1 – Your mobile phone as your room key – Imagine that just as you land up at your locked hotel room, you don’t fish out for your key. Instead, you take out your mobile phone, put its camera on, and then scan the door code. Within a matter of seconds, your door opens and you get inside your room.

Hospitality technologies such as this one will make your room more secure and tech friendly.

2 – Automated service – As we get more and more dependent on technology, people are avoiding normal human interactions. Sensing this changing human behavior, hotels are getting future ready to let their guests use apps for room service, laundry and much more. It is suffice to say, that this hospitality technology will make up the customer services of the hotel and there will be lesser scope for gaffes.

3 – Convergence – The humble room phone can have multiple uses to make the guest do multiple things. For example, upon checking in, the guest pairs his mobile phone with the room phone with the help of a few clicks. Now, he can order for laundry service, schedule a wake- up call, change channels on his TV, adjust the volume, and generally do much more. World over, these hospitality technologies are redefining customer experience and changing the rules of the game.

4 – Location based features – Global Positioning System or GPS can change the way the hotel staff go about doing their jobs. Consider this: through a location based app, the General Manager of a top notch hotel can find out, in real time, the location of his employees. Based on this information, he can schedule their jobs in an efficient manner. The result – rooms get ready quickly, cleanliness improves, there is quicker turnaround time for room service, food is served more quickly, etc.

Though this technology is at its infancy stage, it has the potential to disrupt the existing service models. Watch out for this hospitality technology in 2018.

5 – Bandwidth issues – Many hotel guests bring several devices with them. A guest may have a laptop, Kindle, a tablet, and of course, his own mobile phone. So what happens when he decides to put all of them on together? Can your hotel provide the required bandwidth to him? Most probably, no. World over, many hospitality majors are recognizing this trend. They have begun understanding that a guest is much more than being just a person who checks in and checks out. He is a creation of the technologies that he uses.

Big players in the hospitality business are aware of the impending battle of the bandwidth. Is your hotel ready with this hospitality technology?

6 – Social listening tools – Many hotels are investing in those hospitality technologies that let them find their guests’ opinions real time. These technologies are basically social listening tools and are easy to access and use. The main premise behind the installation of these tools is that customers like to touch and feel the facilities. This tactile behaviour is the backbone of these technologies. For example, if you like bar of the hotel, you can simply press the “Like” symbol that is placed near the exit.

With these technologies advancing their way into the hotel industry, it’s just a mater of time before we see major hotel chains induct them within their operations for a smoother guest experience.