May 21, 2021 | Digital Marketing, Power BI
Technology plays a vital role in the hospitality industry. The new advancements have taken the industry to a new level. Starting from online room booking to verification to payment to check out everything is done online now. This has made things very easy for the industry and the users. People are getting everything with just a tap and that is making them more relaxed and comfortable.
Many technologies like cloud services, MS Teams, room reservation systems, AI, etc., have made the working here automated and satisfactory on the customer end.
Here are few most prominent Hospitality IT Consulting Services and ways technology has helped the industry transformation:
Wi-fi has become a necessity rather than a facility. Every hotel has to provide wi-fi as that’s what all the customers need, for themselves as well as their guests (like a conference or meeting)
Thus, the hotel has to invest in high-density wi-fi service across the hotel as that has become a need in this era.
With Wi-Fi, the other facilities needed especially by corporates, are Audio-Visual and digital facilities for conferences.
Airports don’t need us to stand in line to check-in, and people expect the same at the hotel check-ins and ordering food rather than roaming around. Guests want transactions to be personalized, like their name on the welcome desk at check-in and their food preferences or past purchases being shown in the digital room service.
Additionally, the ‘concierge in pocket’ concept is growing fast as it allows the operator to include more information like surrounding medical facilities or entertainment venues, etc.
Some hotels have started offering futuristic experiences with hotels as staff to serve guests at room service. A boutique hotel called Aloft Cupertino has a robot called Bolt that moves between floors to deliver items like toothbrushes, chargers, and snacks to guests. These types of robots make delivering such items easy for the staff and give guests a futuristic experience.
Hotels all across have started installing room locks with keys that can be just swiped across the keypad with a smartphone. This means there will be no need to collect keys from the front desk or keep them safe or lose them as they will be in the smartphonex only. Hotels like Sheraton, Westin, Hilton have started applying this in their rooms.
Along with wi-fi, Guests prefer their own devices for in-room entertainment rather than the hotel’s Tv or radio. The hotel entertainment sets are taking a backseat, and guest’s own devices are preferred here.
Biometrics can be used to check in like face recognition or fingerprint of retinal recognition. This makes it easy for the hotel to check in with their guests and not mess it up.
Hotels have started making guests put aside mobile phones for some activities or programs they have arranged for them. This makes them leave electronics away and enjoy themselves to the fullest.
People have started taking reviews and feedback seriously. They look at this social media feedbacks before booking a hotel. These reviews help them decide whether they want to book the place or not. These things play a pivotal role in factors determining the stay. Thus, hotels have started taking these things seriously and have started to work on them. In fact, they ask the guests to go online and give good feedback. This helps them get more traffic and its publicity.
These are some of the technologies that helped the industry connect technologically and work better:
PowerApps have a feature to add speech to text in its functions. This makes ordering for room service easy. Just open the application and order services, the app will send those to the concerned department and thus your work will be done. No hassle, no worries, and tasks are done easily with an application.
This software helps with customer service and issues faced by customers. This is specifically for the customer care department. This software helps customers give feedbacks or address issues that they have faced or are facing while their stay.
Augmented reality is a technology, and the hospitality industry is using it in a very unique way. It is using AR to give the customers a tour of the room before they come in, so they know what they are going into. This gives customers a new view of the hotel and its amenities and helps in increasing the clientele.
Power Bi is the tool that is needed in today’s time. This tool helps in deriving insights and analytics from the data gathered. This data could be about their bookings and which season has the most customers or about the customers and their satisfaction ratio and issues if they face any. Power Bi processes all this data, and then it analyses the data to derive insights that help the company with future decisions.
This application is specifically for the internal communications of the staff. This helps with easy communication through chats and VCs. It can also be used to hold meetings and to train online for different hotels at different places. This way, the staff stays connected throughout and can reach each other when they want to. It can be accessed from smartphones also at any time and any place with an internet connection.
Security is the most important factor in deciding the place you choose to stay. Thus, intelligent security helps you make the environment safe for the customers coming in by having intelligent security software with alert systems that help you detect if there is any issue anywhere.
Thus, digital transformation plays a huge role in advancing the Hospitality Industry and making it up to date with today’s market and needs.
atQor is a Microsoft Technologies focused boutique consulting, project services and product development company that aims to help end users increase business productivity by automating processes and compliance reporting.
