It is safe to say that the success of a hotel and the technology it employs go hand-in-hand, and hence technology becomes vital to differentiate themselves from competitors and engage with guests. Remaining ahead of the curve not only increases profits, but also drives more exposure, solidifies loyalty and brings in more guests.

According to a Walker study, by the year 2020 customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. Studies validate that dynamic shifts in the hotel industry are taking place in 2018 – with dominance of digital and mobile.

Today, hotels can monitor guests around their properties using installed apps tied to key cards. They can log every guest request through AI-driven concierges, which means the guest doesn’t need to come to the front desk or even call them. Devices using Internet of Things (IoT) can help the hotel know what temperature the guest likes their room to be at, when water bottles need to be replaced, and more. Armed with this information, hotels can then personalise at an individual level for each guest, making recommendations for add-ons, for instance.

Here are the top technologies that any hotel must have in order to determine if they will manage to win the hospitality race this year –

#1. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality – With analysts predicting that AR and VR will be a $150 billion industry by 2020, it offers enormous benefits for brands savvy enough to seize the opportunity. Hotels who use VR will be able to determine guests’ tastes when they check in, monitor their movements inside the hotel, and even attempt to get them to pay for additional products. The gadgets associated with the technology, such as mounted headsets or connected glasses, are also a key part of the tourist experience, especially for the more tech-savvy, millennial generation of travellers.

For instance, Shangri-La Hotels has a website dedicated to virtual reality wherein people can explore the chain’s hotels and destinations around the world with their immersive 360-degree videos. They can take virtual tours of amazing destinations and iconic hotels – all from the comfort of home.

#2. Self-Service – According to a report by Gartner, by 2020 a customer will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. So, whether a hotel is a high-end boutique or a budget-friendly one, self-service technology, especially via mobiles, is increasingly impacting the hotel experience, right from check in to check out. If done correctly, the service allows hotels to operate much more efficiently, while maintaining comfort for guests.

Marriott recently rolled out its mobile check-in feature across the Asia Pacific region, that enables members who have downloaded the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) mobile app to book their stays directly with SPG on its website or in the app.

Image source: Marriott

#3. Paperless transactions – More and more hotels are starting to realize the advantages of paperless transactions, not only for expenses, but also for the environment. From employee management to receipts, surveys, loyalty programs, and managing documents – going digital makes it more efficient for the hotels to run their business. By having a modern Property Management System designed, with additional features such as electronic signature for guests, the entire process becomes more seamless and mobile.

Silverbytes System, a specialist in hotel management software, is already helping hotels go green by enabling them to offer express check-in online or via mobile, and express check-out via iPad and other tablet devices.

#4. Internet of Things – Smart hotels are enabling hoteliers to offer better service and run the facility on their back-end more efficiently, all this thanks to IoT, the global market of which is expected to reach $7.1 trillion in the years to come. The benefits of IoT lies way beyond regular servicing of tech-savvy guests with smart room technologies; it is also helping hotels manage electricity and power consumption by controlling usage of lights, and other systems that automatically switch off when guests leave rooms.

Last year, Hilton unveiled its ‘Connected Room’, a first-of-its-kind, high-tech guest room that enables guests to personalize and control every aspect of their stay from one central point – their mobile device. Guests who stay at Connected Room-enabled properties will be able to use the Hilton Honors app to manage most things they would traditionally do manually in a room, like controlling the temperature or window coverings.

Image source: nyc.epeak.in

#5. Strong cybersecurity – With the rise of IoT, and the increased usage of online tools, cyber-attacks have become more frequent and prevalent. The hotel industry is particularly vulnerable due to the amount of personal data available with them. It will be imperative for hotels to upgrade their data protection processes, or face the risk of significant losses, both in terms of data and revenue. From investing in cybersecurity technology and having a cloud-based PMS to providing the staff with appropriate training programs, hotels will have to up the ante when it comes to protection.

A couple of days back, Rosewood Hotel Group announced an issue affecting certain Rosewood guest reservation information that was maintained on the systems of Sabre Hospitality Solutions, a service provider used by Rosewood and other major hotel brands to process guests’ hotel reservations. This further highlights the need to put the spotlight on cybersecurity.

#6. Frictionless experiences – The key to success for any hotel is removing each and every pain point for a frictionless guest experience. Mobile keyless door is one of those technologies that are already in use and are generating immense positive feedback from guests. The security, convenience, and efficiency it offers helps guests manage their stay on their mobile devices, making it easier for hotels to do away with unreliable, easily-duplicated plastic key cards.

Hilton’s guests in the UK, for instance, are now able to use their phone as a key to enter their rooms, as part of an international roll out of the technology by the hotel. Its competitors such as Marriott, Hyatt and InterContinental Hotels Group are also experimenting with similar systems.

Image source: ExtremeTech

All these technologies combined will help hotels react smarter and faster, fixing an issue before it escalates into a complaint, mastering guest communications and services, and finally, pushing up the all-important review scores. This will give the hotel of the future an edge in customer satisfaction and also drive increased revenues from altogether new streams.

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The tech industry has gained such momentum that, at this point, not many ideas sound crazy (except for the ‘boring’ idea by Elon Musk maybe). Now Air New Zealand is exploring the idea of using Microsoft HoloLens to improve its in-flight service becoming the first airline to work in this direction. Air New Zealand released a video showcasing the concept where flight attendant is provided with information about the passenger through the augmented reality headset.

Air New Zealand shares that data such as a customer’s preferred meal and drinks choice, onward travel and loyalty membership details can be displayed with the system as shown in the video. The readily available information would allow the crew to offer a more personalised experience to the passengers.

Air New Zealand Chief Digital Officer Avi Golan says the airline has fostered a strong culture of experimentation with new and emerging technologies such as the HoloLens.

“This software is a great example of us collaborating with other partners and exploring how technology could enhance the way our people work as well as the experience they deliver to our customers through greater personalisation,” says Mr Golan.

The technology could also allow the airline’s cabin crew to move to a paperless in-flight system presenting added environmental benefits.

The system is being developed with UK-based firm Dimension Data. The firm worked with Air New Zealand’s flight attendants to better understand what sort of information will be helpful for them. The system is in beta testing and it isn’t clear what parts shown in the video are real. To top that up, having to deal with crew wearing ridiculous looking headset might make people uncomfortable.

It looks like a tall order at this point but given Air New Zealand’s history of experimenting with tech solutions, it could all become real faster than we expect it to. Undoubtedly, in the long run, when headsets aren’t bulky and can do more, we can’t dismiss the value AR systems can add to various processes. For now, this is just slightly weird and we hope Air New Zealand isn’t pulling off a joke.

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Finding way around a new airport isn’t always easy and of course even Google Maps can’t help indoors. Thankfully it won’t be a problem at UK’s second busiest airport anymore. Acting on recently announced £2.5 billion transformation programme, Gatwick Airport has announced the launch of a navigation system for the airport.

To power the system, around 2000 beacons have been installed across Gatwick Airport’s two terminals providing an indoor navigation system. They have used the network of beacons to offer an augmented reality wayfinder for passengers which is the first for an airport. The passengers can see directions overlaid on the camera view of their phones so that they can accurately locate check in areas, departure gates, baggage belts etc.

Over time, the airport plans to find more utilities of the system with airlines and third party apps. It is currently being integrated into some of the Gatwick apps and the airport is also in discussion with airlines to enable the indoor positioning and wayfinding tools to also feature on their app services.

The system doesn’t collect any personal data and only uses generic information of people densities in different areas to better channel movements across the airport and speed up process. If passengers opt-in, airlines could go further and may send reminders on their airline app to late running passengers, for example, or find out where they are and make an informed decision on whether to wait or offload their luggage so the aircraft can take off on time. Retailers and other third parties may also use the beacon system to detect proximity and send relevant offers or promotional messages, if the passenger has chosen to receive them.

Abhi Chacko, Head of IT Commercial & Innovation, Gatwick Airport, said: “By providing the infrastructure we’re opening the door for a wide range of tech savvy airport providers, including our airlines and retailers, to launch new real-time services that can help passengers find their way around the airport, avoid missing flights or receive timely offers that might save them money. We are proud to be the first airport to deploy augmented reality technology and we hope that our adoption of this facility influences other airports and transport providers so that it eventually becomes the norm.”

The end to end “indoor blue dot” service is managed by PointrLabs.

 Axel Katalan, CMO at PointrLabs said: “As an ACI member advising on beacon installations around the world and as a company who have been involved in various airport projects from Asia to US, we are pleased to announce that Gatwick Airport will be the first airport with an end-to-end working system with incredible accuracy both in terms of blue-dot location and orientation. Our SDK enables battery-optimised, multiplatform and high performance positioning and other features such as 3D wayfinding through AR and on-screen translation, all of which are now available to be used by Gatwick and their partners as simple as drag & drop.”

The system was deployed over just three weeks followed by two months of testing and calibration. Other airports all over the world have also announced programs to develop solutions in association with tech companies to adopt tech solutions, Hamad International Airport being the latest one.

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There is no dearth of resources for travellers to plan their trip. A similar story when it comes to booking. However, when it comes to in-destination experiences, there is nothing that immediately pops in mind. Certainly, there are multiple tools that would let you explore your destination better but they are either limited by geography or lack the depth. There are tour guides and there are local tours but very often they bring together what has been standardised over the years. Some P2P platforms are trying to bring a breath of fresh air here but not without the reliability challenges.

Image: Trotoise

Sukhdeep Bhogal, a seasoned entrepreneur and an avid traveller saw a huge gap after trying out a variety of apps and websites during his numerous trips. He narrates how on a late winter evening during his trip to Budapest, the Shoes at the Danube bank caught his attention. At that moment, he didn’t know much about that Point of interest and was trying to ask passersby’, albeit without much success due to language barriers. This served as a trigger for him to find a common platform that can help the traveller immediately without having to filter through pages of information on the internet agnostic of the spoken language. That particular evening set the base for what later evolved into Trotoise

He continued to try an array of apps during his trips for almost 1.5 years. Eventually, after moving on from his last startup, he had some time on his hands to explore something new and he jumped back to that evening along the Danube bank. He joined hands with Akshay Kanitkar, who brought his marketing expertise to the table, and started putting together what he had in mind. By February 2016, they had an MVP to show for their efforts. Immediately, they decided to take it to MWC and do a soft launch to get feedback and inputs from people all over. Few days in and the app was already approaching the 70K download mark.

(L-R) Trotoise founders Sukhdeep and Akshay (Image: Trotoise)

Over the following months, they focused not only on getting the content for attractions all over the world, but also making it accessible for almost everyone. Right now, the app offers text content in over 90 languages with audio guides available in 45 for over 2200+ attractions spread across 140 cities in 60 countries including 50+ cities in India as well. The app uses location data to display the attractions on a map and almost all the features are neatly accessible from that single screen. It is also usable offline so that travellers don’t have to worry about having data connectivity outside home network but the offline audio guides are available in 27 languages only.

However, according to Sukh (as he is popularly known), that was barely scratching the surface. The challenge wasn’t just to offer readily consumable content relevant to the attraction but also to deliver it seamlessly. In order to address this, they spent some time exploring how augmented reality can be of help. Entered Trotoise AR. Now, simply pointing the camera towards any reasonably popular point of interest & clicking a pic pulls up the related content along with the audio guide. Sukh says that while it is a seemingly simple scan and search tool for the user, they now know that they are thinking in the right direction & are now working on various possible call to actions for this feature.

Looping in the observations and feedback, they have recently integrated local transport into the app. As an increasing number of people were using the app to discover places in a city, the addition would allow for easy local travel. Along with the public transport, it includes other options like Uber (or more popular local counterparts like Careem in some cities).

While the app is quite utilitarian already, they have many additions lined up to make it the only app travellers will need at their destination. As a growing number of travellers are now looking to explore like a local, the next major addition will be experiences viz. a four hour “introduction to gambling” experience in Macau or two hour Paella cooking class in Barcelona or skiing experience right here in India along with food trails in different cities of the world to cater to user needs. Working with a long list of local partners, they are in process of adding an array of authentic experiences that define those locales. This way, Trotoise covers the popular tourist attractions with the audio guides while gives users the option to explore further with the local experiences thus targeting a variety of travellers. The feature is expected to roll out by mid of April’17

The duo has also chalked out some plans on how to monetise it but they are not looking to put any of those in action immediately. On raising the topic, Sukhdeep was quick to point out that while he is the architect of the project, they have outsourced the tech to avoid adding heavy costs associated with setting up an in-house team, atleast till they are commercially ready for Go To Market. He claims that this has allowed them to have enough breathing room to not have to rush towards trying to make money immediately and instead, they can focus on fine tuning the product to user expectations.

“We first have to create an excellent product that users love. There will be one way or the other to monetise it” he says.

Parallel to the growth of the product, the social media communities have organically grown to good numbers riding on the back of home cooked videos & inspirational travel content.

As one would expect, most of their users are from 18 to 27 years of age. Over two third of the users come from India with United States taking the second spot followed by Germany. Keeping eyes set on the young travellers, they have set a bold objective to get them to plan their trips around experiences rather than the other way around. You can take Trotoise (especially the Trotoise AR) for a spin on your Android or iOS device. You can direct your suggestions and feedback to them on Twitter @trotoise.

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