HT-NEXT 2022 Exclusive: Key Takeaways for Navigating Hospitality’s Challenges
On December 7th, HT-NEXT hosted a roundtable with industry innovators who were asked on stage to answer a series of thought provoking questions. Below are a few excerpts taken from this session. However, each interviewee had much more to say than we could include below! So be sure to take the time to watch the session itself for some great tips and ideas.
What are some current challenges facing the industry?
Nadav Solomon, Co-Founder and President, Tabit
Hotels and restaurants continue to deal with labor shortages. And even if a brand can get an employee hired, there are severe issues with training and retention. Brands need to realize they are working with a new generation that’s used to the conveniences of modern technology. Asking them to work with legacy systems running off of Windows 95 is a recipe for disaster. Offer them modern and mobile technology and they’ll be happy and want to come to work.
Mykola Sheludko, VP, Product Management, Sabre
Having a great personalized experience is no longer nice to have, it’s a necessity. But hotels haven’t reached this innovation potential even though they have the customer data needed for this available to them. Using technology to offer guests access to experiences that align with their preferences means that hoteliers are no longer focused on room sales but on personalization. That creates a different customer journey and different brand engagement.
Johnny Serrano, Sr. Director of Retail Sales – North America, Fortinet
Guestroom technologies today require excellent connectivity and security to be able to run successfully. If hotel properties lose their connectivity, that can become a very large customer experience problem. Implementing seamless failover technology allows hoteliers to continue to run as normal.
What should hotels do? What should they avoid?
Nadav Solomon, Co-Founder and President, Tabit
Operators lose brand power to aggregators like delivery, marketing, reservation, and payment companies. There are now ways to leverage technology to avoid losing brand awareness to the OTAs or delivery companies. Leverage your data to leapfrog the aggregators and engage the consumers directly.
If you can’t or don’t want to offer room service, imagine working with restaurants in your city so that hotel guests can use a QR code in the guest room to order food from a restaurant and it would be charged to the room. The hotel could deliver the food and control the customer experience and would make some money on the sale.
Mykola Sheludko, VP, Product Management, Sabre
Consider – what is your true objective when it comes to generating revenue. Traditional RevPAR as a KPI has limitations – occupancy and rates. But technology is now available where you can track and expand revenue generation through ancillary products. Total RevPAR includes the spend of the guest in the room, their spend on experiences on property and more.
Johnny Serrano, Sr. Director of Retail Sales – North America, Fortinet
Security is typically an afterthought after deploying technology. There are a lot of silos between network groups and security groups. When you have a vision for the future, bring those two groups together and when security is a part of that vision, it grows standardization and a better overall process.
How can hotels differentiate themselves?
Nadav Solomon, Co-Founder and President, Tabit
When it comes to F&B, people like to experience new things and find new things to love. When hotels use technology to highlight interesting and new F&B experiences for guests at the beginning of the customer journey or on social media, they can draw in new guests.
Mykola Sheludko, VP, Product Management, Sabre
Quick and seamless choices throughout the guest journey. Any hotel, not just high end hotels, can find experiences on property that can be marketed to guests. The question is: How do you formulate the offer and reinforce the brand for the guest?
Johnny Serrano, Sr. Director of Retail Sales – North America, Fortinet
Get rid of complexity and consolidate. Hotels use a lot of different products and so much goes into maintaining them. If you can consolidate, you can make it easier on IT teams and make it more secure. By getting rid of complexity you help them do their jobs.
Want to learn more?
Check out this video to hear more great takeaways on the above questions, as well as how our panelists answered additional questions such as: How does the client (both the hotel guest, and the hotel) inform the development of new solutions? How can hotels protect themselves from Ransomware? If a hotel currently has no F&B presence, how can they begin to leverage it? How can hotels begin to think like a retailer?