LossLess Group
Technology focus
The post-pandemic hotel industry has seen a significant acceleration in the adoption of technology. Health and safety concerns, enhanced guest expectations, labor shortages, and an overall drive for operational efficiency and differentiation are boosting this trend. Focus has been on guest-facing applications, such as mobile check-in, digital concierge services, and contactless payment systems.
Technology as a differentiator
One can understand the industry’s priority of providing superior guest experience as customer satisfaction and loyalty are crucial. Consequently, providers of new technology increasingly target this area of hotel operations, creating new systems on a nearly daily basis. In the highly competitive hotel market, standing still is losing an edge. Therefore, innovation, be it the roll out of new brands or implementing new technology, is essential for differentiation.
Willingness to invest
Given the innovation trend, hotels are allocating significant budgets to technological advancements. This investment is seen as necessary to drive profitable revenue growth. Some hotels have gone full out on technological development and are true high-tech travel destinations. Among these are Henn Na Hotel, Tokyo; Yotel, New York and Hotel Zetta, San Francisco. Whilst at the high end of innovation, as in the overall industry, their focus is guest-facing.
Front of house first
Technology investment in guest-facing areas is a no-brainer as this has a direct and visible impact on guest experience. Also, these investments are easier to justify as they often have a clearer, more immediate ROI. Front-of-house innovations tend to streamline operations in a way that guests directly notice and appreciate. Importantly, in many cases they free up staff for other tasks. This is especially important in an industry that experiences serious staff recruitment and turnover challenges.
So, what about back of house
Shortage of labour seriously impacts essential operations like housekeeping. As a result, this issue exacerbates the significant challenge of efficient textile management that hotels often struggle with on a daily basis. Dealing with textiles is a manual, error-prone and labour-intensive activity that affects all areas of hotel operations. Lack of automation impacts operational and financial efficiency. Fides, the cloud-based SaaS eco-system by LossLess Group, is an essential textile management solution. It gives hotels full control of all aspects of their textile operations, on-site and at the laundry.
