Technology
Brave new world
To help safeguard guests from Covid-19 and improve contactless interactions, hoteliers are embracing technology like never before, but whether these short-term fi xes will modernise the industry across the board remains to be seen. To dig a little deeper, Will Moffi tt speaks to three tech leaders from across the hospitality sphere – from global operators to boutique brands – to fi nd out how Covid-19 has affected the adoption of latent technologies, and how these changes will be manifested long-term.
Christian Palomino 26
Christian Palomino, vice-president, global IT at Meliá Hotels International Enduring the pandemic’s full force, which shut down Meliá Hotel International (MHI)’s resorts and hotels, we were already thinking about the comeback and how technology could be different. As part of the Stay Safe with Meliá programme, MHI revamped the mobile app to increase on-site functionalities. The idea was to give freedom to guests, [and] therefore limiting contact with staff and other customers. Via the app, guests can order food and beverages contact-free, reserve breakfast time slots, find out hotel and local information, host interactive chats with guest services, access digital menus and self-check-in. MHI has also extended its advanced analytics and predictive capabilities to deal with the lack of visibility on the evolution of the pandemic. In a fast-moving environment, we empowered data across the whole
company with strong governance and the use of advanced analytics to provide insights to our business executives, so they could make fast and informed decisions. Ultimately, it is my belief that these compatibilities are critical for the sustainability of hotel companies, because this accelerated environment is going to stay. We also saw the opportunity to use those lower operations’ months to act as a start-up and, therefore, accelerate the digitalisation programme. The ability to make fast and profound changes to the company with little impact on guests, operations and revenue is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when the hotels usually experience high occupancy. During the low months, we set up our Digital 360 program to transform our company, integrally. Robotics and Analytics 360, a new sourcing management platform and employee management system, are the main levers of this
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
McLittle Stock/
Shutterstock.com
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