It's Happening!

With the rapid technological evolution, various stakeholders in the hotel business discuss the emerging and reimagined innovations that can offer better value to their companies

- Pradeep Suvarna

When it comes to technology, there is a lot of white noise flying in all directions. Guest needs are constantly evolving and keeping up with these means making significant investment. Most of these investments, believe it or not, end up with the tech bucket, because increasingly hospitality is transforming into a tech-oriented industry.

Two hospitality professionals – Zahid Memon, director, IT, Keys Hotels and Rajinder Kapur, VP, finance and legal, Choice Hotels – give they distinct viewpoints on how they determine the technologies that their brands should invest in based on the attributes which will bring in better value to their organisations. What’s more, we also discover whether emerging technologies, like AI and machine learning, can truly enhance guest experiences, especially when many hotel companies are struggling with unresponsive or outdated websites, which are sometimes not mobile-friendly.

As technology keeps advancing, how do CIOs and CTOs decide which technology will bring enhanced value to their company?

Zahid Memon: Personally, I feel technology should be evaluated keeping two key stakeholders at the centre of the decision-making – consumers and employees. Selecting the right technology will really depend on how the brand’s core target audience is evolving. For example at Keys Hotels, we cater to young millennials who prefer to explore our website through their mobile devices. Hence, we have ensured that our website is mobile responsive. We also saw a need for a chat option, through which our guests can interact with us without having to call us. At an organisation level, technology should enable its employees to take quicker and smarter decisions that eventually should lead to better productivity.