The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) recently released a new study, 2008 Current and Future Technology Use in the Hospitality Industry. Funded by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Foundation (the not-for-profit affiliate of AH&LA), the research analyzes top areas of information technology (IT) most frequently being implemented, and quantifies increased customer demands that are motivating properties to use technology to provide new amenities and programs (for information on obtaining the full study, go to www.ahla.com).
Among the major findings, the survey revealed the following:
• Among responding properties, there is an overwhelming agreement that information technology is important for increasing customer satisfaction (82.4 percent); increasing employee efficiency (79.9 percent); and generating revenue (71.3 percent);
• Wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) services, were, by far, the IT system that guests care about most, according to 82 percent of respondents. Eighty-six percent of responding hotels offered Wi-Fi services, and 20 percent of those not offering it plan to do so within the next five years;
• After Wi-Fi, in-room entertainment systems and airline check-in kiosks were cited as important to customers by 48 percent and 38 percent of respondents, respectively.
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.