Reimagining
Hospitality
Who We Surveyed
TECHNOLOGY STUDY
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Who We Surveyed
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Reimagining Hospitality
2021 Lodging Technology Study
2021 lodging TECHNOLOGY STUDY
82% call inability to adjust or respond to fluctuations in demand in the supply chain a highest or medium priority
82% call inability to adjust or respond to fluctuations in demand in the supply chain a highest or medium priority
82% call inability to adjust or respond to fluctuations in demand in the supply chain a highest or medium priority
82% call inability to adjust or respond to fluctuations in demand in the supply chain a highest or medium priority
CRM/Loyalty
30%
Customer mobile app 38%
Interactive digital signage 18%
Location-based technology
20%
Tablets at front desk
8%
Public Wi-Fi
24%
Mobile payments
42%
Instant messaging
26%
Chatbots
16%
Customer service kiosks in lobby
14%
For our 2021 Lodging Technology Study: Reimagining Hospitality, we surveyed hotel IT professionals who together represent more than 22,000 properties worldwide. As you might expect, this study reflects adversity — most notably, the impact of COVID-19 and flat or shrinking IT budgets — but also opportunities to embrace emerging solutions. We noted consensus around technologies that customers demand, including free WiFi and contactless transactions, and a disconnect between relatively modest budgets and hoteliers’ aspirations and positive outlook toward emerging technologies.
30%
24%
52%
16%
30%
Chief Privacy Officer
66%
22%
Executive Summary
Hospitality Technology’s 2021 Lodging Technology Study: Reimagining Hospitality
By Mehmet Erdem, Ph.D., CHTP, Associate Professor of Hotel Operations & Technology, William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Robert Firpo-Cappiello, Editor-in-Chief, Hospitality Technology
“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” —Horace
The lodging industry faced adversity like never before over the past year, and as the first-century BCE Roman poet HHorace observed, adversity has a way of “eliciting talents” — in the case of hoteliers and the solution providers who fuel the industry’s tech platforms, adversity has inspired innovation.
For our 2021 Lodging Technology Study: Reinventing Hospitality, we surveyed hotel IT professionals who together represent more than 22,000 properties worldwide. About 70 percent of hoteliers surveyed identified themselves as “decision makers,” with the remaining hoteliers reporting that they either provide input on spending (about 20 percent) or approve purchases (about 10 percent). The study does indeed reveal adversity — most notably, the impact of COVID-19 and flat or shrinking IT budgets — but also opportunities to embrace emerging solutions.
In surveying hotel operators about their attitudes and plans for 2021 implementations, we found some consensus (free, robust WiFi gets a resounding thumbs-up, as do contactless transactions), but also some disconnects between stated priorities and actual spending.
We invite you to spend some time with our study’s animated graphics, which bring the data we collected to life, and to consider the insights in the commentary below.
IT Budget Are Tight
Hotel IT budgets are shrinking, at only about 4 percent of revenue in 2020 among the hoteliers we surveyed. Spending plans for 2021 continue this trend, with 40 percent of budgets decreasing YoY, 30 percent experiencing no change, and 30 percent increasing. We identified a disconnect between the distribution of hotels’ IT budgets and hotels’ attitudes toward emerging technologies: 68 percent of IT budgets will go to maintaining existing solutions, with only 24 percent devoted to new implementations and only 6 percent to research and development. As we’ll see, hotels report moderate interest in new implementations and innovative technologies that customers demand, but the realities of IT budgets may not support such aspirations in the near term.
The Impact of 2020’s Challenges
The elephant in the room, of course, is the impact of COVID-19 on every aspect of the lodging industry. When asked to rank the impact of key 2020 challenges on hotel technology, 78 percent of hoteliers reported that the pandemic had a moderate to major impact. Other 2020 challenges identified as having a moderate to major impact included lack of sufficient IT budget (44 percent), difficulty integrating with legacy systems (38 percent), and inability to drive ROI for technology rollouts (32 percent).
While hotels faced unprecedented challenges in 2020, we see a net positive in the way decision makers are responding to new customer demand for innovative technology. Ninety-eight percent of hoteliers currently offer or plan to add free WiFi in the coming year, responding to demand reflected in HT’s 2020 Customer Engagement Technology Study, in which hotel customers ranked free WiFi the number-one feature. A significant majority of hoteliers also offer or plan to add mobile reservations, contactless payments, smart TVs and content streaming in guestrooms, two-way messaging with guests, digital signage, and mobile room key. Despite budget woes, this reflects a significant reimagining of the guest experience.
Current Implementations & Emerging Technologies
Although 2021 IT budgets reflect relatively flat spending, hoteliers remain eager to embrace technology as a revenue-driver. Initiatives ranked as “very” or “extremely” important include driving guest loyalty, improving the physical safety of guests and staff, enhancing data security, and reducing physical touchpoints. We noted modest plans for enterprise software, with between 30 to 40 percent of hoteliers adding, upgrading, or switching suppliers for point of sale (POS), business intelligence reporting, predictive analytics, and property management systems. Guest-facing technology also gets a modest embrace, with 42 percent of hotels adding, upgrading, or switching suppliers for mobile payments, and 38 percent adding, upgrading, or switching suppliers for a customer mobile app.
And there is still an appetite for emerging technologies. The percentage of hoteliers who see moderate to major potential in innovative tech is inspiring. Topping the list are contactless payments (98 percent), artificial intelligence (AI for analytics/predictive intelligence (82 percent), 5G (80 percent), and contactless tipping (72 percent).
Hoteliers’ aspirations and attitudes toward emerging technologies and features that guests demand suggest that, despite the challenges of the past year and budget restrictions, there are opportunities for innovative roadmaps and implementations in the near- and long-term. Hoteliers are already reimagining hospitality, and the coming years present an opportunity to reinvent the industry.
For our 2021 Lodging Technology Study: Reinventing Hospitality, we surveyed hotel IT professionals who together represent more than 22,000 properties worldwide. About 70% of hoteliers surveyed identified themselves as “decision makers,” with the remaining hoteliers reporting that they either provide input (about 20%) or approve purchases (about 10%).
Executive Summary