Tech Talk

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Definitely Doug 6/9/23: Hotels Fighting Trafficking: The Role of Technology
Posted: 06/09/2023

This week I want to address an important issue for the hospitality industry, albeit one that technologists have not historically had on their radar. They can potentially play a significant role in addressing the issue, which is human trafficking, and more specifically sex trafficking.

In my last column, I reviewed some key trends in autonomous mobile robotics for hotels, and dove into three categories of delivery robots in more detail – room delivery, food delivery, and heavy-lift robots. This week I will round out the topic with several other robot types and applications, as well as general guidance for evaluating, acquiring, and adopting mobile autonomous robotics. If you have not yet read part one, I recommend going back and doing so before continuing below, as some of the introductory material is important background to what follows.

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Best Practices for Hotel & Resort Operators in Pool Season 2023
Posted: 05/25/2023

With the arrival of warmer weather and summer fast approaching, hospitality operators are gearing up for another pool season. This year, technology is at the forefront of driving booking revenue and taking operational efficiency to the next level. Modern technology platforms (such as hospitality’s newest technology category – the Property Experience Management System or PXMS) are providing brand new capabilities that unlock new strategies and approaches to filling the pool with satisfied guests.

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The Growing Role Technology Plays in Hotels and Restaurants
Posted: 05/25/2023

In the past few years, hotels and restaurants have grown into hubs for entertainment, leisure, and human connection. In an effort to best serve their guests, operators have begun rethinking their technological investments and working to adapt to recent shifts in consumer preference and operations. To ensure that guests have the best on-site experience possible, brands are increasingly looking to new technologies to make their experiences more convenient and comfortable. Advanced property management systems (PMS) and point-of-sale (POS) systems can increase operational and staff efficiency, while also meeting changing customer expectations for a high-value but relatively low-touch experience.

This week I will return to a topic I have covered before, because it has, within the last 12 to 18 months, become one of the hottest-growth categories in hospitality technology. That topic is autonomous mobile robots – specifically, ones that can move around the facility as well as perform specific tasks. Many of these products were launched pre-Covid but were often seen at the time as more of a marketing gimmick than a legitimate operational solution.

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Is Your Website Voice Search Optimized?

05/29/2018 Tagged as: Alexa, Echo, Google Home, search engine optimization, SEO, Siri, Voice Search Optimized

by Nimesh Dinubhai

Okay, Google (Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Bixby, Alice etc.) find me a hotel in…

If the 2017 holiday season taught us anything, it’s that consumers are not just eager but ready for voice search engine technologies. They were the season’s hottest trend in gift buying, whether it was smartphones with voice search capabilities or digital virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Echo and Google Home.

Even though the voice search technology is still near its infancy, all major technology companies are investing in the development of voice search and virtual assistants. Nearly half of Americans are now using Intelligent Personal Assistants in one form or another and, by 2020, experts predict that 50 percent of all search inquiries will be made with voice search.

If your website is not yet voice search optimized, you need to invest now or risk your site being lost in an Internet no-man’s-land. When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), and all services that have SEO value like choosing a hotel, you are competing with all other hotel websites to be a site preferred by voice assistants.

Step one is hiring a web specialist to get you in the game. Ask them to make sure that your website can handle natural language processing and is adaptable to unique speech patterns, adding new long-tailed conversational keywords and questions to your site that is far more amenable to voice search apps than traditional keywords. Tell them you want each landing page to be voice mobile search friendly and doesn’t block mobile resources like JavaScript and CSS. Finally, ask them to eliminate any web elements that hamper website access via mobile search.

The clock on voice search optimization is already ticking. Make sure your hotel will be the one Google, Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Bixby, Alice and all those other friendly digital voices choose when their owners are searching for a great place to stay.

About The Author

Nimesh Dinubhai
President
Websrefresh

Nimesh Dinubhai completed his studies in 2003 and launched Websrefresh to help businesses grow their ROI. He also owns two Arizona hotels, one of which earned the Historical Hotel Award in 2014.