SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY IN HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: SOME
4.13 CONCLUSION
The key to building and maintaining customer loyalty in hospitality is to cre- ate a friendly and safe environment through superior services. Technologies that help to deliver such services not only help make way for new revenue opportunities but also enable the industry to gain a competitive edge, and enhance the guest experience. Galloping advances in information technolo- gies coupled with a rapid progression towards service oriented engineering and agile and lean software development have greatly challenged the IT pro- fessionals in this industry. Already at the receiving end of limited resources, they are also required to meet the challenges of the unpredictable markets, and changing customer requirements, with feature rich and lasting dynamic technological solutions that do more for less.
Market forces in the consumer space drive new expectations from guests about how they want to interact with hoteliers. The continuing wave of change in business and technology represents an opportunity for hoteliers to focus their strategic technology investments for extending the reach of their brand and deliver more personal and relevant experiences to guests. Technology will play a key role, whether that involves using analytics to know and sat- isfy guests’ expectations better than a competitor, pushing the possibilities of mobility or orchestrating all guest interaction channels to create more rel- evant experiences. Hoteliers must tightly manage and integrate consumer ex- periences by consistently creating relevant experiences across all channels (digital, social, mobile, traditional and in-person) and geographies, through a seamless array of digital channels and personal interaction points.
The trade-off that managers need to consider at this juncture is the insig- nificant increase in price and the operating costs of new technology versus the add-ons in the transaction costs and a loss in profit margins caused by not integrating new technology in the production process. Targeting investments in digital capabilities with analytics, mobility and relevance in mind can help the hospitality industry prepare for an increasingly competitive and buyer- driven market.
Although the hospitality industry has begun to accept the need for tech- nological and green innovations, it is constrained by various internal and ex- ternal factors that limit the pace of EMS and technology adoption/adaption.
It is here that the government can intercede by streamlining and rationalizing numerous laws, regulations and technical standards pertaining to design, land acquisition, environment and labor.
Lastly it would be beneficial for the hoteliers to be critically aware of evolving transactional, operational and developmental environment in which the industry is steadily being maneuvered by the dynamic technologies around the world. Not only is it ensuring a standardization across different segments within the industry, it is also becoming a tool for wealth and knowledge cre- ations, which if effectively harnessed and synchronized with the ever chang- ing technological, HRM, and operational landscape, can auger tremendous growth for the industry.
*Vertical Industry Portal (vortal) is a portal website that provides information and resources for a particular industry. Vortals are the Internet’s
way of catering to consumers’ focused-environment preferences. Vortals typi- cally provide news, research and statistics, discussions, newsletters, online tools, and many other services that educate users about a specific industry.
KEYWORDS
• analytics
• cloud computing
• customization
• mobile technology
• process integration
• scalability
• social media
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