The hospitality sector is constantly evolving to keep up with today’s fast-moving times. Those who do not adapt to new customer demands and advancing technologies are left behind. So, it is essential you understand the technology trends that are changing the hospitality sector and how they could benefit your business.
What Does Hospitality Technology Mean?
It’s possible you’ve never heard of the phrase ‘hospitality technology’ before. Is there technology that has been specifically developed for the hospitality industry? The answer is, yes.
Hospitality technology refers to a wide range of IT, e-commerce, and technology solutions that are intended to make services more convenient for both staff and customers. Whether technology is used within hospitality to make life easier for your staff or to better serve your guests, there are many new trends that are changing hospitality for the better.
Why is Technology Beneficial to the Hospitality Sector?
You might be wondering why technology is beneficial to the hospitality industry. Well, we’d argue that it’s not only beneficial but it is essential if you want to remain competitive. Technology can help businesses by:
- Streamlining work processes
- Taking care of mundane tasks
- Making payments easier
- Reducing costs
- Improving the customer experience
- Offering convenient solutions
- Improve the accuracy of deliverables
By understanding and keeping track of the latest technology trends, you can invest in an improved customer experience and increased revenue potential. Let’s take a look at the technology trends currently changing the hospitality sector for the better.
Virtual Reality Hotel Tours
Searching for a great place to stay can be a repetitive process for people. After all, every hotel website looks and functions in much the same way. There is a list of rooms to choose from, with prices indicated, and reels of uninspiring pictures to scroll through. There is nothing that really grabs the users attention.
Virtual reality hotel tours are a new way to showcase the space you have available. Through the use of virtual reality, you can provide first-person digital tours to potential guests, highlighting the great qualities of your hotel through visual immersion.
This is an excellent way to draw your customers in and showcase everything your hotel has to offer. Virtual reality hotel tours help you stand out from the competition by offering a heightened customer experience.
Contactless Payments
When you work in the hospitality sector, you come into contact with hundreds of people every day. And since the COVID-19 pandemic shook up life as we know it, hygiene has become a top priority for many people.
In order to help your guests feel comfortable, it’s important to do everything you can to relieve their personal anxieties. Prioritising hygiene within your establishment is a great place to start.
According to SumUp, “Contactless has become the payment method of choice for many in recent years, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic made hygiene everybody’s top concern. Offering contactless payment can also speed up your overall checkout time, reduce queues and incentivise spontaneous purchases.”
With contactless payments, there’s no longer any need to faff around counting change or entering numbers into the till. With this technology, your guests can pay and go in seconds.
Mobile Check-in
Whether your hotel guests are travelling for work or pleasure, the check-in process should be as streamlined as possible so they can get on with their trip. There is nothing more frustrating to a weary traveller than standing in a queue waiting to get checked in to their hotel room.
According to research, only 8% of hotel guests feel comfortable checking in at an in-person kiosk, while a whopping 80% would prefer to download an app and check-in via their mobile device.
Mobile check-in technology offers your guests a quick and easy way to check in when they arrive. There is no need for face-to-face interactions. Guests can simply mark themselves as arrived on the app. This is an efficient way to welcome guests to your hotel, streamline the check-in process, and give control back to the customer.
Chatbots
When you have guests staying at your hotel, they can have demands 24 hours a day. However, most hotels tend to have reduced staff numbers overnight and so in periods of high demand, meeting the needs and requests of each guest can become a challenge.
Chatbot technology is helping to fill the gap by meeting guest demands quickly and efficiently. According to Quick Text, “With conversational AI chatbot for hotels, you can successfully fulfil the needs and expectations of today’s digital-nature travellers. Hospitality chatbots powered by AI can streamline guest experiences across all digital platforms and provide them with instant and personalised assistance.”
Chatbots can engage guests, answer questions, and fulfil requests, taking the strain off staff by taking care of everything from room deliveries to morning wake-up calls.
Internet of Things Technology
One of the top priorities for many hotel owners is giving the control back to their guests. They want guests to feel comfortable and in control of their stay by creating a hotel environment that acts as a home-away-from-home.
This is where the Internet of Things (loT) technology comes into play. When installed in hotel rooms, loT technology allows guests to take control by selecting the temperature of the room, the choice of lighting, and reducing their energy consumption by requesting the technology automatically turn off the lights when they’re not using the room.
loT technology is taking the hotel sector by storm and it is dramatically improving the customer experience.
Final Words
As a hotel owner, we highly recommend investing in the above technologies. Not only will you boost customer experience and satisfaction, but you will improve your hotel’s reputation and increase your revenue simultaneously. By staying up-to-date with the latest hospitality technology, you can stay ahead of the competition and provide a hotel experience that can’t easily be forgotten.
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