I recently had a chance to attend the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC), billed as the world’s largest hospitality technology conference, which recently concluded in Austin, Texas and ran June 20-23.
As it turns out, the conference’s producer – the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals Association (HFTP) – is headquartered in Austin. Every three years or so, the HFTP likes to bring the conference to Austin, circulating it to other cities in-between.
While hospitality might connote for the layman like me as a broader range of businesses, from sports bars to manicurists, the reality is that HITEC is much more narrowly focused on the technology interests of hotels, resorts, and other lodging-related businesses.
In that regard, it makes for a fascinating conference on multiple levels, as I learned during the week. Let me share a few the impressions I formed during the conference:
1. The struggle for a high tech/high touch balance continues
As the transition to mobile technology gains speed, initiative leaders in traditionally “high touch” industries like hospitality are struggling with resistance from their management peers in other parts of the business.
This resistance takes shape in a variety of forms, for a variety of reasons: the fear of losing the personal touch with guests; a general lack of familiarity (and discomfort) with newer technologies like social media, mobile apps, etc.; and, the industry-agnostic threat that change represents to peoples’ jobs when they are asked to vary from “the way we’ve always done it.”
I observed a perfect example of the dynamic tension at the core of this resistance from two different education seminars. In one, a panel of three IT security experts, not shy about their “old school” roots, generally panned newer technologies, like cloud computing and mobile computing, as being fraught with peril and to be avoided.
In the other seminar, a panel of three resort/hotel IT leaders shared case studies documenting positive guest experiences and operations ROI that they had accomplished, through systems they assessed to be of minimal risk, using those very same technologies.
2. Mobile solutions can be low-end but high-reward
In that same session, led by the three resort/hotel IT leaders, it turns out that the core mobile device used by the staff in two of the three featured projects described was Apple’s iPod Touch.
In one case, the resort purchased 100 iPod Touches for a housekeeping application that allowed them to improve room turnaround and reduce supervisor staffing. Choosing to use iPods yielded both expected and unexpected advantages. For expected advantages, they were more affordable than a smartphone or other tablet or PC-style device at approximately $200 each and no need for a data plan. They also provided a very portable and modestly rugged device for the purpose.
For unexpected advantages, the simplicity and near-universality of the iPod as a consumer device helped keep the training and support extremely low. On the day the application went “live,” the IT team asked the housekeeping staff to arrive at work an hour earlier than usual for training. After that, they went to work with the new devices and apps in hand and the results were nearly flawless.
Being a principal in a mobile company, as I am, that is deeply engaged every day in the emerging app economy, this case study was a refreshing reminder that lower-end solutions can have higher payoffs.
One footnote to the iPod Touch case study, however, was the following lesson learned: in order to rely on these kinds of apps, the resort or hotel must invest in ensuring great Wi-Fi with flawless, comprehensive coverage across the property. Otherwise, if there is a corner of the property where the device can’t connect, then the integrity of the whole system is at risk.
3. The hospitality industry is ripe for mobile disruption
A walk though the HITEC tradeshow exhibit was eye opening for a couple of reasons. First, it was big! There were a lot of vendors with an array of people and expensive booth set-ups, indicating pretty clearly that the conference is one that decision makers are known to frequent.
Second, in booth after booth, row after row, I saw legacy technologies – radios, bulky scanners, proprietary, closed display-control systems, and more – that can and will be replaced by cheaper apps and mobile devices some day. It had a very strong feel of companies working to preserve their base of installed customers and systems. In a few cases, where tablets or smartphones were visible, they appeared to be “second class” citizens, with mostly sub-optimal, mobilized versions of web apps running on them.
Meanwhile, in the seminars above, it was clear to me that the disruption is coming, with industry insiders presenting on their social media and mobile initiatives, communicating a very strong sense that they are moving rapidly to capitalize on the public’s adoption of all-things-app.
This portends an era of serious discomfort for vendors in the hospitality industry that have cultivated specialized products and services if they can’t figure out a migration path to mobile. In particular, app makers like Facebook and TripAdvisor seem poised to “eat the lunch” of any vendors that can’t figure out ways to integrate with them.
A final note from the exhibit floor: At the Sprint booth, I had a nice chat with a D.C.-based systems engineer with the company who remarked that Austin was “probably the best 4G” city he’d been in yet, in terms of upload and download speeds. To prove it, he ran a test using the Ookla app, while we were chatting.
So, for you Austinites who crave high-speed mobile bandwidth: Go get those 4G devices now, while the plans are cheap (or free) and the speeds are lightening fast!
Steve Guengerich is a co-founder of Appconomy and executive producer of its research and education initiatives (The.Appconomy.com).
Would you like all your dreams to come true? Follow Marc Speir on twitter @truthorcon.
