What Hoteliers Need to Work on for Success over the Next Decade

Shifting Economic Realities, Generational Change and Technological Evolution, in convergence, are the key factors shaping the next decade for the hotel industry. Together, they are shaping a traveller base that seeks creation of memories rather than pictures and wants experience rather than sights.

High Definition video streaming, television, Virtual reality (exploding on the global mass market in 2016) will bring the sights to homes. What technology cannot replace, at least not in entirety, is multi-sensory experience, even with 4D technology. And that is the sort of experience travellers will increasingly be seeking over the next decade. What will separate accommodation from Sharing Economy Model sources such as Airbnb or Couchsurfing and the hotels, will be the experience. How hotels will be able to compete, through differentiation and positioning amongst themselves, will also be, based on the experience they will be able to provide. And to succeed over the next decade, it is that experience that hoteliers will need to work on.

Off course when we talk about the future or the next decade for most things today, including hotels, the first thing that comes up in the conversation, is technology. And yes, technological evolution is shaping the future for the hotel industry no doubt.

However, there is more to business, than just technology. That technology needs to be adopted and adapted to as it is evolving is a given. I have already written extensively on that. Herein, I'd like to bring attention to things that are non-technological, that travellers would be attracted to.

The Food

Food is the most basic necessity for life along with oxygen and water. It is also a universal want, that can never be satiated. People universally love food, for taste. And there is so much variety in taste across borders and cultures. When people travel, they need to eat. When people travel, they want new and different experiences, especially the travellers of the decade ahead.

A safe bet to keep hotel revenues up is to build an image around dinning experience, whether it is the complimentary breakfast, candle-light dinner experience or room service. The trick will be, to create a food experience that guests will want to boast about on Facebook, Twitter, Agoda and tripadvisor. Remember, travel, is now social. And with the internet, social, is the most influential.

In the present age, people are more informed than they ever have been before, with unlimited access online. It is harder to market to informed minds. It can be easier, if people market your product, to other people, for you. And food provides the fastest way. There is a reason why there are sayings such as, "The fastest way to a man's heart, is through his stomach."

The Nightlife

The Millennial Generation, the largest generation alive, is going to occupy the age range of 21 to 41 in 2021. Effectively, for the next two decades, this is going to be a generation, that dominates the customer base for the travel and hospitality industries.

The Millennial Generation is considered the Peter Pan generation, because it refuses to "grow up" or age like the generations preceding throughout history. This generation seems bent on retaining youth and even childhood. There is an adolescent feature to it that should not be ignored. This generation delays getting into relationships, delays marriage and delays having children. This generation wants to remain, for as long as possible, in the college culture. What is more characteristic of college culture, than clubbing and partying?

Besides, this generation craves social interaction and dynamics, because the advent of the internet and Smart Devices has pulled people apart. For example, colleagues sitting right next to each other in offices today, speak to each other through chat or email, as a visible symptom of the net's effect. This is a socio-psychological cause for the craving in the Millennial, leading to the want to socialise more, especially on vacations when they are out of their routine environments. And for the young, the socialising happens with nightlife. Remember, young, is the mindset of the Millennial. 

Travellers can go to the bars and clubs in their home towns. When they go abroad they want something they cannot get at home. It is about unique. And it is about variety. And, it has to better, than what one would at expect back home. Much better. That what mean an awesome menu of drinks (especially a wide variety of unique cocktails), great Bartenders and very good music to say the least. More importantly, the concept would matter. After all, that is what differentiates the experience, isn't it?

The Millennial traveller is an impatient one with a different sense of time. This new traveller does not want to go out and search for something.  It has to be right there, either at the doorstep, or within the building.

The Feeling of Home

Predominantly, companies like Airbnb and HomeAway are succeeding because they allow travellers who would not otherwise be able to travel, an opportunity to travel. And on that, they are succeeding phenomenally. Yet, to some degree, they are affording other travellers, who would otherwise be hotel customers, an alternative, that allows them an opportunity, to feel at home, in a foreign land. This is where the Interior Decorator, has to work his magic. Yet, it isn't quite just about the ambience.

The new age traveller is impatient, something that has been iterated earlier. The new age traveller has very little tolerance for any form of disruption, including that brought about in the course of seeking leisure, by going to a new place. The mindset is one, where the phone or the tablet or the laptop has to function just as it does at home, in a foreign land. This means, free, fast, smooth and reliable WiFi access is a must. Over the next decade, for a hotel to not provide WiFi access, that is unlimited and free, would like telling guests, that they can't go to the bathroom in the building, because there is no water and plumbing, or, that the guest would have to pay for water to wash hands. And if the signal gets disrupted while a guest is uploading vacation pictures onto Facebook, negative publicity travels globally in seconds.

If the traveller feels hungry at 3 am in the morning, he or she will not want to go out wondering in the streets to get something to satisfy the hunger. That is not how it happens at home generally now does it? The traveller does not even want to take a lift down to the 24 hour restaurant at lobby level. The traveller, wants food, in the room. There still are hotels today, that do not offer 24 hour room service. One just needs to look at comments and discussions that start on such hotels on tripadvisor to appreciate the gravity of that.

In Short

What Hoteliers Need to Work on for Success over the Next Decade? Well, like people in any other industry, obviously a lot, but the following three things in combination are most likely to guarantee success if well worked upon;

1. Great Food!

2. Awesome Nightlife!

3. A Home Away From Home Experience!

Harish Shah is Singapore's first local born Professional Futurist and a Management Strategy Consultant. He runs Stratserv Consultancy. His areas of consulting include Strategic Foresight, Systems Thinking and Organisational Future Proofing. He was the opening Keynote Speaker at the Hotel Management Summit Singapore 2015.