Hospitality

While the term is broad, the hospitality industry is divided into a few main areas. From the point of view of travel technology, the accommodation sector is the most strategic, but it goes hand in hand with the others.

• Accommodation: This prominent segment includes hotels, motels, resorts, serviced apartments, hostels, and vacation rentals. It covers supplying lodgings and all associated services (e.g., front desk, housekeeping, concierge).
• Food and Beverage (F&B): This covers all activities revolving around supplying food and drinks, ranging from a hotel’s in-house restaurant and room service to stand-alone bars, catering services, and quick service outlets.
• Events and Entertainment: This segment includes businesses that host and organize events and entertainment, including conference centers, theme parks, cruise lines, and casinos.

Technology is the central nervous system of any modern hospitality business, optimizing the operation and, most importantly, influencing the guest experience. The whole “guest journey,” from discovery and booking to post-stay feedback, is regulated by a complex network of interconnected software stacked upon one another.

Critical Hospitality Technologies:

• Property Management System (PMS): This is the operational heart of a hotel. It handles all aspects of the property, including reservations, check-in/check-out of guests, room assignments, status of housekeeping, and billing.
• Central Reservation System (CRS): Frequently combined with a PMS, a CRS is the central database for a hotel’s inventory, rates, and availability. It distributes this information to all booking channels.
• IBE (Internet Booking Engine): The consumer-facing component on the hotel’s own website that enables guests to make direct bookings. It is the hotel’s most profitable channel as a supplier.
• Channel Manager: Software crucial for distribution. It automatically updates a hotel’s rates and availability in real-time in all third-party channels like OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) and GDS (Global Distribution Systems) which prevents overbooking.
• Guest Experience (GuestEx) Tech: This is the innovative frontier focused on contactless and personalized service. It features mobile check-in apps, digital room keys, controlling smart devices in the room (lights, TV, and temperature), and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platforms that track guest preferences to personalize their stay.