by Georges Panayotis
The hotel universe has definitively entered the digital era. This observation is true at all team and management levels, although it has only recently become a widespread view.
Just a few years ago, informatics was an exclusive domain of financiers and managers, who were in charge to find all the applications possible to improve revenue management and cash flow, reception and operations. The problem is that they focussed on strategic management while neglecting other functions.
It is only later that the commercial services realized the power of computerized networks and the interest of connectivity to expand potential clientele and boost sales. In the meantime other players had taken the lead; now the mad dash of hoteliers to catch up demands stamina and heavy investments. Digital marketing was on the verge of fully escaping the control of hoteliers. They reacted just in time by strengthening their online loyalty program and the automation of quality control. And yet that has not prevented their dependency on eReputation community websites that have purloined a large share of hotel marketing to their own benefit. Once again it will take a while to reconquer, although hoteliers’ legitimacy is natural.
Aware of their shortcomings in digital culture, some groups have found the solution by recuperating the skills they are lacking or that they no longer mastery. High-profile executives of major IT & telecom companies have made the hotel industry their new playground and young directors of inventive start-ups are able to capitalize on their all-nighters and cold sweats by joining companies that are avid for their know-how. Mobile phones are the new battlefield, through friendly ergonomic sites & apps to recuperate direct sales and the privileged link between the customer and the hotel. While it is in no way a done deal, this battle deserves to be led.
Even more so tomorrow, but already today, digital technology is finding its way into rooms, the lobby, the bar, restaurants. The hotel concept can no longer imagine itself without extensive connectivity, without a reinforced reality, without virtual staging, without a new way to manage the experience via mobile at the touch of a finger. Once again, anticipating the behaviour of customers who are digital addicts is led by new entrepreneurs who capitalize on their own experiences. Hoteliers have trouble leaving their past behind so they may enter a new world.
And yet this is what they must do to catch the next wave of change. Discussions at the next TourInvest Forum will rightly integrate this new dimension of the hotel product that remains to be invented.
