Hospitality Networks & The Dangers Of “Playing It Safe”
I recently had the privilege of collaborating on a report titled “Your Connectivity Compass: Building Wireless Networks of the Future”. The report was produced with support by Bianca Lopez and Evita Ma from the HFTP Foundation, which actively oversees travel industry-related research, educational projects and scholarships and can be accessed here.
One of the central themes of the report was to shed light on a behavioral paradox that can be witnessed prevalently throughout hospitality:
Why is an industry that is designed to compete for customers by continuously perfecting an exceptional guest experience so darn slow to adopt the now widely used technologies that enrich our lives at home?
With the exception being at some of the outlier boutique and luxury brands, it’s safe to say that the optimal digital experience for the common traveler is still delivered at home rather than at the hospitality venues they commonly visit. Whether it be through the seamlessness of network onboarding, the transfer of personalized content and settings to in-room systems, or the automation that help us to get more done in a shorter amount of time, the fact is that things still just work better in our homes.
Upon some analysis, the trends are evident.
The battle for owning the ongoing loyalty of the customer is more competitive than ever, and it only takes one piece of technology not working correctly to not only put that customers ongoing business at risk, but perhaps a portion of their social networks business as well. Some of these IOT technologies are still in somewhat of an adolescent phase in terms of the network deployment and maintenance strategies that are required to support them at scale in bigger venues. Network deployment and design standardization works to an extent, but at the cost of innovation as it shifts the investment strategy towards the equipment manufacturers that are considered “safe”.
The solution to the problem is clear to us.
An investment strategy pivot must be made towards the technology-oriented service providers who are in it for the long haul. Technology changes rapidly, and the only way to protect yourself from a network spend that can become extinct and constrictive quickly is to invest in the deployment, measurement and ongoing refinement of the experience itself. This is at the heart of The Connected Life ExperienceTM.