Tech Talk

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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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Definitely Doug 12/20/19: The Year in Review

12/23/2019

by Doug Rice

The Year in Review

As 2019 comes to a close, it’s time to count our blessings. One of mine has been the privilege (and fun!) of being able to reach out to so many interesting companies and get them to tell me what they’re doing that’s different, disruptive, and game-changing. The list of things I have to write about in future columns has only gotten longer in the nine months since I started writing this column.

If you’re like me, whether and when you read emails like this newsletter can be hit or miss, so I thought I’d do a recap of the topics I’ve covered this year, with links in case there’s one that interests you that you missed. Along the way, I’ll also highlight some companies that came to my attention or were only ready to talk after publication of the particular topic -- ones I would have included had I discovered them sooner.

In April I started by describing my objectives for the column, which haven’t changed but are worth skimming through if you’ve joined me during the course of the year. Then my first substantive column addressed robotics. A few months after writing that one, I ran across Techmetics, which offers not only a robotic butler, but a drink server for casinos and a back-of-house delivery cart robot.

May’s first installment covered Enterprise Service Buses. The subsequent announcement of Jonas Chorum brought to my attention the Jonas Hospitality ARC ESB; that’s another option that’s worth a look. The next topic was technology to help guests exploit the many things to see and do in the neighborhood around the hotel, and to incorporate them into the hotel’s marketing proposition more seamlessly.

In June I turned to artificial intelligence and chatbots, used to answer guest requests quickly during a hotel stay. Another company in this space I would check out is Easyway – they were on my radar when I wrote the article, but hadn’t formally launched past their pilot sites. And just last week I read that Whistle has added the AI and workflow layers that were qualifiers for that column; I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet but it sounds about right. The second article in June, written post-HITEC, called out some of the more innovative things I saw wandering the exhibit floor in Minneapolis.

July’s first blog covered some innovative things going on in the reservations world. The second one covered location services as applied to staff panic alerts.

Then in August I turned to housekeeping systems, where a lot is going on. A couple of companies focused in Europe came to my attention after writing that article, and I found RoomChecking to be interesting in its ability to deal with complex European work-rule requirements; it is not unusual for individual housekeepers to have unique restrictions such as which floors they can work on, how many credits they can be scheduled for, or how many twin rooms they can clean (these are features typically only found in the top-end systems). 1Check also sounded interesting, although I wasn’t successful at getting a first-hand look. August’s second column covered eLearning software.

I got a lot of good feedback on my September column, which talked about barriers to innovation in hospitality. One industry disruptor I spoke to just last week said he’d read it in preparation for a call, and he wished he’d had it earlier in his company’s lifecycle, that they had to learn some of my observations the hard way.

My first October column covered Hotspot 2.0, and it’s the one you should go back and read if you missed it the first time and if you are one of the many hoteliers hoping that 5G technology will replace the need for Wi-Fi (spoiler: it won’t!) The second topic that month covered some interesting innovations in sustainability, and the first November edition looked more specifically at energy management systems.

The second November column covered some innovative approaches to guest engagement, which every hotel should be trying to address. And my most recent topic was sales and distribution software for meetings and events, an area that has been far behind the curve but is showing promise of catching up.

I’d love to hear from readers about topics they’d like me to cover, or companies that should be on my radar. I’m always happy to spend a half hour looking at any technology product that is targeting hotels, or that thinks perhaps it should.

And speaking of game-changers, I should note that Puzzle Partner is now accepting submissions for their Hotel and Travel Tech Game Changers 2020 Report. If you’ve got something game-changing, get on their radar as well as mine!

Wishing everyone a very happy holiday season and see you all in 2020!