For some, the time has come to get back to basics—let the hotel experts figure out how to deliver a quality customer experience while the technology experts work on solving such issues as data security, network bandwidth and cloud computing.
“We are really great at running hotels across our 10 different brands, but as we are becoming a global company, we really started to realize that we couldn’t do it all ourselves,” said Josh Weiss, VP of brand and guest technology for Hilton Worldwide, which unveiled a new technology initiative to franchisees at Hilton’s first-ever global brand conference in Orlando last month. “It will make (franchisees’) jobs easier, let them focus on running their hotels and driving guest loyalty, and not worry about the support functions. We can come to the table with a roster of partners.”
Condensing tools and forming partnerships
To facilitate this movement, more hotel technology suppliers are condensing tools and services and offering multiple solutions from one source. An emerging trend also shows hotel technology vendors partnering with large IT integrators that serve multiple markets—such as Microsoft, IBM, and Hewlett Packard—who can create a platform and provide a facility to manage the solutions.
If done correctly, the end result should remove large amounts of legwork at the property level. Owners/operators wishing to purchase and install the necessary technology to run a hotel will make fewer phone calls, schedule less installation days, set aside fewer training days and be required to host and maintain less back-of-house hardware on site.
“Some companies are thinking about how to solve tech issues for the franchisees’ benefit and have put a lot of money into doing that,” said Doug Rice, co-founder and CEO of Hotel Technology Next Generation, which has been lobbying for vendor collaboration since its formation in 2002. “Ultimately, the guests are served well. The winner is going to be the company who gets a solution centered around guest service.”
With the formation of HTNG, Rice’s goal was to move the hospitality technology model to something more similar to the banking industry, where three major companies provide all the technology small and midsized banks need on a turnkey basis. Instead of sourcing 60-some technology vendors when you open a hotel, you call one of the three providers and place an order. “One throat to choke,” he said.
“That’s what hotels want,” Rice said. “If we had that model, I want to be the guy with the sales commission because I could deliver twice what they’re getting today at half the cost. And I could do it on an operating cost basis—no capital cost.”
Collaborating with the bug guns
Rice cited efforts from InterContinental Hotels Group, which introduced its Hotel-in-a-Box solution with partner IBM two years ago. Since, Hilton has announced its Innovation Collaborative with partners Accenture, AT&T, IBM and Microsoft; Amadeus has unveiled a platform that provides hoteliers with a single-source database solution; and Pegasus Solutions partnered with HP Enterprise Services, allowing HP to manage Pegasus’ infrastructure and provide data center services including server, storage and network management.
“These days we’re seeing a quantum change,” said Mark Hoare, previously a career hotel operator who has led travel IT consulting firm Prism for 10 years. “Up to these days it has been a bunch of best-of-breed interfaces that were cobbled together with chewing gum and string. Today they realize you need to have a cohesive hospitality management system that can handle the integration, so you have Amadeus, Infor, Fidelio; they’re almost creating a hotel corporation in a box.”
He added, “Those are the partnerships that will make buying different.”
