Hospitality is searching to find out, what do Millennials value in hotels?

The relationship between Millennials and hotels has become a large part of the conversation when it comes to the future of the hospitality industry. This is largely due to the growing spending power of Millennials in regard to the hospitality and travel industry.

“The number of Millennial travelers is significant and growing fast. It appears by 2017 Millennials will outspend baby boomers on hotels,” said Jason Dorsey, chief strategy officer of The Center for Generational Kinetics.

Many Millennials haven’t yet developed long-lasting loyalty to any particular hotel brand, making guest engagement critical between the hospitality industry and Millennial demographic. In fact, hospitality has one of the lowest reported levels of engagement with Millennials. Only 20 percent of Millennials report feeling fully engaged by the industry.

So what do Millennials want?

Hotels targeting Millennials have realized how different modern expectations are of hospitality. Impacting this has been the emergence of tech-savvy brands such as Uber and Airbnb. Such modern brands are capable of delivering a strong, multi-platform digital experience that engages target groups where they are most active – on mobile devices and on social networks such as Snapchat and Instagram.

Digital experience is proving to have a primary impact on Millennial engagement and satisfaction, according to recent reports, and numerous industries are capitalizing on this, from retail to banking.

Mobile is currently at the center of it all. Millennials are using mobile technology to interact with brands for more convenient communication and service, a trend that doesn’t end when it comes to hospitality. Embracing mobile technology is key for hotels to win Millennial loyalty.

“It will require a redefinition of service – one that offers Millennials tremendous choice, speed and personalization based on their individual preferences. Providing such tailored service not only means accommodating consumers’ use of smartphones but for operators to leverage their own mobile devices to better serve them,” said Ray Carlin, Vice President of Solution and Strategy Management at Oracle Hospitality.

The evolution of hospitality to accommodate Millennials in hotels is evident in a number of recent developments, from the move to introduce keyless room entry to the installation of in-room tablets at hotels for self-service functionality.

New hotel brands, such as Marriott’s Moxy, Best Western’s GLō, Starwood’s Element, Hilton’s Canopy, and Hyatt’s Centric, are being created to appeal to young Millennial travelers, or at least those with the modern Millennial mindset when it comes to travel. It’s an attempt to create the kind of guest experience that will lure Millennials and build loyalty with this segment of travelers.

The common thread among these Millennial hotel brands seems to be a focus on coming across as trendy, hip, and adventurous, with in-room amenities, pared down to those that are a necessity or enhance convenience. For example, most of the best hotels for Millennials are being outfitted with limited closet and desk space, clean design, and hotel technology features such as extra electrical outlets, strong WiFi connectivity, mobile device charging ports, self-service tablets.

Price often comes up in the conversation about Millennials and hotels, with the demographic being identified as prioritizing low cost over much else.

As Millennials continue to mature and enjoy increased financial power, the hospitality industry will certainly see more changes to attract and satisfy this group in the future.

 

New hospitality industry needs have reinvigorated interest in hotel cloud technology.

Hotel cloud technology has been a topic of interest for some time, but it’s becoming a leading hospitality technology trend thanks to the acknowledgment of its numerous benefits and a push to accommodate the growing needs of tech-hungry guests.

What is the cloud? Cloud computing is defined by IBM as “the delivery of on-demand computing resources over the Internet on a pay-for-use basis.” The cloud is web-based, which frees hotels from having to rely on direct connections to onsite server hardware.

This flexibility is the basis for the popularity of the cloud computing model. Cisco projects that within the next two years, 86 percent of workloads will be processed by cloud data centers rather than traditional ones. More than half of those will be Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) workloads.

Benefits of cloud technology in hotels include:

• Scalability: Cloud technology offers powerful technology that can match the needs of any hospitality business, whether it’s a global brand or independent hotel.
• Reduced costs: Thanks to a pay-by-use model, you’re able to keep costs at a minimum and avoid heavy investment in internal IT support.
• Enhanced self-service: Cloud computing allows you to manage most of your own needs with minimal IT support.
• Broadened accessibility: You can get into the cloud from anywhere using remote login, making it much more convenient than traditional servers.
• Faster onboarding: The process of getting started is expedited when you use hotel cloud technology rather than onsite servers.
• Improved maintenance: Updates and releases are able to be installed much more quickly on an ongoing basis. There’s also the ability to develop a more robust disaster recovery plan to back up systems.

Borrow from Google to create the best hospitality app possible.

Google has slowly but steadily been making headway when it comes to the travel industry, with a collection of mobile apps designed to make travel easier. Google Travel is a product capable of serving as a digital travel agent or trip planner and more. It exemplifies the concept of mobile-first as well, due to the heavy use of mobile by travelers.

Here are some takeaways from Google for developing a better hospitality app.

Search Filters

Ease of use is key to gaining and keeping users for a hospitality app, or really any app at that. Being able to navigate an app without confusion is a major draw, and this should be kept in mind during the hotel app development process.

Google is a master of online search, being the go-to Internet search engine of choice for so long now, and their travel features reflect this. Various search filters can be applied by travelers looking to plan a trip or perform mobile hotel bookings, such as location, price and hotel type. These make it extremely easy for users of Google’s apps to find exactly what they want quickly and efficiently.

Exclusive Deals

What better reason could there be for guests to use a hotel app than saving money? It adds incentive to taking the time to download and retain an app if there are exclusives offered through it that can’t be found on a company’s website or through a third party.

To note, Google even sends notifications to travelers about when great prices are available for their desired flights and hotels. The additional convenience shows true thoughtfulness for improving the user experience, and hospitality should be all about exceptional guest experience, no matter the channel or method through which it’s delivered. Convenience and financial discounts will no doubt increase the appeal and result in a better hotel app.

Complete Travel Experience Management

Google Travel features don’t focus solely on mobile hotel booking. Travelers can also access flight information, maps and directions, suggestions for building a vacation itinerary, and more.

A hospitality app can be more useful if it presents multi-dimensional features that focus on the full travel experience, even before or after a guest’s stay. Incorporating useful information, such as flight information, maps, social media access, and hotel concierge recommendations for exploring the local area, will delight hotel app users and give them a reason to open a hotel app time and time again.

Constant Innovation

If there’s one inspiring takeaway from Google Travel (or Google in general) it’s the value of constant innovation. In order to develop the best hotel app, it’s necessary to experiment and take risks, not just follow the crowd. Thinking outside the box and jumping on leading trends can be difficult to justify, but being a hotel technology leader can pay off in the long run with modern guests who appreciate the conveniences afforded by digital amenities.

 

Will artificial intelligence find a place in hotels as an in-room virtual concierge?

A recent article, “Talking Technology: is this what hotel guests really want?” brings to light a potential future hospitality technology trend that is still in its infancy. Voice assistant technology, such as Apple’s Siri and Google Now, has emerged as a next-step development for mobile technology.

The article states:

“In the not too distant future, you will be able to lie on your bed in a hotel room and control room features and services entirely with voice commands. The technology behind this is already available. Many homes already have an Amazon Echo, an Internet-connected voice interface that connects you with Amazon’s Alexa voice service, providing on-demand music, TV, audio books, travel information and many other services through simple voice commands.”

Automation and artificial intelligence in hotels have received a fair amount of attention, especially with the emergence of robot hotels. Having a virtual hotel room assistant takes this current hotel technology trend to the next level, one that could be even more immediately impactful than robots in hotels.

Many hotels have in-room iPads or tablets installed that are capable of providing hotel room automation features, or room controls. From the comfort of their bed, guests can use a hotel room tablet to control the lights, temperature, drapes and more.

Voice technology takes this further. Devices with virtual voice assistants, such as the paired Amazon Echo and Alexa voice command platform, would allow guests to bypass picking up the touchscreen tablets for automated hotel room controls. They could simply say what they wanted aloud.

Available commands could also be expanded. For instance, Amazon’s Alexa can already be asked to give information about news and weather, play music, provide traffic reports. Imagine the possibilities of this talking technology in a hotel room of the future.

It would be like having a virtual concierge in the hotel room at all times available to serve the guest.

The virtual hotel concierge (think Siri or Alexa) would likely be able to improve the guest experience and become central to smart hotel rooms of the future, similar to how the Amazon Echo is being called by some the “Center of the Smart Home.” It could be a key piece of the hotel Internet of Things, providing easy control over numerous devices.

Hotels could personify the virtual hotel concierge for branding purposes instead of using the familiar names of Siri or Alexa. Different hotel brands could have different names for their in-room virtual concierge to create a more personalized experience for their guests.

Commands will be spoken directly to this virtual concierge, placing orders, making requests, or asking for information. There would be no delay in response, similar to the convenience of using in-room touchscreen tablets in hotel rooms now but with voice activations.

Consumer reviews of AI assistants have been very positive so far, but the day when we’ll see this type of talking technology fully embedded into hotel rooms is likely still far off.

Hotel in-room tablets and touchscreen control panels are the most advanced options widely embraced by hospitality as a means of providing guests with the conveniences of hotel room automation. The widespread popularity of touchscreen tablets like the iPad and the falling prices of the hardware have contributed to this hotel technology trend, as well as the improvements to the guest experience in-room tablets carry. They even contribute to the hotel AAA Diamond ratings.

Eccleston Square Hotel, known as one of the world’s most high-tech hotels, boasts a variety of cutting-edge hotel room technology, including in-room tablets with the INTELITY hospitality technology platform. But James Byrne, manager at luxury London hotel Eccleston Square Hotel, is quoted in the EyeforTravel article as being skeptical of how guests would respond to virtual voice assistants in hotels.

“I’m not sure this would work for all guests. Some might even find it frustrating,” Byrne said.

INTELITY CTO Chris Grey echoes the sentiment but believes this might appear on future hospitality technology trend lists. “It’s not hard to imagine a hotel guest speaking their requests aloud with phrases like, ‘Housekeeping, please bring me extra towels,’ or ‘Room Service, I’d like the Caesar salad at 7 o’clock please.’ The only significant unknown is whether guests will have concerns that microphones are present in their room.”

 

Why Pokémon Go could mean the future of augmented and virtual reality in hotels is a promising one.

You’re a rarity if you haven’t yet fallen prey to the addictiveness of the new Pokémon Go app or heard about its effects on the world around you.

The concept behind Pokémon, a media franchise that was created in 1995, is fairly simple. There are creatures in the world called Pokémon that people, called “Trainers,” try to catch. The Pokémon Go app is a game that allows app users to become Trainers and find Pokémon in locations all around them using augmented reality (AR). Their smartphones provide information to the app about the user’s geography, including location and time, which impacts gameplay.

The augmented reality app was released on Android and iPhone in limited countries by The Pokémon Company, (partially owned by Nintendo) and developer Niantic on July 6, and within 5 days it had been downloaded more than 7.5 million times. That’s more than popular dating app Tinder and nearly more than social media platform Twitter. More average time is spent on Pokémon Go than is spent on several other leading mobile apps, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.

Not only did people download it, but early figures are also showing the app has strong user retention (a modern marvel when one in four users abandon an app after only one use). More than 60 percent of people who have downloaded the app in the U.S. use it on a daily basis.

It’s become more than a game for many people. It’s an obsession.

And more than that, it shows just how popular the new technology trend of augmented reality, or if you take it a step further, virtual reality, could become in the near future.

Augmented reality is the mixing of a fabricated, digital world and reality. Unlike virtual reality, which immerses the user completely in a 3-D digital world through the use of hardware such as a headset, augmented reality adds such elements into the real world. For example, with Pokémon Go, users “see” Pokémon around them through their smartphone screen.

Both augmented and virtual reality technology are seen as up-and-coming game changers, and leading technology companies are investing in both, including Facebook, Google, Apple, and Samsung.

Virtual reality in hotels is not a completely new concept either. So far, the application of virtual reality in hospitality has primarily been for the purpose of showcasing guest rooms and other areas of properties to travelers before they arrive.

For instance, the Best Western Virtual Reality Experience provides 360-degree VR views through hardware such as Oculus Rift or Samsung Gear VR. The hotel brand virtual reality feature was created by utilizing 1.7 million property photos and Google Street View.

In an article, Best Western CMO Dorothy Dowling said, “To go that next step before they go, and actually map out a lot of those things in their mind before they arrive, I think is going to be transformative for the business.”

Other hospitality brands with virtual reality projects available include Starwood, Marriott, Shangri-La Hotels, Carlson Rezidor and Holiday Inn Express.

“Virtual reality is on the cusp of becoming more mainstream,” said Steven Taylor, chief marketing officer of Shangri-La International Hotel Management Ltd.

“Shangri-La is investing significantly in technology and the future of travel content, which is why we are embracing virtual reality on this scale…VR is a revolutionary new sales tool. The technology has evolved so that it is now affordable, light and portable.”

As part of its Travel Brilliantly campaign, Marriott went a step further than virtual reality hotel tours to offer travelers the opportunity to view VR postcards of stories and experiences around the world on Samsung virtual reality hardware.

But the uses of augmented and virtual reality in hotels has great potential for expansion.

Imagine having relaxation sessions added to the list of services available at the spa, where guests could choose to be virtually immersed in a new environment, such as a beach or a hot spring, during a treatment. Or virtual reality fitness classes that guests could watch and participate in from the comfort of their hotel room.

Virtual reality in hotel rooms could mean expanded hotel in-room entertainment options, with guests able to actually feel like they’re part of movies, shows or games rather than just watching on a 2-D hotel TV.

Hotels could also allow guests to use augmented or virtual reality in guest rooms to browse items they’d like to purchase, whether in-room dining items or gift shop souvenirs, before placing orders. The items could appear virtually to the guests using various hardware or even smartphones (similar to how Pokémon “appear” on smartphones using augmented reality) to give them a 3-D, realistic shopping experience in their hotel room without having to go to a different location.

The rise of Pokémon Go could just be the fad of the moment, but it could also foreshadow a future of augmented or virtual reality as mainstream technologies. If AR and VR technology continue to rise in popularity, especially as developers find other creative applications beyond games, they could become commonplace elements within society, in the same way, that smartphones and mobile technology have.

And once that happens, hotels will have to embrace this innovation, as with any other technology that travelers come to expect as part of their daily lives. Augmented and virtual reality technology in hotel rooms as a standard could be just around the corner.

Image courtesy of Twitter account @HyattRegencySA.

There was a record attendance at HITEC 2016, and anyone who was present will tell you it was a flurry of sights and sounds. From awesome robots, like Savioke’s Relay the Robot, to a range of upcoming start-ups in the HITEC Entrepreneur 20X showcase, there were a large number of exhibitors at this hospitality technology conference covering a range of products and services, from hotel WiFi to hotel keyless room entry solutions to hotel staff uniforms. With so much going on, it was hard to pick out the dominant hospitality technology trends this year, but here are a few that stood out.

Guest Engagement Technology

This could be considered a very broad category, but guest engagement is the main focus for hospitality right now due to increased competition and dwindling guest loyalty. Hotel technology has become a key competitive differentiator, and there were a number of HITEC exhibitors showcasing ways hotels could improve appeal with guest-facing technology.

Mobile was the strong underlying theme of the majority of guest engagement technology being showcased, which makes sense given that 9 out of 10 modern travelers around the globe reportedly don’t take a leisure or business trip without at least one mobile device with them. Mobile has become invaluable for business to reach customers, regardless of industry.

Using mobile for direct and text messaging guests was a recurring topic of discussion, with hoteliers taking interest in expanded methods of reaching guests through mobile technology. David Temple, CEO & co-founder of Hello Scout (a HITEC Entrepreneur 20X participant), gave a presentation during this year’s HITEC 2016 Tech Talks focused on the benefits of text messaging hotel guests. According to David, messaging apps now have higher usage than social media apps. One of the benefits of hotel guest messaging is the extreme personal connection this enables hotel staff to have with guests, he added.

In-room technology was also a big focus, as touchscreen tablet technology has evolved to the point where there are now models available specifically for hospitality industry needs. Reduced hardware costs and high rates of guest engagement for these guestroom devices makes them an area of hospitality technology investment that could continue to grow in popularity in the near future.

Interest among hoteliers was also in how these guest-facing technologies could provide insight into guest behavior and preferences through a collection of Big Data in hotels.

Hotel WiFi & Connectivity

Strong WiFi has been one of the most important aspects of hotel technology for years, and that hasn’t changed. But as travelers increasingly pack a wider variety of devices, such as smartphones and tablets, it’s put more demand on hotels when it comes to supporting guest connectivity needs.

Daran Hermans, the senior product manager with Zebra Technologies, said, “It all has to do with the mobile devices that guests bring into the hotels. They’ve changed completely. Not only the devices have changed, but they’ve also changed the way the network and the hotel operators have to respond to that.”

Daran identifies the introduction of the iPad as one example of a new technology that impacted connectivity in hotels by altering WiFi demands. Hotel networks weren’t designed to accommodate the use of tablets and mobile technology. Networks had to become more powerful as guests began carrying more mobile devices.

“The trend line is going toward putting one access point in every single hotel room and getting very personal with wireless,” he said.

Mobile technology and the BYOD trend among hotel guests have created other changes in hotel network needs.

Daran said, “Repeatedly hoteliers are saying I’ve got really bad cellular coverage inside my hotel.’ And we all understand that. Newer LTE phones actually don’t work as well, don’t have as good coverage as the older 3G technology did. So one of the trends that have happened to solve that problem is all the major U.S. based cellular carriers are all supporting voice over wireless LAN.”

“So between [these major carriers], your phone calls are now running over WiFi, they’re not even running over the cellular network anymore. That means now you have great cellular voice coverage inside your hotel. Now that’s a great trend. It’s great for me as a WiFi vendor because it really means that now we get to design products that work really well with those voice over wireless LAN type phones that guests are going to be bringing into hotels.”

Hospitality Cloud Technology

Hospitality has got its head in the clouds, and there are a growing number of hotels currently in the process of or interested in migration to the cloud. There are numerous benefits to the industry that come with the shift, including diminished internal hotel IT support needed to maintain onsite systems.

Tom Cook, the marketing manager of Evolve Guest Controls, said he thinks cloud technology in hotels will be a primary focus moving forward. “Trending in hospitality you’re going to see a lot of reduced onsite infrastructure and a major shift into the cloud.”

“It’s slowly making its way into hospitality. Renovation cycles, new construction, and if there’s a way to reduce onsite infrastructure and offer managed services and cloud services, I believe that’s going to be [a trend] in the next five years, in tandem with the Internet of Things and Big Data.”

Hotel Internet of Things

It’s a phrase you can expect to hear repeatedly this year, and it’s possibly the biggest hospitality technology term being discussed at the moment. It was certainly one of the hottest topics at HITEC 2016, with a number of speakers leading sessions on it.

Dr. Ajay “AJ” Aluri, the assistant professor at West Virginia University, presented a Tech Talk about the hospitality Internet of Things, during which he said surveys show that people are interested in value-added experiences in hospitality as a result of the hotel Internet of Things. In time, this trend will create demand for fast, convenient accessibility of automated functions.

He also said IoT will increase the importance of hotel integration between multiple systems in order to have seamless interaction between various devices and systems. If data can’t be fluidly communicated through these hotel system integrations, it could cause disruptions to the guest experience that would potentially decrease guest satisfaction.

In a corresponding special report for HFTP, Ajay wrote this bit of advice for hoteliers wondering about how to prepare for the coming of IoT: “The first step to the future of IoT among businesses is to embrace the Internet and Wi-Fi as the source of valuable consumer data for creating new customer experiences, no longer just for customer personal use.”

A shift is necessary for the hospitality industry. Hoteliers must embrace all the existing hotel technology trends that are widely available, and also become more open-minded and swift when it comes to adoption of emerging hospitality technologies that hold potential to allow businesses to thrive in a modern, connected age of travel.

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