Four Characteristics Hotels Need to Succeed in a Digitized Environment
The world has changed. And the hospitality industry has drastically changed as well. We cannot carry on conducting business the same old way while making the same mistakes. We need to adapt to our new environment in order to be efficient, successful, profitable while attracting new talent.
Many things that we’re doing now (the way we build our teams, the way we approach customer acquisition, the way we segment our business, the way we forecast, etc.) are done out of habit. But do we really understand why we’re doing these things in this particular way? Is this optimal and does it actually drive ROI and improve operating efficiencies? Does the new reality dictate a new approach? Can we do better?
We need to ask ourselves these questions critically so that we are able to truly understand our behavior and take a very different, more optimal approach, to ensure that it corresponds with the new Hospitality 2.0 model.
In her new book “Hospitality 2.0: Digital Revolution in the Hotel Industry,” Ira Vouk paints a picture of that new reality and how we can start building it today. She leverages her past experience as both a hotelier and an industry technologist to translate decades of market developments into an easy-to-understand blueprint for those who want a crash course on where we’ve been, where we’re going and how travel companies can adapt to this new environment in order to be successful.
Her book provides an in-depth industry analysis and discusses the following factors that allow companies to succeed in the new environment:
- Heavy reliance on technology
- Agility
- Continuous innovation
- Using data to make decisions, instead of relying on gut instincts
A big part of our future success is coming to understand that we need to turn to data to help us make the right decisions. And for that, we need to understand how to find the right data, how to access it, how to analyze it and how to store it. And technology can help us with all those things. Imagine all the possibilities that will open up as cross-industry data becomes available, as we learn more about our consumers, as we gather more information about their behavior on property and actually learn how to use that information to improve our businesses and at the same time, dramatically increase guest satisfaction. The possibilities are infinite.
“Hospitality 2.0” helps industry professionals, executives as well as founders, investors, professors, and students understand how to address the main challenges the industry is facing today, and how to apply the lessons we have learned from the past. It also shows how hotels can implement successful business strategies in this new environment through innovative technology solutions and redesigned operations, and how to prepare for the inevitable disruptions of the next years to come.
This publication comes at a pivotal moment for the hospitality industry as the pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital technologies. With the rapid evolution of the hotel technology market, there was no playbook or almanac for how to think about digital transformation, until now. ‘Hospitality 2.0’ was marked a No. 1 New Release on Amazon and quickly became one of the top sellers in the Hospitality category, out of 50,000+ books, worldwide.
"Anyone in our industry simply must read ‘Hospitality 2.0’ as there is no book that can even get close to the comprehensiveness this book provides. I also recommend it to experienced executives in all travel companies that use technology (which doesn’t?) as I haven’t yet found a book with the same level of depth to give context and sufficient understanding on such a large array of hotel technology subjects," says Dori Stein, CEO of hotel distribution and revenue intelligence company Fornova. “As we often hire talent from other industries, this book is a godsend! I’ve bought multiple copies and have asked all new employees to read it.”
What makes this book even more valuable and informative is exclusive interviews with industry leaders and technology founders who share their stories about what inspired them to start their companies, how they overcame the challenges presented by the hospitality industry, and how they developed their products into key elements of the hospitality ecosystem. You will also find interviews with companies like Google and AWS where they share their vision on how to move the industry forward through technology and what they are already doing in that area.
"This book is a must read for industry investors, asset owners, senior executives in operational enterprises and travel intermediaries, academicians, entrepreneurs, and students,” says Dr. Bill Carroll (a seasoned industry expert, CEO of Marketing Economics, former professor of marketing at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration). “It pulls the covers back on key issues causing economic inefficiencies in the travel and hospitality industry and highlights opportunities created by technological advances and their implementation to drive profit, ROI, and consumer value creation. The book is written in a conversational style, devoid of technospeak, that allows readers to hear from some of the best minds in the industry, presenting both issues and economically optimal recommendations for a pathway forward."