Hotel Tech Spending Keeps Guests Connected

Whether it’s a leisure or business traveler booked for a stay, they’ll check in to the hotel with a smartphone in their pocket and a whole new set of expectations for their lodging experience. Serving today’s guests requires an up-to-date set of technology capabilities—and hotels are investing in tech at record highs. Fortunately, meeting customer demands for immediacy, security, and free WiFi can translate to cost-savings, operational efficiencies and, of course, that all-important competitive edge hotel brands need to build loyalty in the crowded marketplace.

Teching-up Is a Win-Win

How are hotels keeping up with the times? The 2016 Lodging Technology Study from Hospitality Technology shows that hotels are spending on tech to support mobility, upgrade existing systems and boost security. Hoteliers’ aim is to address their guests’ connected lifestyles by enabling the technology they check-in with—that means making it easy for people to use the devices in their pockets and briefcases while on the property.

The study revealed 6 Mega-Trends in Hotel Technology, the areas of focus ensuring hotel brands are ready to offer guests the latest-and-greatest:

1. Mobile ubiquity – making sure guests can pick up their device for booking, check-in, room access and communication with the hotel pre-arrival.

2. Integrating mobile data – learning more about guests and their preferences from location and reservation data to help serve them better and offer additional services/upsell.

3. Enabling guestroom tech – focusing primarily on increasing bandwidth but also investing in up-to-date TVs that interface with and accommodate the devices and content guests have with them.

4. Future-proofing networks – increasing coverage and updating networks to offer secure and dependable WiFi access.

5. Beefing up security – providing for more secure payments and data.

6. Energy conservation – employing “intelligent” technologies to address energy costs in addition to water conservation, waste diversion and carbon reduction.

Payments and Security Rise to the Top

Leading the priorities for hotel tech spending is payment and data security at 62%, followed by guest room tech (56%), bandwidth (45%) and mobile engagement (43%). In the study report, Hospitality Technology explains, “Security is garnering investment particularly as payment becomes increasingly mobile and new non-bank payment vehicles emerge. Providing for more secure payments and data is the top objective driving technology investments for the hotels in HT’s study.”

While almost half (46%) of hotels plan to upgrade their payment technology, many have already made upgrades to their payment infrastructure. Compared with last year, more hotels are:

• Using tokenization technology (47%, up from 40%)
• Investing in breach protection (33%, up from 27%)
• Deploying end-to-end encryption (46%, up from 41%)

Security and B2B Payments

What about supplier payments? While not covered in the Hospitality Technology study, travel managers and travel agencies are using digital technologies like virtual card numbers (VCNs) to book hotels for travelers—and their supplier partners are enjoying the advantages, including faster receipt of payment, improved transaction data and the enhanced data security that comes with digital technology. What’s more, the workflows or configurations of the property management systems used by hotels don’t require anything different, because VCNs are processed through the same networks as consumer credit cards.

Learn more about B2B payment trends in Book Hotels Smarter with Virtual Cards, One Size Does Not Fit All When It Comes to Travel Payments, and Hotel News Now’s How to Manage Virtual Payment Cards at Hotels