However, despite the gains, inevitable challenges in the accommodation sector make running hotel businesses a little more difficult.

So, if you are frustrated and truly wondering how to overcome these hospitality challenges, then you’re at the right place.

This article talks about all the common challenges in the hotel industry and their possible solutions.

Why Should You Know About All the Challenges in the Hotel Industry?

Running a hotel business isn’t a cakewalk. The level of risk involved is immense.

Therefore, hoteliers must keep an eye on every hurdle that comes their way.

Numerous hotels around the world tend to overlook most of the challenges. As a result, they face serious repercussions.

Let me share an incident.

There’s this hotel I visited in Prague. The property was just marvelous and I was loving my stay. On day 2 of my stay, I met the hotel manager and had a colloquy. And I got to know a lot.

They had to close two of their POS outlets. Reason? The system they were using to manage the outlets was sort of old school and didn’t have the automation aspect.

Initially, it didn’t seem to be a big issue, but when they had to perform certain tasks manually, discrepancies increased, and at one point it went out of hand.

Now, if you still think that you don’t have to emphasize every challenge, then that’s not correct. To keep a hotel running; in fact, prospering, an all-around inspection of all the challenges of a hotel business.

Common Challenges in Hotel Industry and Their Solutions

You don’t need rocket science to overcome challenges. Rather, you need to have a strategic approach.

Over the years, many hoteliers shared many pain points with us. So, in this section, we address a few global issues and challenges in the hospitality industry and their solutions.

1. Hiring and retaining the staff

Challenge

Hiring and retaining staff has always been one of the most common problems in the hospitality industry.

Every hotel requires quality staff on all fronts; be it administration, maintenance, kitchen, housekeeping, or frontdesk. Lack of skill in the educated youths graduating from education houses is also proving to be a major challenge in the hotel industry.

Solution

Training the new workforce on a regular basis is the only remedy available. Retaining a qualified staff requires you to employ a few tactics. For example, cultivating a feeling of belongingness (culture) and value for the team members will make them attached to their jobs and instill a sense of responsibility in their minds.

2. Change in marketing trends and dynamics

Challenge

Marketing is one of the most common challenges faced by the hotel industry.

Changes in the advertising and marketing trend often create problems for hoteliers. Also, traditional marketing methods aren’t that effective now. So, for those who have always stuck to the old-school ways, getting the strategy right is one of the biggest challenges of the hospitality industry. 

Online marketing is a surefire method, though it would take years for hotel owners to establish their strength. Online deals are booked by genuine guests and major transactions are paid in advance. 

Solution

Engaging your guests on social media, messaging apps, and other online sources can work wonders and give you results in a few months. Implementing effective digital marketing strategies is a strong solution to such issues in the hospitality industry. Be consistent and patient with whatever tactics you apply. It is inevitable that with the right strategies.

3. Operational issues

Challenge

There are countless operational challenges in the hotel industry. Ranging from reservations management, attending to guests, performing all front office operations, maintaining cleanliness in hotel rooms and premises, and more. However, hotel departments often fail to perform all tasks in sync which leads to chaos and customer dissatisfaction.

Solution

Besides operations, front office problems and solutions are connected to an integrated hotel PMS system. The faster you adopt it, the better it is for your property. Your operations are automated and departmental functions are synced with a PMS because it simplifies communications to a large extent.

4. Rising cost of daily consumables

Challenge

Price inflation of daily use products, eatables, and other supplies has risen steeply in the last few years. While that has affected all industries, it takes a huge portion of the issues and challenges faced by the tourism and hospitality industry.

Solution

A visible solution to this would be to keep a constant check on the inventory, control stock, and reduce wastage as much as possible. Consider implementing useful cost-saving strategies at your property, which would help you manage the rising costs.

5. Housekeeping issues

Challenge

Cleanliness is a basic requirement of every guest. In fact, you’d also ask for a clean and tidy hotel room when you are traveling. A majority of hotel guests would prefer a clean room over complimentary amenities, any day. 

Also, if you think about it, an unclean and messy room is also a common guest complaint.

But there are times when it becomes a little difficult for hotels to stay true to this. After all, there are various housekeeping challenges involved and strategies are needed to be made to cope with them. 

Solution

Housekeeping challenges in hotels need to be managed well with effective strategies and thought processes. The housekeeping process needs to be aware of the clean and dirty rooms and constantly maintain common areas. Do highlight these measures on your website and social media handles to gain your guests’ trust.

For example; You can track both – arrival and departure list of guests through the hotel software and can update the housekeeper to clean the room of all the guests who will check-out from the hotel. Moreover, whenever any guest check-in and ask for a room, you can easily check whether a housekeeper has cleaned the room or not with the help of the system. 

This is the best way to manage tasks, and keep track of the arriving and departing guests, and you can prepare yourself well in advance. This way, you can easily avoid challenges in housekeeping operations.

6. Change in guest expectations

Challenge

Changes in guest expectations are one of the biggest hurdles in the hotel industry. You’ve witnessed that nowadays guests demand a lot more from a hotel. Be it free WiFi, entertainment system, unique stay experience, or swift check-in check-out services.

And lately, people have also started expecting contactless hotel services to ensure a safe stay and eliminate their dependency on hotel staff. Certainly, it’s quite difficult to abide by these demands because of resource or capital bandwidth, but it will be imperative to do it.

Solution

So, contactless hotel services can be provided with the right technology. Consider deploying a self-service guest portal that will facilitate quick check-in and check-out services, share the location of your property, and even let guests request pick-up and drop-off services. Keep yourself updated with the latest hotel industry trends. Doing that will help you meet the changing guest expectations in a better way.

Check out the video below, to get an idea of how to provide a contactless guest journey at your property.

7. Irregular cash inflows

Challenge

One of the major challenges in the hotel industry is the credit menace. Dealing with parties who pay after 30, 60, and 90 days or even later. While these types of dealings are bigger, they don’t help much during a cash crunch. On top of that, many payments are delayed or go into bad debt.

Solution

Consider changing vendors and suppliers following a long payment term. Or strike a deal with them to collect their due payments in installments rather than in one go. This will keep your boat sailing for a longer duration. On top of that, you can launch an online marketing campaign to attract bookings, since these strategies provide a quick ROI.

This way, you save on hiring extra personnel for payment collection and even get to pay your bills on time. In short, you have an ample cash reserve for working capital. And that’s the best thing you can do about dealing with such hotel industry challenges.

8. Data security challenges

Challenge

The question of security is not a new one. While our data security methods have advanced considerably, so have the possibilities of data leaks and virus attacks. Threats of digital data theft and confidential data leaks are a matter of concern for hoteliers globally.

Solution

The first step to take toward secure data is to ensure proper data storage. Stop dealing with excel sheets and registers. Incorporate a secure hotel technology that prevents your data leaks. Technology today is PCI-DSS compliant as well as HTTPS secure, leading to better data encryption. This way you build your hotel’s credibility to bring in more guests.  

9. Maintaining the online reputation

Challenge

Today, internet-savvy visitors look for the brand reputation first before booking a hotel room. But, maintaining an online reputation is another big challenge that hotels often face. However, this has not been a current issue in the hospitality industry. Reviews and reputation have been neglected across all industries since the beginning. Little do they know, that an unmanaged reputation leads to poor brand image.

Solution

According to a survey, 93% of travelers check hotel reviews before booking a room and 33% of guests do not prefer to book a hotel with no reviews. Moreover, it is always crucial to track what guests are saying about your brand and the services you provide. Review management systems help you monitor, manage and respond to your online reviews – regardless of the platform and language.

I also have something to assist you in responding to reviews.

10. Losing loyal customers

Challenge

Since various hotels are constantly pouring in attractive offers, guests tend not to be limited to a single brand. Rather, they’re open to options; especially if you fail to connect and engage with them personally, and deliver a memorable guest experience.

Solution

Running loyalty programs is the MOST practical way to increase your loyal customer base. These include offering amenities, discounts, and reward points to guests against their membership. So, even if they’ve stopped using the services, you can approach your guests and offer them deals or packages. At the same time, do not forget to consider implementing ways to increase repeat guests at your hotel.

11. Change in technology

Challenge

The advancements in technology are altering every aspect of our daily lives. Gone are the days when guests used to wait for hours or a day to receive answers to any query. Today, customers are expecting a fast response and services from hotels. Such constant changes are extremely arduous to adapt to, which poses a challenge.

Solution

Hotels have begun tailoring guest experiences with chatbots. Chatbots allow hotels to respond to visitors at once, answer every query instantly, and more. This further increases hotel bookings, and revenue.

12. Hotels are not data-driven

Challenge

You are well aware that some hotels do not rely on any surefire data for business decisions. And because of the decisions based on assumptions, many hotels are forced to close down in a short span.

For instance, business decisions to spend for promotions on OTAs, interiors, room rates, and room types aren’t decided on the basis of actual statistical reports.

Solution

In order to fight one of the prominent challenges in the hotel industry, you are required to use software that‘ll give you all the business insights. It can help you in making informed business decisions and save on extravagant spending. Using the complete data analysis tool, you can even apply proper revenue management strategies to earn higher revenue.

13. The growth of local hospitality hosts and rising competition

Challenge

These days, more and more property owners are renting out their rooms or property occasionally. Homestays and vacation rentals promise an authentic local experience besides being convenient. Owing to this, travelers prefer to choose those homestays over hotels and resorts. Other than that, new hotels are entering the market every day. This growing number of homestays and competition is one of the challenges in the hospitality industry of 2022.

Solution

First and foremost, solid competition analysis is needed. You need to know how your competitors are doing, monitor their strategies, and then devise better plans for your property. On top of that, you need to offer something significant to attract your guests. Constant innovations and personalized services are eventually the only way to beat the competition.

14. Restoring business post natural calamities and crisis

Challenge

So, I think this is a recently faced challenge (or rather, ISSUE) in the hospitality industry. The whole world shut down traveling during the COVID-19 outbreak, because of which the hotel industry also had to shut down its operations. Canceled reservations, indefinite lockdowns, and shutdown hotels; this was probably the worst hit times for the tourism and hospitality industry.

While it is a challenge to survive these times, it is an even bigger challenge to come out of these times as a winner. And the hardest to restore the business in these uncertain times.

Solution

To be honest, none of us would have imagined a situation like this, where we would be fighting for our survival. But it is entirely up to us how we see these challenges, learn from them and come out even more potent than we were.

Businesses took this opportunity to evolve and innovate. and prepare themselves for the future. While these are all-natural calamities and not in our control, we can surely work on optimizing our operations and ensuring that our business stays alive amid the chaos. In the current times, you can use and implement strategies mentioned in our COVID-19 survival kit for hotels.

The post How to Deal with Common Challenges in the Hotel Industry? appeared first on eZee Absolute.

It is not a hidden fact that OTAs are a source of easy marketing for hoteliers, which let their rooms be sold to a larger audience.

Therefore, to select the right OTAs and more importantly the combination of all of them is critical to get more bookings. 

Here’s a complete guide with several factors to consider when you select the right OTAs in your distribution strategy.

What are OTAs in hotel industry? 

OTAs or better known as online travel agents are websites which provide a platform to users/travelers to book several travel services viz. airlines, hotels, trains, cars, holiday packages from one portal. In turn of the bookings made, these sites charge a part of the total amount as a commission to the businesses listed on their sites, which is usually in percentage (%).

Hotels on which accommodation providers can get registered, showcase their availability and sell their rooms to the travelers worldwide.

OTAs came into existence in the mid 90’s as a platform for selling excess room inventory during low demand season.

In the present day, OTAs are dominating the whole hospitality industry. They are popular as listing sites where accommodation providers can register themselves to make their property more visible to a larger audience.

Basically, OTAs help you connect your hotel property or chain of hotels to a global audience, driving more bookings and revenue online.

Believing on numbers, 

In 2016 year alone, TripAdvisor – the leading travel site and OTA generated almost 1.1 billion visits to its site.

Soft Inn

This number is not going down anytime soon. Suffice to say, OTAs are getting majority of visibility from travelers worldwide.

But a common question I face while dealing with hotels is —

How important are OTAs in selling your hotel rooms?

Believe it or not, today, a major chunk of reservations are made through these online platforms. This has made OTAs an essential component of all lodging operators’ distribution strategies — often accounting for the majority of a property’s revenue. 

If we let numbers do the talking,

76% of online bookings happen via OTAs

20% of your direct bookings come from people that have discovered your hotel through an OTA

Soft Inn

As the majority of travel and hospitality providers offer their inventory via OTAs, any traveler or guest has a one-stop-shop for comparative shopping.

Benefits of OTAs for hotels

Since their introduction, OTAs have increasingly gained market share, currently capturing 39% of the US online digital booking market. It is a win win situation for the property managers to select the right OTAs. Here’s how you are benefited:

1. Your property gets global visibility: Listing on OTAs having a wide demographic reach gets you the much-needed visibility and exposure which will establish your brand in the market.
2. You receive a good number of bookings: OTAs give your hotel a platform to receive bookings 24×7, from any corner of the world.
3. You get reviews from guests: On OTAs, you get more reviews for your property that facilitate bookings and is a passive publicity strategy too

On the other hand, travelers get a better view of the kind of properties they want to access at a certain location. This helps them compare hotels and make a well informed decision. 

Registering on OTAs distributes your hotel rooms to both domestic and international audiences which is a difficult task otherwise. Showing details in the appropriate language and currency helps you to welcome guests from all over the world.

That’s why you should select the right OTAs having appropriate credibility which give your hotel the proper amount of reach and visibility.

Which factors determine your OTAs selection?

There are a variety of OTAs in the market today and each of them work on a different booking model. It is vital that you don’t just register on any random OTA and pick up the ones that will suit your property the best.

There are certain things that should be avoided and considered while choosing the OTA. These factors will help you make the right decision: 

1. Your target audience 

What kind of people you cater to plays a very essential role in listing your property on the OTAs. Since several OTAs these days are made to target a specific market segment to assist travelers in booking quickly, you can definitely make the most of this opportunity.

If you are a hostel in Netherlands, register on Gomio.com, or hostelsclub.com to attract domestic guests from neighbouring areas. Similarly, for international guests, Expedia, Booking.com are a popular choice. For backpackers; hostelworld.com, hostels.com and such likes are the right OTAs.

You are the best judge for the type of guests that your hotel wishes to entertain and same should be taken into account while registering on different OTAs. 

2. The demographic reach of the OTA

Almost all OTAs are geo specific. They cater to audiences from specific geographical locations or regions. It thus becomes essential to know where the majority of your guests are coming from?

The first step in doing so could be finding out where do tourists come from in your city. 

Local OTAs are the best platforms to capture your local guests and guests from surrounding cities or regions.

For example: Camholidays.com attracts people to book hotels in Cambodia on its portal, whereas Travelguru is specific to people from the south Indian states, and so on.

Choosing local OTAs makes sure that you have reached out and are known to the local public. Because of this, there are chances of local promotions as well.

For that reason, you should be aware of the local OTAs of your region before you include them in your distribution strategy. Select the right OTAs like Pegi Pegi (Indonesia), Travlu (Canada), Rurubu (Japan) and more to get an added advantage of attracting guests from particular regions or countries. 

3. Your property type

Not all OTAs are suitable for all types of properties. Depending on the category of your property and the amenities that you offer in your hotel, choosing the right OTAs will vary too.

For instance: Expedia is suited to sell 5 star and luxury rooms; whereas Treovi, hostelworld.com are best to sell budget rooms and hostels. Independent hotels for solo travellers sell well on AirBnB, hotels.com; bed and breakfast type properties sell best on bedandbreakfast.com, flipkey.com with a low commission rate.

If you select the right OTA which suits your property type, it will make selling your rooms faster and better. 

4. Commission model 

One of the biggest concerns while partnering with an OTA is the budget that your property has kept aside for commissions.

Now, each OTA has a different commission model. When registering, make sure you know what each OTA will charge you for booking a room through its website. Start with the ones that charge lower commission. 

When determining if an OTA is worth the cost, remember to account for your guests’ lifetime value or the customer lifetime value (CLV) brought in.

5. OTA’s efforts to increase your visibility and bookings

Along with listing hotels on their websites, OTAs often run loyalty or reward programs to promote hotels. You may decide your listings based on how effective the promotions or such programs are.

There can be discounts offered per booking or free nights offered that draws guest’s attention and increases bookings eventually. Offering discount programs merges well with traditional OTA users who look for great deals on OTA platforms. For example, these programs are most popular among hotels in the US: 

• Expedia Rewards: up to 2 points per $1 USD
• Hotels.com: Stay 10 nights, get 1 free.
• Orbitz Rewards: Earn $1 Orbuck for every $1 USD spent.
• Rocketmiles, Kaligo, Agoda: No program, but earn airline miles of your choice.

Booking.com’s Preferred Partner program is also an established approach to boost visibility. Properties with an average rating score of 7.0 or higher are categorised as “preferred” and get extra visibility in the search results, next to a ‘thumbs-up’ sign.

A larger number of customers can easily see that your property is recommended and is booked by a lot of travellers.

Preferred partners get an average of up to 65% more page views and 35% more bookings.

Such programs are an added advantage when listing your property on OTAs and should be taken into account when selecting the right mix. 

6. Rate parity maintenance

Rate parity is another very important factor. It is mandatory to follow the legal agreement between hotel and OTA to maintain the same rate for the same room across all distribution channels.

Understand the concept and share the same with your staff so that they take care of the rate parity, not leaving you in an unavoidable situation with the OTAs.

Know the consequences of not adhering to this law with each OTA. Many OTAs discontinue your listing forever, while some barr for a few months.  

OTA registration has to be planned strategically while setting up your property on all the OTAs. It is a good idea to diversify the registration, i.e. be present on multiple OTAs rather than relying on only 1 or 2 of them. Read our blog to know why should you have more OTA connections. 

The abundance and popularity of these platforms has made it difficult for hoteliers to choose where to register and where not. But after you consider these factors, there’s very little you need to think of before you select the right OTAs for your property.

How to select the right OTA combination?

The right set of distribution channels will vary for each property. You can hit the right audience and get more bookings with appropriate research after knowing all the aspects of each channel and ROI besides considering the above mentioned factors.

Here’s a quick insight on what else should you know about the OTAs you consider registering on.

1. Pros and cons of each OTA

Before selecting the right OTAs, know the pros and cons that you might have to face. While OTAs give you a lot of freedom to list and sell your rooms as per your preferences; there might be hidden charges or commissions that you might not know of.

Or there might be policies to restrict your bookings in certain way. Each platform has a different way of offering rooms. Some display prices per adult, some display per room. Hostels display prices per bed and so on.

So, I recommend you to step in the shoes of a traveler. Spend some time on the OTA to know the ease of booking and take into account all the perspectives that a guest might have. Gather as much knowledge from the online support team before listing your property with an OTA. 

2. Resources to maintain the OTA listings

Registering only is not enough on these online booking sites. You will need a resource to maintain the same as well. (You’d not want overbookings, or guests not booking with you because of unattractive pictures).

Uploading rates, inventories, offering discount, and keeping the listing up-to-date is one of the many things you need to constantly work upon.

Though, this can be quite a challenging task if you are not using a channel manager. Because, as humans, you may tend to make a mistake or your hired staff may not do this efficiently and accurately every time.

On those lines, select the right OTAs for your hotel and consider the cost of a channel manager against them.

Furthermore, check out tips to improve your ranking on OTAs like TripAdvisor, Booking.com and more.

3. Commissions vs bookings

No doubt, online travel sites are an economical way to list and sell your rooms. On the contrary, there are high commission involved ranging from 2-10% or more on each booking.

Now, this might not always be in proportion with the profit earned from each room.

That’s the reason, it is advised to know the commission before registering on OTAs. A clear picture of the ROI from that particular OTA is necessary before selling your room on the site. 

Besides these, you can also consider various technical details of the OTA viz. time taken to push the inventory and rate updates, credibility in the industry, connectivity with leading channel managers and several others.

In conclusion

OTAs give a great exposure to your property, along with a prominence on Google and other search engines. They indeed are a very economical way to advertise your property.

I recommend that you:

• maintain a good profile of your property on all OTAs,
• Upload clear pictures of your complete property,
• respond to positive and negative reviews,
• mention all amenities and attractions of your property and
• keep the rates up to date always.

OTAs are recognized worldwide. They are popular and trusted by all. Besides, they produce bookings without the manual process of dealing directly with emails and phone calls. This helps the hoteliers to get on with their business of running a hotel.

Once people have booked through OTA, channel them to book through your own website, as there is no commission involved and you can keep your own rates too.

Rooms sell well with offers and discounts. Keep adding offers like last-minute deals, coupon codes, festival discounts and attract customers to book your property quickly.

Allocate your inventory based on trends and insights. Manage your inventory wisely through a channel manager, and understand the reports it generates. A combination of all the mentioned factors and knowledge of all OTAs will give you the best distribution mix for your property.  

Questions or suggestions can be posted in the comments section below. 

The post How to Select the Right OTAs for your Hotel? [Complete Guide] appeared first on eZee Absolute.

The IoT has now come to practical applications in all industries viz. agriculture, logistics, healthcare, sports, manufacturing, travel, and tourism, among others. But the Internet of Things in the hospitality industry is something much more than just a hands-on experience.

IoT in hospitality industry is best defined as: A network of digital devices and machines interrelated through the internet for enhanced guest experience and optimized expenses.

IoT can prove (in fact, is already proving) to be beneficial to the hospitality industry in tons of possibilities.

Here are a few IoT use cases in hospitality industry to start with:

1. Le Meridian Goa, Calangute has built an IoT enabled hotel that reduces energy consumption and delivers an exceptional guest experience. They have achieved this with Schneider Electric’s IoT hotel solution (Ecostruxure for hotels).
2. Marriott uses IoT to create a room of the future. Yes! An Internet of Things room is live at Marriott. They have teamed up with Samsung and Legrand to launch this room, which is capable of performing numerous automated activities.

For example, a guest can ask the virtual assistant to give a wake-up call at 6.30 am for yoga. Or he can ask for special room services from the front desk. Or to start shower at a particular time with a set temperature with a voice command or through the app. 

Implementation of IoT in the hospitality industry is spreading with evolving times. It has not only opened doors for tech-driven automation for hotels, but also enabled guests to be accessible.

Why should hospitality industry embrace IoT?

No denying the fact that guests look for “customizations” everywhere. Be it with their rooms at their homes, or their desk at the workplace.

Customization makes people feel special. And since the primary aim of the hospitality industry revolves around providing the ultimate guest experience, this is what IoT should be embraced for.

Hospitality industry is best positioned to benefit from the IoT in enhancing customer experiences and reducing operational costs.

IoT solutions for hotels are beneficial in the following ways

• Save on HR, front desk management, housekeeping.
• More number of positive reviews and one-to-one customer engagement; hence more revenue generation.
• Lesser disruptions at work because there are fewer unpredicted ad-hoc maintenance calls. Additionally, scheduled maintenance is cheaper, does not eat much time and is easy to plan for.
• The guest data collection and management is richer. Better understanding of their habits, likes, dislikes, preferences and spending patterns to allow you to give them an enhanced experience.
• Greater knowledge of guests’ will lead to offering them exactly what they want; resulting in a higher satisfaction rating.

So, the results of these advantages will reflect on the guests and the experience they have with hotels. Once the operations will improve, so will the guest experience. It is directly proportional.

Here’s a video that shows how hotels can grow their business with IOT.

Suffice to say, it’s not just the hospitality industry that IoT benefits, but even the guests.

So, how does IoT in hotel industry benefit guests?

Guest experience is what evaluates the hotel in this era. And you can’t ignore the fact that the whole hospitality industry relies and functions on the basis of guest reviews.

It is the experience that counts, that can take your hotel to heights. Guests look forward to relax after a long journey to reach their hotel. They do not look for long check-in queues or wait to get the room of choice.

IoT solutions for hotels are providing increased comfort and well being to the guests:

• No more check-in and check out queues.
• Find the way easily to restaurants and other amenities with in-house navigation.
• Customized offers/food as per guest’s cuisine choices. For example, showing an offer on the wine that the guest always orders.
• Room settings personalized as per the guest’s liking. For example, sleep with 22 degrees Celsius each time and keep the bathroom light switched on.
• Turn on the guest’s favourite TV channels or music.
• Remember the usual order for breakfast for the guest.
• Ideal water temperature whenever the guest needs to shower.
  

And these are just some advantages off the top of my head. There might be many many more, if we actually begin to look IoT in-depth.

Implement IoT solutions at your property to give your guests a better hospitality experience.

NOW, where can the hotel industry use IoT?

The hotel industry is exploring and embracing the IoT to serve guests better and increase the operational efficiency.

Here are a few things that can be incorporated in your property as well.

Guestroom automation for room service improvements

Offer your guests exactly what they have come for to your hotel—a pleasing and personalized stay. They prefer a completely different experience that has everything tuned to their liking. Intelligent IoT solutions for hotels can help you do this.

For instance, you can employ a centralized network of automated systems to deliver customized solutions.

IoT gives you a great chance to improve the room service in many ways.

Your guests would love if you ‘remember’ their liking and preferences. Their food and room choices, their favourite coffee, activities that they like to indulge in, etc. Your guests can fill out all these preferences in the centralized app, and the applicable services can be activated when the guest arrives.

For instance, a smart device or a sensor can detect that the guest has woken up (by detecting movement in the room) and can start making coffee automatically.

There are sensors which also detect the occupancy in the room, and if the guest has left the room, the appliances in use automatically switch off, saving electricity.

Smart hotel maintenance

The hospitality industry spends a lot on maintenance. Imagine a situation where sensors can detect the problem areas in your hotel and fix them automatically or at least inform or notify you before the guest does.

Because if the guest faces a broken appliance, it sure is going to affect his experience and your reputation. There are instances where guests complain of faulty lights or leaking water in the hotel room.

With smart maintenance, the machine to machine technology can be used to improve the hospitality businesses’ maintenance systems.

Sensors can be installed to detect leaking taps or faulty lights which can trigger actions to either repair or replace them. This saves water and your manpower employed to fix these small things; which definitely improves the guest experience.

If you want to learn about various other ways of maintenance or want to improve your hotel maintenance, then we have a dedicated blog that you can check.

Cross property integration

How interesting will it be if properties of a chain share guests’ details and preferences through interacting IoT systems.

Ideally, the guest data should be centralized in hotel chain scenarios. And most of the times, it is.

The technology which hotel groups use, will provide a centralized guest profile, and IoT here will work in imparting a better guest experience using that guest data.

IoT in hotel industry is all set to show us the next level of CRM.

Gathered information can be uploaded in the CRM to maintain a transparency across properties. And eventually, your guest can have the same service customizations if he checks in any of the properties across the world.

In-room features

Rooms are the charm of a property. People book rooms for leisure and to experience comfort like home or maybe better than that. IoT can transform the guest experience in the room.

With systems connected through the internet, you can provide excellent in room features.

Keyless doors that open automatically when the guest arrives is one thing that is in trend these days.

Some other examples of in-room features are: Set temperature in the thermostat as per the guest’s preferences, optimum lighting in the room, playing/displaying his favorite channel on TV could be few experiences possible with IoT.

Amazon Alexa, a voice-based interaction assistant is the perfect example of IoT utilized in the hospitality industry. Hotels can configure Alexa to allow guests to control and adjust the in-room features.

And when Alexa is taking care of the routine tasks, the hotel staff can engage in face to face interaction with the guests to improve their experience.

Smart solutions for building and logistics

IoT can also help improving and maintaining the building and provide smart logistics.

Facility management, inventory and stock management can be better handled managed in an IoT enabled environment.

This reduces manpower and aids in cost-saving.

Anticipating what the guest is looking for and giving an experience better than expected will help you create an edge in guest satisfaction. These use cases are in practice widely across the industry. And you can incorporate them as well for a totally different guest experience.

Energy management

IoT employed for smart energy management system can reduce energy cost to 20 percent.

IoT is not limited to saving energy from heating, air conditioning or ventilating.

There are devices like smart thermostats, occupancy sensors, and sophisticated machine learning algorithms. They analyze the usage pattern for energy, local weather and peak season demands to optimize energy consumption all the year-round.

There are a plethora of other use cases of IoT in hospitality industry. But the ones mentioned are the most used and practical when it comes to implementing.

And, of course, while incorporating IoT at your property, you’d want to adopt solutions that help you implement at least one of the above mentioned practices.

IoT solutions for hospitality industry that you should adopt

There are a few products (solutions) that are in use in the hospitality industry. You can adopt these easily at your property to turn it into a smart one.

1. Amazon Alexa: Alexa is like an empowerment to the guest. It enables the guest to voice-control different smart devices, and it never gets tired in doing so. Your guests are looking for a personalized experience, and Alexa ensures that they have it. Just configure Alexa to allow guests to control features like lights, thermostats, blinds, and TVs in their rooms, or even order room service to their liking, and it will be done.
2. Mount Kelvin: Mount Kelvin is a device (call it an app if you like) that gives a next level experience to guests in terms of their in-room preferences and comforts through controls. It enables the guest to control the lighting, heating, curtains and air conditioning. And all of this with wireless switches, mobile app or a voice control like Alexa; thus creating an unparalleled experience for guests. For example, you need bright light to read a book or a dim light for a drink; it will do that!
3. Flic: Flic offers a wireless bluetooth button with customizable options. Instead of receiving calls on the front desk for coffee, towels, linen; Flic enables the guest to notify the housekeeping of the services that they demand for. And, all of this just with a button press.
4. Nest Thermostats: Nest, now known as Google Nest is a smart thermostat in the hotel rooms to help you save both: money and energy. It connects with the hotel’s booking system and reduces the cost of vacant rooms by knowing how many rooms are booked. When a guest is in room, Nest cools or heats the room as per guest’s preference. Some guests would sleep in a cool room, some would want a warm bed. In other words, Nest adds to the guest experience as they can control the thermostat from anywhere with the app.
5. Valpas: This IoT solution for hotels is the most innovative one till date. Bed bugs or even the anxiety of bed bugs might ruin the guest experience big time. Valpas has developed an automated bed bugs prevention system that catches the bed bugs inside the legs. It is easy to safeguard guest satisfaction with smart products like Valpas.

These IoT solutions are bound to transform the hospitality industry sooner rather than later.

Hotel brands like Marriott are already moving towards the future of hotel technology.

However, the investment to implement IoT might just be a one-time cost, but it’s proven to bring long-term benefits for all the industries.

In conclusion

Hospitality industry has one mission to focus on, which is guest satisfaction. And above all, if you see, the hotels using IoT have captured the right market and are improving their services constantly.

Today, IoT is all set to make the guests feel like home, pamper them and make them love the hotel even more.

However, often, the hotel staff fails to keep the guests happy in absence of proper hotel technology and automated operations. You know, the times when equipments fail, lightings become improper, or air conditioners do not work. In addition to this, the housekeeping disturb the guest accidentally or sometimes the front desk is unable to give a room on time to the guest.

Such experiences lead to negative reviews and affect the hotel’s business revenue and reputation. (Here are some sure shot hotel revenue management strategies.)

If you have not embraced the Internet of Things yet for your hotel, do it now and enhance your business.

Do you have more IoT strategies or products to use or do you want to ask us about the ones mentioned here? Let us know in the comments section below. 

The post How Can IoT in Hospitality Industry Grow Your Hotel Business? appeared first on eZee Absolute.

“Will it be WORTH the investment?’’

I totally agree with you. If it is not going to contribute to your business growth, then what’s the point of having technology? 

So, to answer your question, in this blog we will discuss how to calculate returns on investment (ROI) of a hotel technology, what factors are to be considered and other things around it. 

Now, when I talk about ROI, it doesn’t necessarily mean to bring back the invested money. It is much more than that. Let us dig deeper and understand,

What is ROI on hotel technology?  

Basically, the return on technology investment is the ratio between the net profit you get (from the day you have implemented the hotel software) and investment cost. 

The logic is simple. Whenever you implement high-end software to get something done, you expect it to improve efficiency as well as accuracy of operations, reduce manual efforts and several other benefits. 

When you measure ROI, you get a clear picture of whether your hotel software has met your expectations or not. 

Measuring ROI becomes mandatory, when a hotel software is not only accounted for improving your operational efficiency, but also improving your guest experience and growing your business.

You may think that all these facts are right, but;

What is the formula to measure ROI on hotel technology?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, hotel software is no longer limited to improving operational efficiency, these days it is influencing guest engagement to a great extent. 

Therefore, the fundamental formula to measure ROI in the hotel industry is:

ROI on technology = Net gain on technology / Cost incurred to implement technology.

Now, let’s come to the most important segment,

Which factors affect the ROI on hotel technology?

You see, in this era of on-hand details and enhanced analytics, the ultimate benefit is not saving costs. As a famous saying goes, 

Primary business benefit is not doing more work with fewer people. Instead, the main benefit of these new technologies is reducing the probability of bad business outcomes, and increasing probability of good business outcomes.

You see, there are some factors as well that affect the ROI on hotel technology. Now, if these factors are dealt with carefully, then they can definitely improve your ROI to a great extent. Now let us understand which are those factors:

1. Revenue and Sales

This is the most important and primary factor. Naturally, the effect of your technology investment should directly reflect in your profits (which MUST increase). However, by increase I don’t mean a one-time gain, but a continuous flow of income. 

Let’s see how a complete suite of technology increases your sales and revenue:  

1. Reports and analysis: A hotel software provides you with a wide range of reports, through which you analyze your business sources and further strategize accordingly. 
2. Inventory distribution: Besides, a channel manager automates your rate and inventory distribution on different platforms. So you can enlist your inventories on as many platforms as you want and thereby maximize your online reach. 
3. Direct bookings: A booking engine attracts your website visitors with a wide range of plug and play widgets, so they would book directly with you. Thus increasing your commission-free bookings. 
4. Review Management: A review management software lets you collect, monitor and respond to all your online reviews from one place, so your online reputation is taken care of. 

Thus, a right suite of hotel technology can surge your ROI significantly.

2. Time efficiency

Second most important factor is TIME. 

A right suite of technology should help you save a considerable amount of your working hours.

You need to observe that to what extent your time spent after handling different front desk activities, managing housekeeping, guest billing and so on is reduced. 

Are you able to optimize the time in such operations?

When all your routine operations are handled smoothly in an organized workflow; then you and your staff can utilize the saved time in working upon other aspects of hotel management. 

Thus with the optimized time, you can have a healthy ROI.

3. Error reduction

Losses and blunders due to errors should be INEVITABLY resolved by the hotel technology. 

Generally mistakes happen in two cases:

1. While handling operations
2. While collecting data

Let’s first talk about operations. 

When you deploy a technology, I’m not saying that it will give you 100% accuracy. (Reason being, lastly they are humans who are going to operate it).

But at least, a minimum of 85-90% of accuracy should be achieved. 

Coming on the data part, you should never make the mistake of thinking that data is simply details about guests who have checked in at your hotel. It is MUCH MORE than that. 

A hotel technology analyzes that data and derives precise INFORMATION such as peak and weak season of your hotel, your most profitable room rates, your best performing promotions and other important details. 

You can use this information to strategize for a better business. 

Thereby, a RIGHT suite of hotel technology guides you towards better business and higher return. 

4. Guest experience

It is very important to see that by deployment of a hotel software, the overall guest experience is improved. 

As you know, ours is an industry that is driven by our guests. They hold the power to make or even break our business. Therefore, their satisfaction and experience should be the top most priority of any hotelier. 

On the other hand, a happy customer is the best business strategy. 

That’s why they have a significant influence on your ROI.  

Now, let me explain to you how.

Impressed with efficient operations and better guest services, your guests are more likely to  visit your hotel next time.

And as you now, 

Repeat Customers = Better Business

You may like to read: 8 Practical Methods to Increase Repeat Guests at Your Hotel

Other than that, your happy guests will definitely give you good reviews. And you know one positive review possesses the power to draw 100 more guests. So with that, you can drive more revenue as well as bookings. 

The correlation between favorable guest reviews and positive economic outcomes is OBVIOUS.

So this was all about how you can measure ROI on hotel technology. 

Having explained all of this, now let me tell you, 

Which hotel technologies can maximize your ROI?

These days, the modern hotel software is fueled with numerous functionalities to make hotel management a piece of cake.  

The latest technology has bestowed your guests as well with smartphones, mobile apps, social media, and most importantly modern traveling  websites or portals (TripAdvisor, Trivago, and such likes), that give them access to tons of information on a click. 

Having said that, you should adopt a hotel technology that helps you walk hand-in-hand with the latest technology trends; to get you higher ROI.

1. Which are the basic types of technology for hotels?

Now as you know, there are various types of hotel management systems developed recently with the advent of technology. Of which, some are:

• On-premise or desktop-based hotel software like eZee Frontdesk
• Cloud-based hotel management system like eZee Absolute

Now, since these days cloud technology is ‘IN TREND’, doesn’t mean that you should also opt for cloud technology only.

You should consider different factors such:

• Budget 
• Requirements 
• Number of staff members using it
• Convenience

After considering all these parameters, decide on the technology that suits the best for your business. 

2. Secured

This should be a clear priority for you. Investing for data security provisions in cloud environments not only protects your privacy but also gives you a strong edge against any worst case scenario of data loss. Secured data provides you with anytime backup and easy restore options.

Always look for a hotel PMS that is PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) certified or GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) compliant.

PCI-DSS: It is an information security standard for organizations that handle branded credit cards from the major card schemes. Get more information here. 

GDPR: It is a regulation that requires businesses to protect the personal data and privacy of EU citizens for transactions that occur within EU member states.  

Besides, go for a hotel software that has solid security measures such as IP-based login (any of your staff cannot access it from other devices) and two way authentication to run your operations in safe environment.

3. Guest-facing

Having guests as the center of your business, a technology that facilitates them is a MUST-HAVE. 

Nowadays tech-savvy guests expect you to cater them in their way, i.e tech-way. For that, you can have hotel software that can equip them with a mobile guest portal and they can perform the self-check-in/out, fill up details from their smartphones, request for any extra amenities, oversee their bills  and more. 

You can also have self-check-in kiosks to improve the hotel check-in process.

Besides, you can also have advanced IOT solutions such as smart thermostats that lets your guests adjust the temperature in the room, smart lighting and many others.

You can explore more such ideas from here. 

4. Integrated

Other than that, you should opt for hotel software that is completely integrated. So you can perform all your  operations under one roof. 

Choose a hotel PMS that offers integration with your other systems as well. Basically, integrating your hotel PMS with your existing hardware or software tools is the key to streamline your operations. Viz. PABX, door locking system, cash drawers, payment gateways, or ID scanners. 

For example, integrating your payment gateway with PMS allows credit/debit card payments to be processed directly through the system.

Automating such cross-system processes saves a lot of time, effort, and eventually increases your profits. 

But, how would you know whether your current or any hotel software is best fit for your property?

Here’s a complete buyer’s guide to hotel software. It has 50+ parameters that an ideal hotel software must have.

You can use it as wither as a buyer’s guide to purchase a hotel software or use as a comparison tool to compare your current software with the ideal one.

The post How To Measure ROI on Hotel Technology? [Complete Guide] appeared first on eZee Absolute.