their integrations certified or otherwise validated with other vendors? Your tech stack journey starts here. Each new feature or device you consider from here on out should build off the others. You won’t be sorry for choosing a vendor who prioritizes being a team player. For a more comprehensive list of questions to ask potential vendors, check out our connected vendor one-sheet.

After Implementation, Resist the Temptation to Settle

• Don’t let the guest information you collect be stagnant—invest in integrations that will provide deep customer insights. Being able to integrate customer data from various vendors enables hotels to gain clearer insights into each guest and be able to provide a personalized hotel experience during and after their hotel stay. More often than not, customer data is siloed in a hotel’s various technologies and systems preventing a full view of each customer and a lost opportunity to promote services tailored to a particular customer.
• And finally, don’t forget to tell your guests what they have access to. Too often hotels assume their customers already know that they have an app when in reality guests have no clue. Not only do you need to market your hotel app to your guests but you also need to highlight the app’s features and how to use them. You can promote your hotel app before your guest even reaches the hotel via confirmation emails. You can also link to your app through a welcome email, that can direct your guest straight to the check-in page, home page, or even to an in-app tutorial video.

The real reason integrations are the unsung hero of hotel success is because once you make sure your vendor integrates well with others, and your connected systems are in place, you can get the most out of your hotel’s tech, enhance the guest experience and streamline your back-of-the- house operations.

Interested in upgrading your property’s tech integration? Request a demo today.

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There are two big reasons guests don’t adopt a hotel’s app, and we have two ideas on how to change that.

Tech is integral to just about every part of our lives, yet hoteliers still run into guests who are reluctant to use their app. Surely guests want access to all the services and amenities a hotel has to offer right at their fingertips. So what gets in their way? What roadblocks prevent guests from adopting a hotel’s app and utilizing its tools?

There are two main reasons hotel guests don’t use hotel apps – poor usability and lack of multiple functionality.

1. The Burden of Tedious Steps  

Today’s consumers are accustomed to using apps on their mobile devices that offer a one click experience. Hotel guests expect the same ease of use in a hotel’s mobile key and mobile app. Yet, hotel mobile apps frequently require multiple steps to set up or are confusing to navigate. If guests feel an app will take more time to figure out than they perceive the features are worth, they’ll give up before even hitting “download.” Even Apple is making it easier to use hotel apps, specifically mobile room keys (per their iOS 15 update announcement).

2. The Woes of a Single-Use App

In the Age of Apps, it’s far too easy to end up with multiple apps on your mobile device that waste space and data. Which is why users are often resistant to single use apps. They don’t want to download an app that they will only use once.  Users are accustomed to apps with multiple features and uses.

Both complex usability and single use apps can put a significant damper on hotel app adoption. So what can be done to improve app usage?

Two Ways to Break those Barriers

1. Use Deep Links to Improve Usability

If you are unfamiliar with deep links, they are links that can take a user directly to a certain page within an app. Instead of users landing on a homepage after signing into a mobile app, a hotel can use deep links to direct them to a specific page that touts services the hotel is trying to promote or to content targeted to what people are seeking, such as a check in page. For instance, a hotel can send a welcome email to a guest before they arrive that includes a direct link to the app’s check in page. When a hotel’s app is linked directly through an email, it saves the guest from having to open the app, sign in, and then find the check-in button. And if a guest hasn’t downloaded the hotel’s app yet, a deferred deep link can be used, which allows the guest to take a quick detour to download the app, then pops them right back on the intended in-app page.

And bonus! Deep links are just as, if not more, secure than analog routes of checking in because any link sent to guests goes directly to their email address, preemptively verifying who they are.

2. Offer More Functionality

Hotels can keep guests happy by offering a multifunctional mobile app that enables them to easily do things such as request room service, adjust their room temperature, or book an in-hotel event via the app. Guests may be more inclined to use a mobile app if they are shown how its features can be used to get a more personalized hotel stay.

This is another reason why deep links are one of hotel tech’s hidden gems. They can be used to take guests directly to in-app promotions, messagings, room-key and more.  Deep links are the perfect avenue to show guests what your app has to offer with one simple click. This saves them from wasted time navigating and gives hoteliers endless opportunities to intentionally direct app traffic.

The gist of all this? The best thing hoteliers can do for hotel app adoption is to get their guests where they need to be quickly and effortlessly.

To learn more about tools to boost hotel app adoption, request a demo today.

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