NEW YORK—NYU School of Professional Studies (NYU SPS) Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality and its Hospitality Innovation Hub (HI Hub) Experiential Learning Lab released industry research on the current state of digital transformation and technology innovation in hospitality.
“All brands, owners, and operators have the same ultimate goal when embarking on digital transformation: satisfy investors while also meeting—ideally, exceeding—guest expectations,” said Vanja Bogicevic, clinical assistant professor and director of the HI Hub at the NYU SPS Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, and NYU SPS Tisch Center report contributor. “Hospitality stakeholders who we spoke with also agree that delivering the right technology at the right price and the right time will engender guest loyalty over the long term. And, now is an ideal time to make further strategic investments in human-powered, tech-enabled experiences.”
In interviews and focus groups with hotel brand executives, operators, and owners, as well as technology vendors, the NYU SPS Tisch Center research team focused on five critical areas including:
- Automation across the hotel ecosystem is driving efficiency by minimizing routine data collection and entry, freeing up back-office employees to focus on real-time data analysis and reporting, insights generation, and decision-making.
- Standardized integration approaches and interoperability capabilities are helping the industry transform property management systems from the legacy client-server model to a cloud-enabled, API-powered architecture.
- To unleash the power of data analytics, brands and owners need quality data, talent, and a data-driven culture emphasizing insight generation over data reporting. Leading data analytics opportunities include business intelligence (BI) and smart revenue management systems that ingest market data to aid decision-making.
- Even as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are helping democratize insights and innovation across hospitality, the industry is fundamentally about serving people, brands are combining the best of technology innovation with a human touch to create a personalized, seamless guest experience.
- While technology investments have proven to boost profitability and deepen brand loyalty, recent brand and owner/operator partnerships have highlighted divergent investment goals. While brands prioritize technology upgrades that drive guest loyalty, owners and operators typically focus on investments that lead to revenue lift.
