The Great Digital Revolution: Enhancing Hospitality with Data and AI

As the digital wave continues to transform various industries, the world of #hospitality is no exception. The coming together of digitization, AI, and data is bringing forth exciting opportunities for hoteliers to elevate the guest experience, maximize revenue, and navigate the challenges of evolving market dynamics.?

In this edition of Hospitality Data Insider, we’ve curated some thought-provoking pieces that delve into new tech developments. Keep reading to learn how the future of hospitality is being shaped right now.?

Digitization Continues to Extend Across All Touchpoints

Technology both facilitates hotel operations and enhances the guest experience, but it is the latter area that has seen the most advancements coming out of the pandemic. The staffing shortage existed pre-pandemic, and so did software that automated operations to assist with that shortage. Today, technology is becoming active throughout the entire guest journey.

“Every touchpoint that the hotel can have with a guest after the booking is now a part of the guest journey: confirmation, pre-arrival messaging, mobile check in, requests that guests might make pre check out, mobile check out, a post-check out message, etc.,” says Harman Singh Narula , co-founder, Canary Technologies .

Apart from enhancing convenience for guests and meeting their expectations, digitization greatly facilitates the collection of data on guest preferences. The platforms generate customizable reports that enable hoteliers to adjust their offerings according to the results.

“One of the key pieces that hoteliers will think about on the ancillary spend side, especially at the enterprise level, is, what are the top ancillary items that guests are buying? What time of day are they buying those things? And then they’ll take that knowledge and implement it across their portfolio,” Narula says.

Read the article on LODGING.

Personalization + ChatGPT = Holy Grail In Customer Intent

“Twenty-seven years into travel on the internet I am constantly amazed by the lack of progress in travel personalization,” writes Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity, founding chairman of Kayak, and co-founder of Wayblazer, in an op-ed published on Hotel Investment Today . “Loyalty programs should have led to personalization, but in my experience simply have not been used that way.”

Enter ChatGPT. … Perhaps now companies can combine what they know about customers, what data they can purchase about their customers, along with what customers tell them in chat to truly personalize search results and even the products themselves. Natural language search, Jones writes, is a wonderful window into customer intent.

Capturing that intent can lead to personalization beyond just the shopping and buying process. That’s why, Jones posits, #ChatGPT has the power to change travel search for the better.

Read the column on Hotel Investment Today.

The Modern Approach To Revenue Strategy Starts With Data

At the Revenue Optimization Conference, held as part of HSMAI ’s Commercial Strategy Week in conjunction with HITEC, the vibe focused on how an influx of readily available data is leading to modern approaches to #revenuestrategy.

In a panel discussion titled, “Beyond the Rs: Revenue Strategy is More than Rooms Revenue, Rates, and RevPAR,” Jenna Villalobos, CRME , Senior VP of Commercial Strategy at OUTRIGGER Hospitality Group , and Kathleen Cullen, Senior VP at PTG Consulting , shared a wealth of best practices for moving from a revenue management approach to a more holistic revenue strategy.

They suggested one of the biggest challenges to modernizing your commercial strategy is getting all the key stakeholders – management, ownership, asset management – aligned. Beyond that, challenges include:

• An overreliance on Excel spreadsheets
• The inability to adapt to new strategies versus doing it the way it has always been done
• A lack of understanding of the importance of all the systems needed to implement an effective revenue strategy.

Read the article on the MDO blog.

How Tech Can Aid (Not Replace) Revenue Managers

The evolution of the commercial strategy space since the start of the pandemic has led to more collaboration and greater adoption of automation, including artificial and business intelligence. But as automation use grows, there’s a hesitancy to fully embrace it among system managers due to a lack of understanding and control.

There’s still an “old-school philosophy” in the industry that leads to uncertainties creeping in whenever the automation system doesn’t yield optimal results, says Cassie Bond, CHRM, CRME , vice president of commercial strategy at Lodging Dynamics .

However, industry experts say that technology has the ability to analyze data beyond what the human brain can and that technology can enhance a revenue manager’s job. “I actually trust the system a little more, because I know — or I have some inkling — how many data points the system is looking at all the time,” says Chris Cheney , vice president of hotel performance and analytics at Stonebridge Companies . “I may feel uncertain about what’s happening in the next seven days, 10 days, 30 days, 90 days, but the system is seeing actual activity and making judgments on it.”

Read the article on Hotel News Now.

Data & The Quest For The Frictionless Guest Experience

A common goal of the hotel industry’s implementation of technology is a "frictionless" experience for guests, but several hurdles remain in the way of making that reality, according to experts. Several panelists speaking during the recent #HITECTOR23 conference noted the challenges that varied data privacy regulations around the globe present to hoteliers and deploying new technologies.

Amandeep Sarna, chief information officer for ITC Limited's hotels division, said his company is working on projects to "create that dream of customer 360," indicating a more complete understanding of who customers are and what they need and want, but complying with data privacy rules is key.

"We are really focusing on bringing data together from the rooms system and making sure we know at point of presence, when you're checking somebody in, that ... it's the same guest and you can greet them and know they spent a lot of time in New York or Hong Kong," said Todd Wood , vice president of global applications and transformation at 文华东方酒店集团 .

Michael Levie , cofounder of citizenM hotels , said the hurdles the industry faces in creating a better #guestexperience through technology aren't all external. Many of the issues hoteliers face are created by their own bad habits and over-reliance on a cobbled-together network of legacy systems that hamper adoptions of more advanced tech.

Read the article on Hotel News Now.