From streamlined operations to remote check-ins, check out these hotel tech trends that hoteliers should ignore at their peril. 

Now that people have smart TVs and bluetooth speakers at home, they have much higher expectations from the hotels they visit. Impressive technology is now essential to ensuring guest satisfaction. 

To remain competitive, hoteliers must adopt technology faster than their guests so their technology outperforms the tech their visitors use at home. 

It’s not just about the guest experience; tech is a valuable business tool too. Used correctly, it saves time and money and delivers insights that boost revenue. 

However, today is short and the future is long. Some tech fads have their fifteen minutes of fame and then fade away, but some stick around. How do you know which is which?

We’ve put together the tech trends that we believe will shape the future of the hospitality industry. 

Let’s dive in.

Energy-saving technology

With global energy prices rising, hoteliers can make significant savings by using tech to their advantage. Plus, reducing power consumption helps the environment –  something that matters to an increasing number of people (and rightly so). 

There are many energy-saving technologies available, but here are a couple of in-room solutions. 

Occupancy-based sensors use motion detectors or thermal sensors to detect when a room is unoccupied and shut off the power. The same sensors can also be used to control lighting and implement water-saving while the room is occupied. 

LED lighting delivers huge energy-saving costs while creating the perfect atmosphere in the room. Lights can be dimmed and colours can be changed to suit the mood of the moment. 

Many Western economies have set carbon neutral targets for 2030 and 2050, so you can be sure that reducing energy consumption is going to be a trend we see for a long while yet.  

Hotel apps

Having an app lets guests customise their experience and increases customer satisfaction as a result.

Guests can manage and amend their booking with ease, make payments, take a virtual tour of the rooms and facilities, check-in and out of the resort, and much more. 

These features became prominent during COVID and have remained many guests’ preferred method of communication ever since.

An app is also a fantastic way to communicate with guests after their trip, using push notifications to send personalised offers, ask for reviews and suggest similar trips you think they’ll enjoy. 

Operations

Technological advances mean hotel operations are now more efficient and frictionless than ever. 

Several platforms enable you to control reservations, manage revenue, orchestrate front-office operations and run housekeeping from a single source of truth. 

Having the ability to streamline operations means staff can run the hotel efficiently and easily monitor its performance with minimal effort and fewer resources. 

Cybersecurity 

Believe it or not, cybercrime is now more profitable than the illegal drug trade. 

Unfortunately, attacks are increasing and the threats grow more sophisticated all the time. As resorts adopt more technology to meet guest expectations, cybersecurity is more important than ever. 

Hotels handle lots of sensitive data, making them a prime target for cybercriminals. You must have strict protocols in place to defend against attacks. 

Frequently changing passwords, using a VPN when accessing the hotel network from outside the hotel, and having a guest network in place so guests don’t connect to the same network as staff – are just a few ways to dramatically reduce the chances of falling victim to cybercriminals. 

Although not covered in this article, it’s worth training your staff on how to spot fake emails. Criminals use emails to manipulate human behaviour, convincing people to click a link or open attachments that contain malware. 

Big data

Hoteliers are finally realising that the huge amounts of data they hold can be used to inform sales and marketing decisions. 

To the untrained eye, data looks like meaningless numbers. But in the right hands, it reveals insights that help you manage revenue, identify specialised offers that will appeal to different segments of your customer base, enhance guest experience and address the unmet needs of customers who aren’t currently buying. 

 There is a reason data is now more valuable than oil. If you haven’t extracted insight out of your data yet, you could be sitting on a goldmine. 

Virtual reality

Providing guests with a virtual reality tour and a 360-degree video of your resort offers numerous advantages. 

First, it improves guest satisfaction because visitors know exactly what to expect so you’re less likely to disappoint customers. 

Secondly, VR tours increase the time people spend on your website, which helps you rank higher in search engine results. And when you consider that 75% of people never make it past the first page on a Google search, anything that makes you rank higher is worth the investment. 

Smart technology

Smart hotels use internet-connected devices, which interact with each other, to deliver an unparalleled guest experience. 

Using voice control or a touch panel, smart technology lets you control just about anything in your room. 

Picture getting back to your hotel after a long day, dimming the lights after changing them to soft red colour, playing some relaxing music, running a bath and setting the room temperature to a cosy 20℃. 

Some hotels already use robot butlers to fulfil room service requests. These are guaranteed to be adopted by more resorts in the coming years.

Technology has revolutionised the hospitality industry in recent years. But for hoteliers who embrace the change, the best is yet to come.  

Tell us about your project?

We’ve worked to help some of the world’s most impressive resorts get their technology right. 

Our consultants stay on top of the market’s cutting edge technologies to make sure you have the most up to date information when deciding what’s best for your project. 

If you’d like to know how we can support your next project, get in touch today to set up a no-obligation chat with one of our consultants.