The Future of Technology was the underlying agenda at the HTNG 2010 North America Conference in Orlando last week. Effective, forward-looking technology is now essential for the hospitality industry, which has long been seen as a lagging sector. Here are three data points that will drive hotel tech vendor R&D in 2010 and beyond:
- Gen-Y guests make booking decisions, and execute them, from mobile devices, not websites;
- International chain expansion mandates cloud computing platforms now;
- Property-level integration is insanely complex due to multiplying guest-facing services.
HTNG stands for Hotel Technology Next Generation. Its annual conferences in the US, Asia and Europe are part ‘tech vendor think tank’ and part hotel chain truth or dare. In Orlando, the chain IT executives from Mandarin Oriental and other companies took the stage and told a ballroom full of more than 250 vendor representatives what they had to do if they wanted to win business in the future.
Nick Price, Mandarin Oriental’s CIO/CTO (http://ow.ly/1eMfb) told the crowd that cloud computing will soon be the only way to deploy property technology necessary for chain expansion in the EC or in Asian markets. He pointed to the seated vendors, “Virtual applications are the only way Mandarin Oriental will deploy systems beginning in 2011. Provide them if you want to do business with us.”
Presentations on the exponential rapid adoption of hand-held mobile devices and in-room system proliferation were equally compelling and will be subjects for my next post.
What about you? What have you heard were the main takeaways from HTNG 2010?
