Technology is moving faster than ever before, and your guests no longer simply appreciate the experience-enhancing perks that innovation delivers: they expect them as standard. It’s vital not to get left behind regarding what tech can bring to your hospitality business.
As well as making for happier guests, the technologies we look into below can also make your entire operation run more smoothly and save you money. What’s not to love? Here’s how tech affects the hospitality industry and why you should consider bringing it on board.
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Improving the Customer Experience
The type of experience a guest has will determine whether they’ll return to your hotel, avail themselves of upgrades and extras, and recommend your establishment to their friends and families. So getting it right is crucial.
Tech is providing ever more innovative ways to optimize the guest experience so visitors enjoy the best vacation, most productive business trip, or most fabulous weekend away possible. How is this being achieved?
Online guest check-in and mobile keys are just two ways that hotels boost convenience for their visitors and make their stay a smoother one. Using a customized upselling platform for hotels allows the businesses that deploy them to personalize their guests’ stays. This is done by anticipating their needs and offering tailored upgrades and experiences. Using the information provided by a guest at check-in, everything from a bottle of fizz delivered from room service to information on suitable nearby attractions can be presented.
Communication hubs are also increasingly used for guests to make requests and orders, adjust room settings, and manage their bookings. These hubs are a great way to centralize communications with guests and ensure that a message doesn’t get missed – one of the key causes of frustration for hotel visitors.
Deploying Staff More Effectively
Tech allows for the automation of many processes, from marketing to HR jobs to front desk tasks. And this means that staff can be deployed more effectively across the organization. As well as lessening (if not negating) the impact of staff shortages, your team can concentrate on the things that matter: taking care of your guests and ensuring the establishment runs like a well-oiled machine.
Automation also eliminates the risk of human error, protecting against the frustrations of bookings that have been made on the wrong date, misplaced confirmations, missed requests for room service, and the like.
Getting More Reservations
And the benefits of new tech don’t start at guest check-in. Incorporating VR into your website or virtual brochure allows potential visitors to get the full picture of their stay before they walk through the door.
The hospitality venues using VR to market their businesses usually find it a great way to showcase their establishments. Viewers get the ‘wow’ factor when they see, for example, a room’s gorgeous decor, the stunning candle lit courtyard, or the art deco dining room – and this can give them a gentle nudge off the fence if they’re weighing up their options regarding accommodation.
Making great use of social media platforms, too, and linking these to your website can be an effective way of connecting with new potential audiences. Just as with any other business, the clever use of SEO is being deployed to drive up organic online traffic: meaning more website hits.
Cutting Back on Overheads
Intelligent energy management devices and apps can be used to cut down on unnecessary expenditures and ensure your hotel is running as sustainably as possible. Smart thermostats and occupancy sensors will detect when a room is occupied, adjust the heating and air conditioning as necessary, and automatically turn off any lights.
A smart energy management system takes things one step further by analyzing local weather patterns and how energy has been used in the hotel historically to optimize an establishment’s use of energy throughout the entire year. This could save you a considerable amount of money and boost your hotel’s eco-credentials, too.
Optimizing Staffing
Smarter, AI-enabled scheduling tools that use automation can help anticipate and manage peaks and troughs in demand, so your hotel will always have the correct amount of cover. This system is also helpful in matching employees’ desired working patterns to available shifts – meaning a happier, more motivated workforce and a lower staff turnover rate.
Tech can help with the re-skilling or support of staff returning to work after a period of leave (such as maternity). Virtual training programs can be deployed to get a staff member back up to speed or uplevel their skills quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively.
The Takeaway
The majority of tech is now designed to be both scalable and futureproof, meaning it can develop according to the needs of your business.
Incorporating tech into your hospitality venue isn’t just about ticking a box: it can transform, for the better, your entire operation. From creating smoother processes that save your staff time to optimizing the experience for your guests by providing bespoke, tailored services to saving you money on your overheads, there is no end to the benefits that deploying tech wisely can bring. Don’t risk being left behind: why not check out some of the innovations listed above with a view to what they can do for your business?
About Carson Derrow
