Hotels undoubtedly are in competition with OTAs and even search engine giants like Google for as many direct bookings as possible. Attracting enough consumers to their direct channels and driving conversions require hotels to invest heavily in their technology infrastructure.
Compared with the other things in hotels’ direct control — namely, the hospitality they provide and the upkeep and design of their physical assets — hotel technology is the cost center undergoing the most dynamic and constant change.
Hotel companies may feel like they have to have it all and do it all when it comes to the latest technology. But I would argue a little differently. They should always be able to do enough but remain flexible in their digital capabilities through smart partnerships.
Even the largest hotel company in the world, the post-Starwood-merger Marriott International, shouldn’t expect to go head-to-head with Google or Expedia on the basis of its technology development. It won’t be able to lead the industry where it needs to go in terms of artificial intelligence, virtual reality or whatever advancements come next to our economy.
The best hotel companies should re-evaluate whether their legacy technology systems —especially property management systems and other tools built in-house — are getting the job done. They also need to have technology partners nimble enough to interface with all the new technologies coming into the hotel space.
Deciding not to solve every innovation challenge alone is incredibly important for hotels, because it will afford them the flexibility in the future to leverage the trends and preferences consumers will adopt.
Whether hotels align with major incumbents like Expedia or TripAdvisor or with one of the dozens of startups popping up each year, they should have high expectations from any new partner. If that vendor is not producing or is not spending millions every year on R&D, they should be dropped. As long as technology companies are helping hotels modernize their capabilities, everybody in this competition wins.
If hotels’ systems are so antiquated that they can’t accept and test new technologies, it’s another way the OTAs or metasearch companies win at their expense.
Contributed by Patrick Bosworth, Duetto, San Francisco