Last month I had a very interesting chat with Adam Kirby, associate editor at Hotels Magazine. We mainly discussed the state of the industry and the issues effecting hotels both in Europe and the United States.
We discussed some of the main challenges facing hotels in keeping up with guest’s technology expectations and some possible solutions for these:
- Can hotels really deliver a ‘home from home’ experience?
With the ever-increasing speed of technology change – and the subsequent costs incurred to respond to these changes – is it realistic for hotels to achieve the ‘home from home’ guest experience? Hotels have always wanted to be better than home and to respond to evolving guest expectations and behavior, but can they afford to update their in-room technology on an on-going basis – especially considering the current economic conditions?
- How do hotels meet the expectation of free internet?
Laptop and broadband access is a must-have for business travellers and there is a growing expectation that basic internet access should be for free. Hoteliers need to consider investing in fibre networks or optimise their current lines and achieve better bandwidth management.
- Technology that works
Guests want to have a wider choice of more relevant content, including access to HD entertainment and an intuitive and easy way of accessing it. Hotels are keen to deliver this, but they need to feel confident that the technology works and is robust and reliable.
We are working with our customers to try to address these challenges. Above all, hoteliers need to feel confident that their supplier is taking care of their investment and understands their business needs and objectives. It isn’t about providing the latest ‘wow’ technology – it’s about understanding how to use technology to enable hotels to deliver a differentiated guest experience in a manner that makes commercial sense.
If you have a spare five minutes I would recommend looking at Adam’s blog, he raises some really interesting points.
