More than any other factor, technology is revolutionizing the hospitality industry and watching what comes next is crucial to staying ahead. With this in mind, HMA asked three leading hospitality technology experts for their predictions on what will be the biggest hotel technology trends in 2012.

 

Here’s their response:

 

 

Douglas C. Rice, executive vice president & CEO, Hotel Technology Next Generation

 

 

My predictions for the three trends that will dominate the near future in technology for hotels are mobility, bandwidth, and security.

 

Mobility: Guests routinely now bring two or three devices when they stay at hotels. Increasingly, they interact with and manage their lives with these devices, using thousands of applications that do just about anything, instant text messaging, and even old-fashioned voice calls. Adoption has been spurred by innovation in both devices and operating systems. Smart-phone and tablet usage is highest among the younger generations as well as among travellers, meaning that both hotel guests and staff expect, and are comfortable using, mobile devices. The early years of smartphones and tablets saw a rush by hotels and tech vendors alike to bring mobile applications to market. Many missteps occurred, as they placed early bets on specific platforms, like Apple, only to see Android overtake it in the market share. Now the advent of HTML5, which runs on all mobile platforms, promises better ROI on hotel investments in mobile applications. Challenges remain, however, as guests resist learning and using different applications for different hotels and brands. In the longer term, applications that work for the guest, regardless of which hotel she is staying in tonight, will dominate the market. Brands may add features to differentiate, but guests will expect the basics to work anywhere. 

Applications will include booking for all hotel services (as well as guest rooms), mobile check-in/check-out, phones that function as mobile room keys and as a remote control for the guest-room TV, applications to control the room environment, social applications for meeting up with fellow travellers, and a range of applications to support the local tourism infrastructure, groups and meetings, and corporate accounts.