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.
