Guest Post: Hotels, embrace the technology cookie cutter

Phil Brown, consultant of Hospitality Technology Advisory, discusses the importance of consistency in the tech stack

Those of us in the hotel sector have enjoyed hundreds, if not thousands of years’ believing we are all special little snowflakes. There is no hotel that can do what we do, no-hotel as individual as we are. Whenever a new hotel comes to prominence, we all rush over to see what they have done, how they have exhibited their uniqueness.

And this is a good thing. And, just because we have done it for millennia, we shouldn’t stop. Now is the time for individualism; the guest has now caught up. After generations of being told what they were getting and to be happy about it, the guest is now demanding that hotels acknowledge who they are and what they want, with a level of personalisation that only a parent or successful stalker can hope to achieve. 

The large global hotel operators are busy pumping out brands to meet the guest requirements and no one, even the operators themselves, can hope to name all of them. But with this gushing of flags comes the ultimate insult; that you are a cookie cutter brand.

Any who has worked in hotels or snuck into an owner presentation will be aware of the brand book, which tells you how to lay a slice of avocado on a plate and which compass point it should align with. Fonts, positioning of bed scarves, size of tie knot on the doorman, it’s all covered. And no, it’s not just to keep the operators’ inspection team in work. It’s how you maintain standards. And how you justify your franchise fee.

Those outside the brands like to judge the brand book. It’s not what hospitality is about. If you can’t choose the size of your tie knot, how are you supposed to express a true welcome? The guest will see through you as an automaton, a cypher of The Man. You’re just following orders. You don’t mean it. 

The guest gets caught up in this; no one is going to express their individuality to the world on social media by posting photos of the avocado sliced north westerly. Branded hotels have been forced to buy floral arches to feed the ‘gram instead. 

It’s a fun game for everyone to play, but cookie cutter hotels have their place in terms of reliability. They also have something to teach hotels about technology. A brand book tells you what needs to be done to deliver on a certain guest (and owner) promise. What you do on top of that to deliver the actual service element is still up for grabs. As the saying goes; only by knowing what’s in the box  can you think outside it.

The history of technology in hotels is no less storied than that of the hotel themselves and they have equally diverse backgrounds. The sector has yet to find its golden egg, its Hotel In A Box, where all the software you could need is pulled out of a handy package and plugged in.

Hotels have built their technology stacks over time, as the offerings have evolved, all of which has created something of a leaning Jenga tower. Very few chunks are perfect, fewer still are used as they were intended, with users adapting them to their tastes or understanding. The legacy of gradual adoption is a sector suspicious of technology and what it can do. Best not to remove any blocks, for fear of crashing the entire tower.

Creating the perfect technology stack requires hotels to step back and take a good, clear look at what it is they want. Not what they think they want, but what their business actually needs. They then need to ensure that what they want and get is what they are using. Complaining after the fact that your new system doesn’t do what you though it said on the box is no good if you didn’t challenge the provider at the time, or ensure that your team was properly trained.

Technology still suffers Technology solutions and providers lack detailed hospitality understanding, which encourages misuse and workarounds. These can be avoided upfront by engaging with the provider in the same way you would interrogate the supplier of a new dishwasher or the new linen provider.   Agree on the shortcomings of the current system or process, why the new alternative is better, how everyone will measure and acknowledge the improvement and how the transition from current to new will be executed

Once you have worked out what you want, it’s time to deploy that cookie cutter, create that reliable base. Update the brand book with the new processes and systems, this brings all the hotels functionally together as a group and not only makes everyone’s lives much, much simpler, it helps you to compare and contrast between operations and learn from them. For all the hotels in your estate to function together as a group, they must all work on the same system, to the same standards. This not only makes everyone’s lives much, much simpler, it helps you to compare and contrast between operations and learn from them.

Once you have built that solid, repeatable foundation, you’re free to add the icing on the top, and deliver that extraordinary, memorable guest experience you always wanted. Go wild. Point the avocado south and put a cookie on it.