How To Achieve Digital Competitiveness In Hospitality?

The digital competitiveness of hospitality providers is essential for success in a highly competitive industry landscape. The key to success lies in delivering a unique and satisfying guest experience at every touch point, all while relying on digital technologies and modern platforms. To thrive in this dynamic landscape, providers must constantly improve their offerings by leveraging technology to enhance guest experiences and streamline day-to-day operations.

Offer Unique Guest Experience Journey

The core of hospitality as an industry is the guest experience, and everything is related to it, either directly or indirectly. Of course, every guest wants to experience a unique experience that will meet their expectations during journey. Since here we are talking about emotions and experience, the hospitality is one of the most competitive markets ever, and the market has been global since the very beginning. Nowadays, when literally everything is digital and online, local hospitality providers are competing against global providers.

Hospitality providers must have in mind that the Guest Experience Journey is created at numerous touch points from the very beginning of the trip plan starting all over from the moment while they are searching for a destination online and chatting with friends. To be able to be present at every touch point and offer the desired experience to guests, providers must constantly improve their offer. This led us to technology providers are using to offer better guest experiences and to improve day-to-day operations. Therefore, technology enables hospitality providers to achieve better market position and profitability margin, and to quickly adapt to different disturbances.

Make the most of technology

Almost every technology has its application in the hospitality industry. You must have already experienced some of those; voice control services, online payments, robots, chatbots, virtual reality, self-check-in/check-out, recognition technology, AI, IoT, Cybersecurity, Big Data, Wi-Fi, smart room keys. It is noticeable that all the mentioned technologies are mainly used for the guest experience itself.

On the other hand, there are hospitality providers who tend to have better property management and therefore better every day processes. Just to mention some of the solutions: applications for room cleaning, online payments, online reservations and alignment with different booking partners, loyalty programs, etc. Also, there are opportunities for providers to implement Cloud Management Platforms and IoT solutions to develop an intelligent hospitality ecosystem. Basically, providers have to recognize which technology is the best for them to achieve digital competitiveness. Sometimes this is the most difficult step, but it can be easier if they ask for the help of proven software development partners in hospitality.

Use data for improvements

Big Data is a big thing, literally. But the key is to use it in the right way to get the most out of it in terms of business processes and operations. In hospitality, Big Data is used with the aim of the personalization of customer journey and therefore to differentiate hospitality provider. Usually, hospitality providers have different systems, applications, and software, and each of them has a lot of data in a different format, but in the end, they are related to the individual guest.

Especially in situations like acquisitions and mergers, hospitality providers are dealing with valuable data processed and stored in different systems that aren’t connected or synchronized. Scattered data are the first sign that the hospitality provider should look for a solution that will help them connect and synchronize different systems like book registration, call center, reception, accounting, etc. For digital competitiveness, it is crucial to have a connected, synchronized, and real-time data exchange system that connects every touch point of the guest and all everyday business processes. The goal is a guest-centric system based on cloud technologies that can be easily upgraded and integrated with new systems.

Build a system with the Character

No matter if you are developing a hospitality ecosystem solution from scratch or implementing a ready-made solution or maybe just connecting existing solutions, there are several ecosystem characteristics that must be met.

Scalability is crucial if you want to have both a horizontally and vertically flexible system, and for sure you want this especially for unpredictable disturbances or simply for seasonality. Also, this is good to have if you are planning to affiliate with smaller hotels or join a hotel chain. 

Availability is a must since the hospitality lives 24/7, and availability requires stability in the system. Let’s remember that stability is a precondition for reliability as well. Mentioned characteristics are also important because guests and staff have to be able to access and use the system regardless of the location or the device being used. The fast responsive system with a nice user-friendly interface also has to run smoothly, while in the backend new features are being developed and released.

Security is always a must, and even more so in businesses like hospitality which is dealing with sensitive personal data. The system has to ensure a high level of data protection because the threat landscape continues to evolve. To increase security, reduce potential risks and improve competitiveness, digital trust technologies should be used. Also, when operating with personal data, compliance with GDPR and other data laws has to be satisfied.

Continuous development of the system, which has to provide hospitality-specific features like multi-currency, dynamic pricing, multi-lingual, loyalty program, digital menu, POS integrations, specific requests like housekeeping, in-room services, express check-out, reservations, smart messaging, etc., is also an important characteristic because new features have to be implemented continuously. This brings us back to flexibility and scalability.  

Code the specific knowledge 

Software development, as well as integration of different systems, is already challenging. In addition, development and integrations are facing industry-specific challenges, so it is crucial to have a team who deeply understands both the hospitality industry and software development.

When building an ecosystem by integrating multiple systems, such a project can be complex and time-consuming simply because different systems have different data formats and protocols that now have to be synchronized and aligned.

Industry-specific processes require customized systems which, in the context of development, require a lot of time and other resources that need to be invested in development.

Security and privacy are usual concerns, but in the context of software development in the hospitality industry, the software development team has to ensure robust security and complementary with relevant regulations.

Due to the nature of the hospitality industry, development must be quick and flexible enough to accommodate changes in business needs or market conditions.  

Let’s sum up

By leveraging technology, harnessing data, and building robust systems, hospitality providers can offer unique guest experiences, streamline operations and gain a competitive edge in the global market based on digital competitiveness in the dynamic world of hospitality.

The path to digital competitiveness is based on described pillars and therefore forces hospitality providers to cooperate with experienced and knowledgeable software development firms.

If you are wondering how the integration and development projects for a hospitality company with a portfolio of seven different brands that counts 37 hotels and resorts and 15 camping resorts with 22 077 accommodation units look like, we wrote about it here. Based on our expertise, we have supported the integration of many different systems, applications and software used by client’s brands where each has a unique identity and caters to a specific market segment. 

If you are seeking a reliable partner that can help you modernize, integrate, or build a new hospitality ecosystem, feel free to contact us to discuss how we can help.