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Definitely Doug 12/8/23: Top 5 Hotel Technology Trends from 2023
Posted: 12/08/2023

Technology in the hotel industry does not change quickly. Every year, we see a few new ideas emerge. Some turn out to be fads and never get much traction. Many others get a fair amount of adoption, but only within certain niche markets. Only a few really start to take hold. Today I will assess which of the new technologies that have emerged in recent years are likely to be in this last (and most important) category, recognizing that they can still take years (often decades) to work their way through the industry.

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Definitely Doug 11/17/23: The Hotel TV Dilemma
Posted: 11/17/2023

In case you missed the memo, people no longer watch television the way that they did ten years ago. Not at home, and not at hotels. Nielsen reported that streaming services cornered 34.8% of TV screen time in July 2022, when they overtook cable for the first time.

Property management systems (PMSs) fundamentally have changed very little since the 1980s. And many hotels still use systems that were built in the eighties, nineties, or aughts. Since then, massive technology changes have occurred: the mobile revolution, cloud computing, distributed ledgers, AI-based large language models, Web 3.0, and other innovations have fundamentally changed both the technological capabilities of software, the way it is designed and built, and expectations for user experience.

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Definitely Doug 10/20/23: Gluing It All Together
Posted: 10/20/2023

Hardly a day goes by that hotels do not express frustration about the inability to tie together key data sources and technology systems. This is not a new problem; it has been around for decades. Progress has been made on many fronts to be sure, but digitalization has created new issues much faster than solutions.

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What’s the Buzz Among Today’s Hoteliers?
Posted: 10/17/2023

What’s on the minds of hoteliers? What’s keeping them up at night? And what makes travelers happy and eager to return? Some of the best places to have these candid discussions are at the industry’s conferences and events, and this year’s lineup has not disappointed. From AAHOACON and BITAC, to HITEC and The Hospitality Show, I’ve been traveling steadily, attending 13 events since January.

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It's an Exciting Time for New Technology Products

04/10/2014

by Geneva Rinehart

It’s getting to be that time again – we are only weeks away from HITEC and the buzz around new technology innovation is starting. It’s an exciting time of year. This week I was approached with two very interesting and unique technologies for hotel, resorts and restaurants.

The first is called Tellystream. While I have a feeling someone in our industry has thought of this I haven’t actually seen anything like this to date. Tellystream is a digital signage, DIY solution that allows a property to show its own personal property message on its restaurants and bar televisions during the live commercial breaks. If you are a small property with limited IT support this might be a great option for you or if you are just looking for an innovative way to share messages with your patrons this is worth a look. Check out www.tellystream.com.

The second technology is a 3-D pool projection. The Sheraton Waikiki Hotel in Hawaii debuted this technology with an illusion of aliens in the resort’s pool. The company responsible for this is PointCloud Media who took its building mapping technology and adapted it to water. It has a definitely cool factor of 9.5. I can see resort properties in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Miami jumping on this for large events, parties, concerts and New Year’s Eve. The company has put together a demonstration video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcVzmvzGGys or you can check out http://pointcloudmedia.com.

Would you like to see more previews of interesting and innovative technologies? Please email the author at the address below.

About The Author

Geneva Rinehart
SVP, Managing Editor
Hospitality Upgrade

Geneva Rinehart is the managing editor at Hospitality Upgrade. For two decades, she has followed the world of hospitality technology. On occasion she will chronicle hospitality technology issues, technology trends, and new technologies for Hospitality Upgrade on LinkedIn and Twitter: @genevarinehart