2008 Hospitality Industry: Self Service Technology Study

In an effort to better understand self-service trends industry-wide, each year Hospitality Technology asks its subscribers to share their thoughts and predictions with us. The findings of HT's 2008 Self-Service Technology Study are in, and the results point to an increased public awareness that continues to face operator hesitation in adopting the growing technology.

This year, we again collected data on consumer opinions of hospitality selfservice as outlined in the Consumer Opinion Report. Public awareness and willingness to use self-service devices for lodging and food service increase every year, but operator interest continues to lag behind in self-service deployments, mainly due to the initial costs in an uncertain economic climate. For quick service restaurants (QSRs), we asked consumers how many times they had walked out due to long lines over the past year. The majority, 54%, reported having walked out one or more times, and just 42% reported never having walked out due to long lines. In addition, 62% of our respondents are either very or somewhat likely to use a hotel check-in kiosk, and fully 63% are very or somewhat likely to use a QSR food-ordering kiosk.