Technologies that boost convenience and control while letting guests avoid human contact if they want are still the most important tech investments for the hotel industry, experts said.

Patrick Dunphy, chief information officer for industry group Hospitality Technology Next Generation, said "mobile-first" should be top of mind for all hoteliers as the industry is well behind others in that regard.

"Mobile-first has been a rallying cry for more than a decade, but the hospitality community has not adopted this shift as quickly as other industries," he said via email. "Traditional hotel companies should look at the rapid changes in the restaurant space for opportunities, namely ghost kitchens, online ordering, kiosk deployments, QR code adoption, among other technologies. Companies that embraced this before or during the pandemic have a head start on those that are just trying to figure this out.

Michael Belfoure, vice president of IT for Davidson Hospitality Group, said his company had a similar focus, prioritizing investments to upgrade systems that require less human interaction and to "increase our capability for remote check-in/out, mobile key, order/pay at table, etc."

Similarly, Hilton highlighted the growing importance and desirability of a contactless experience for guests in its 2022 trends report.

That sentiment was echoed by Sloan Dean, president and CEO of Remington Hotels. He said via email that investment in that area has been important and the company now has "mobile key at 100% of our hotels to help with contactless entry."

That change has been accelerated by the pandemic and seems to have continued appeal with guests. But not every tech investment made in response to the pandemic has the same staying power.

Belfoure said things like temperature scanners are already unnecessary.

"When they came to market at the beginning of COVID, I thought it was filling a need but believed the technology wasn’t worth the investment as it would not be needed long-term," he said via email.

Dunphy pointed to self check-in kiosks as another potential sticking point, albeit one with some glimmer of hope as guests look to avoid human-to-human contact.

"Kiosks have failed spectacularly in the past, but they have an opportunity for reinvigoration moving forward," he said. "This will entirely depend on hotels and suppliers learning from past mistakes and also from adjacent industries."

Overall, Dunphy cautioned that hotel companies must get more sensible about their tech investments, and that could mean relying less on in-house solutions than those readily available through third parties.

"Many hospitality companies have or will switch to off-the-shelf products, moving away from homegrown solutions, especially for those segments hardest hit by the pandemic," he said.

Labor and capital shortages will drive this, but it may have the added benefit of reinvigorating a struggling supplier ecosystem, he said. It will also push competition for best of breed products, driving some companies out of business or out of the sector while stimulating some likely significant mergers and acquisitions activity.

"Looking further out, integrations and API technology will become even more important as a result," he said.

Dean said his company's flagship tech investment for the year is a new business intelligence tool developed in partnership with Microsoft.

"This BI platform is allowing us to operate hotels with less labor during a time where staffing shortages abound," he said. "We have branded our BI platform REMi. It has real-time labor stats paired with real-time revenue stats."

Much like everything else in the industry right now, labor is having an outsize impact to companies' approaches to technology.

Belfoure said finding skilled IT workers is a big part of Davidson's tech strategy in 2022.

"We plan to increase our IT staff this year so that we can continue to improve service and support to our properties," he said. "Our philosophy is to remove the IT burden at the property so their staff can concentrate on running world-class operations. Our customers don’t benefit from an [food and beverage] manager running a [point of sale] upgrade project."

Dunphy said technologies that improve employee experience are also vital right now, as historic labor shortages linger.

"Staff-facing technologies such as internal communications, shift sharing, alternative payments opportunities like daily pay and other improvements may help combat the worker shortage," he said.

Both consumer desires and more wide-scale availability of improved technology are expected to have major impacts on hotels in 2022.

Belfoure pointed to the increased implementation of 5G technologies as a big change for hoteliers.

"5G network technology will benefit our industry by not only increasing connection speeds, but also increasing capacity and reliability," he said. "This will enable guests to manage more room technology with less latency. The 'connected room' will include apps that allow video streaming, room audio, programming the coffee pot, setting the most comfortable temperature, etc."

He said that increasing bandwidth overall has been a focus for Davidson in recent years.

"We have to ensure that our infrastructure is built to expand and handle the demand," he said. "Customers are quick to [rightfully] complain if wireless coverage and bandwidth are not acceptable."

Dunphy said that ultimately the hotel industry will need to learn to adopt and adapt to new technologies more quickly and thoughtfully.

Hoteliers must "adopt fast-paced emerging technology and process evaluation and embed this capability in multiple business units, not just technology," he said. "We must keep pace with the broader rate of innovation outside hospitality, and we must be prepared to fail, fail fast, and learn from this experience as an organization without assigning blame. In addition, we must focus on cybersecurity and privacy maturity at an industry level; we are still a No. 1 target for cybercriminals and it impacts all stakeholders: brands, owners, guests, staff, and the supplier community."

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