What is the reason for hoteliers to say ‘yes’ to automation and new technologies?
Today it is fashionable to be modern and tech-savvy. Follow the news: today you have the X5 model of the phone, and tomorrow the X6 model is launched, and you will definitely have to buy it, otherwise, you lag behind.
Thrift shops are full, there are more mobile phones there than in hypermarkets of electronic equipment. Our world is rushing, developing, and we need to keep up with this development and be in line with it right now, today.
Let’s look back at the previous decade. The early 21st century… The beginning of the century of the generation Y. When you saw someone with a mobile phone in public transport, what impression did you have about this person? They are fashionable, wealthy, modern. They have a lot of opportunities, right now they can call whoever and wherever they want and solve the problem. It costs them a lot of money, but it allows them to be one step ahead.
But today? Everyone has a smartphone with mobile communication, navigation, instant messengers, all kinds of applications from step counters to electronic wallets and cost planners. It doesn’t impress anyone. Technologies have entered our lives smoothly, and we live with it. Image of arriving at the hotel, where the receptionist gives you the key to the room with a wooden piece that hardly fits in the pocket is nostalgic and associated with the history-themed hotel “Back In Time”. However, hotels with electronic locks on the doors and the rooms requiring a card or code to be opened are not so surprising anymore. A large number of the hotels have taken the side of progress and are positioning themselves as high-tech hotels. And many travelers choose them precisely because they see newness, freshness, idea, modern interaction with information technologies. Nevertheless, for some hoteliers, the use of new technologies for reception automation in business feels like buying a mobile phone in the early 21st century. But time does not stand still, and more and more hotels are turning into modern hotels of the future.
What is the hotel of the future? According to the managers of large hotel chains, which invest a large part of the profits into equipping rooms and using the latest innovations in the hospitality industry, technologies should be more stable than shiny; they should improve the guest experience. There is no classic receptionist in the hotel of the future. Guests are greeted by a robot or a computer with a trained neural network that responds to the most sophisticated requests of guests, rooms can be opened only electronically, be it a card, a code, a smartphone, a special chip or a fingerprint… Light, running water, heating, window opening, curtain lifting are controlled by a guest device or a special sensor in the room, which also understands voice commands. Each guest has a personal virtual assistant endowed with artificial intelligence, who kindly tells about the hotel and its service, about the sights of the city.
Those hoteliers that always keep up with the times understand that the use of machines at the reception, offering mobile solutions such as hotel check-in kiosk, mobile check-in, coded door-lock systems, or Bluetooth technology not only improves the guest experience, but also allows staff to enhance the quality of guest service by focusing on interaction and communication with guests.
With rapidly evolving technologies, people are used to mobile solutions for many tasks. This fact allows us to confidently conclude that automation and self-service via mobile devices continue to shape the hotel’s interaction with its guests. By making contact with guests before arrival at the hotel, you can get to know guests better and ensure a higher quality of their stay and experience at the hotel.
Today, the reality is that online travel agencies strictly regulate the prices of accommodation. Moreover, with the popularity of renting own housing or re-renting of long-term rented housing in the short-term lease, the cost of living for guests decreases every year due to mounting competition. Hoteliers need to increase customer loyalty and be open to innovation to keep up with the progress and global development. It’s all because the longer you postpone the introduction of technologies into the business, the more difficult it will be to implement this integration in the future. 40 years ago the first PMS for hotels began to appear. And many introduced it into business reluctantly and cautiously, but today the PMS market is so full that the price of this service varies several hundred times!
If technology does not liberate all people for the pursuit of higher aspirations in human achievement, then all its technical potential will be meaningless.
— Jacque Fresco
The best strategy for hospitality business development is to follow the emerging technological trends and implement them in their well-established business processes, but not only to attract the customers attention and increase ratings. The highest values of the automation use and new technologies implementation are the revenues increase, service quality improvement for the end customer, the ability to free employees from routine tasks, allowing them to provide higher level services.
