Trends in the Industry

The technology and hospitality industry occasionally overlap a bit. In today's case they share the trends of "Being Green" and one I like to call "Ergonomics".

Being Green is a buzzword in the computing industry and in the hotel industry. Hotels these days are finding new ways to be energy conscious. From the development phase - environmentally conscious building materials, environmentally safe solvents, vegetation roofing and more - to the interior of the hotel - products made from recycled paper, low flush toilets, and programs where linens are changed only when needed instead of every day, lights and heating are activated as a guest checks in, instead of being on all the time - hotels are jumping on the green train.

One hotel in California recently received the world's first LEED (Leader in Energy and Environmental Design) GOLD certification. This is the highest LEED certification awarded to a development to date. Check out the article here.

Another article of interest that I came across is one that tells of guests not knowing what Green initiatives are going on around them. What the study found is that guests are more likely to know what's going on environmentally or in a Green sense if they were from a certain generational demographic. Certainly an interesting read, if not a little statistic heavy. Check the whole article here.

The final thing I wanted to talk about today is the trend of Ergonomics. This is the trend of increasing comfort, reducing distraction and making sure our immediate environment is as healthy as possible. This includes integrations, visual aesthetics, acoustic aesthetics and tactile design. Hotels are jumping on board with new visual and tactile designs, making sure hotel spaces are absolutely quiet or able to control the noises in the environment.

I have been a strong supporter of acoustic ergonomics in my life. I find I can work and play better when I can eliminate certain sounds from my surroundings. Now hotels are doing the same. Lobbies, rooms and common areas are prime targets for acoustic redesigns. If you aren't sold on the idea of how an intelligently designed room can affect your revenues, read this article here. When I stay at my home, or my home away from home, I expect a certain environment to be available to me. I want a nice quiet space (in my case extremely quiet, less than 20dBa at 1m, I've measured...). I want a space that smells nice, that feels like home, and looks good. Visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory. These are our senses, and we must make sure they are happy if we want to be happy.

Sheesh, it all comes down to happy for me. I'm certainly easy to please.

Is Technology Working for You?

The hospitality industry is certainly an interesting beast. I've been in the industry for almost a year now and I've made a few observations.

It is absolutely huge. There are numbers published regularly talking about record profits, increasing ADRs, and how wonderful everything is. And what I've realized is that these published numbers aren't telling the whole story. These publishers are GREATLY underestimating the industry on a whole. Most articles focus on the United States, or the chain hotels in the US and Canada. But these aren't the only hotels out there. I think the world forgets the small mom and pops in every community in the world. There are millions* of small properties out there that fall through the cracks.

There's also extremely high end boutique properties that get left out of the mainstream. High end fishing lodges on the coast of British Columbia, high end Cat and Heli Skiing lodges in the BC Interior. These lodges are full all the time, they bring HUGE tourism dollars into our local market. I get caught up sometimes in the city life and forget how wonderful BC is. Anyway, I digress, let me get back to my point.

The industry is huge. There are more properties out there than we consider. The big chains hotels, franchised drive-bys, independents, high end boutique niche hotels, and the list goes on. Here's my point: because the industry is so big, it is very difficult to implement a change that affects the entire population of hotels and lodges. The hospitality is a huge lumbering beast, one that doesnt react quickly to change. And change is a constant in today's internet rich society.

I sell software into this industry. That is, I try to. Part of my challenge is that this change can be very scary. Embracing technology is something that I've become accustomed to, but people in the hospitality industry sometimes have trouble with that. It's certainly not a bad thing. It's just a thing.

I found an article the other day that speaks to this point. Check it out here: http://www.hotelmotel.com/hotelmotel/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=436226
The article talks about technology and how to keep it working for you. How to embrace the change and avoid being overwhelmed. Not a bad thing to keep in mind.

I'll leave it here.

*Maybe not millions, but there's a lot.