Many historically have viewed the hotel industry as lacking in tech innovation, but 2024 is likely to be a year of significant change.

Here are some of the top tech trends for hotels, identified by experts in the industry.

Artificial intelligence has garnered most of the headlines in technology recently, and it will continue to be the major focus this year. But experts say how hoteliers interact with the technology could shift.

Kurien Jacob, partner and managing director of Highgate Tech Ventures, said there's still a lot of buzz around artificial intelligence, but no one has really invested in it in a big way within hotels.

"Nobody has transformed in our industry in a vertical manner in the way you see the big tech companies like Facebook, Alphabet and the rest," he said.

Much of the focus so far has been outward-facing generative AI, such as ChatGPT, but Jacob said the opportunities for growth in hotels aren't necessarily customer-facing.

"The key is you'll see a lot of foundational building in the tech space, using AI not to sell to the customer, but internally," he said.

David Sjolander, vice president of HTNG operations at the American Hotel & Lodging Association, agreed the hype has surpassed deployment so far, but there is a great deal of opportunity.

"We've all been playing with it, using ChatGPT to do silly things and some productive things, but I think we'll start to see real products and real solutions coming out in this year," he said.

Sjolander said hoteliers need to broaden the discussion about artificial intelligence to include opportunities for automation since labor shortages are a continuing issue.

"Google is working with combining generative AI with robotics, for example, so the robots teach themselves," he said. "I think it's going to go way beyond content."

Sjolander said there has already been some deployment of robotics in the hotel industry, including cleaning floors and delivering items to guests, but up to this point they have been "primarily kind of curiosities" and more built around guest entertainment than operational efficiency.

He said there will be more focus on back-of-house automation going forward.

"There's going to be a lot more of it, but it'll be kind of quiet, and it won't be that visible," he said.

Jacob said mass deployment of robotics in the hotel industry is still a far-off dream.

"I don't think we've reached that stage in hospitality because of the pure amount of dollars required," he said. "You've got robots performing brain surgery, but that's because of the money spent in that space."

Jacob said a lot of the investment in hospitality tech this year will be built around back-end systems that more seamlessly flow together, and unifying many of the varying systems hotels have to work with. But it's unlikely this technology will immediately reach the goal of one single, unified system for things such as reservations, revenue management, property management and customer relationships.

"One of the things we've seen is a convergence with the [property management system] moving upstream to the commercial level system that can do distribution, pricing and all the operational tasks from check-in to check-out," he said.

Jacob said improving those systems — particularly improving the flow of data and delivering insights from it with tools such as AI — will represent a huge opportunity for hoteliers.

Sjolander said ransomware attacks against major hospitality companies are likely to spur a new wave of investment and focus on cybersecurity this year as more executives see how serious of a liability it can be to not take it seriously. He pointed to recent attacks on MGM Resorts International and Caesars as a turning point.

"It was so visible that it should be a wake-up call for CEOs and others," he said. "Obviously, those are very prime targets given the size of those operations and the money involved in gaming, but [a ransomware attack] brought MGM to its knees for over a week."

He said those attacks "all came down to social engineering," which means training staff and executives needs to be a focus across the industry.

Jacob said what's gives him the most optimism for innovation this year is the significant amount of investment flowing into hospitality-related technology. He added that's the result of investors seeing a significant opportunity with continued strong travel demand.

"There's a lot of dry powder, raising the capital that has not been deployed," he said. "Because everybody has realized travel is a good ecosystem."

He said that investment is likely to benefit not just hotels but other segments of travel, including airlines and short-term rentals.

"It's really the only sector not slowed down in any way," he said. "Demand growth is tapering off, so the outlook is not extremely bullish but there's nothing concerning. It's still holding strong. The message is clear to [venture capital] folks that it looks like a sector with wind behind it."

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