Part 2: Increase guest satisfaction by offering smart hotel rooms
The future of hospitality is bright. As hotel brands look for ways to stand out, many are looking to offer personalized modern comfort through technology—in other words, smart hotel rooms. How will this figure into the future of hospitality and what will the benefits of smart hotel room technology bring us? In part one of this article we touched on enhanced guest experience as well the subject of safety and security. For part two, we consider the ways in which implementing smart hotel room technology can provide hotels with a management system for administrators and staff.
Part 2: Improved maintenance procedures & sustainability and reduced costs
Improved maintenance procedures
Automated preventative maintenance is another great benefit available through smart hotel technology, helping your staff get more work done with fewer people, a critical advantage with the hospitality industry’s current labor shortage.
An air filter that hasn’t been replaced in over four months can reduce HVAC efficiency by 10 percent.1 Advanced systems let you track the lifecycle of equipment, providing more accurate estimates about when something may need to be replaced and helping you manage your resources more effectively. In addition, consider the fact that a single leaky toilet can cost as much as $1,200 per year, not to mention the added expense from water damage that occurs until the leak is discovered.2 Maintenance teams can remotely monitor plumbing and equipment operating status 24/7. Real-time updates let you proactively identify potential issues before they become critical failures, helping to decrease capital expenses and downtime.
With staff on the move throughout your property, you should consider an IT provider that offers easy-to-use collaboration tools. Live chat and texting functionality allow team members to communicate from anywhere on property. This reduces guest complaints by empowering your maintenance crew to fix any problems the instant they’re reported. And it simultaneously helps boost overall guest review scores by catching any potential negative reviews before they even happen, creating outstanding guest experiences that earn repeat business.
Sustainability and reduced costs
According to the 2021 Hospitality Technology Customer Engagement Study, for 58 percent of your guests it’s moderately or extremely important that your hotel demonstrates its commitment to environmental sustainability.3 Smart hotel room tech allows hotels to not only satisfy guest expectations in this area, but enables you to make changes that are good for business as well, by ensuring that certain devices are only being used when actually needed. For example, smart hotel rooms can be set up so that the power of light bulbs is automatically reduced during daylight hours. IoT-enabled sensors can detect room occupancy and automatically make energy-efficient adjustments, such as dimming or turning off lights and reducing the temperature when a room is vacant. Those same sensors can also notify housekeeping when a guest room or conference room is empty and ready to be cleaned.
Smart hotel technology can help reduce lighting electricity use by 50 percent or more, and HVAC system energy costs by up to 45 percent, saving your hotel precious operating expenses over the long term.4
Smart hotel rooms are the future
Smart hotel room technology is not a passing fad, it’s the future of the hospitality industry. IoT devices will account for 50 percent (14.7 billion) of all global networked devices by 2023.5 And according to the 2022 Lodging Technology Study, guests increasingly prefer digital service encounters over encounters with staff. In response, 66 percent of hotels plan to increase their IT budget this year.6
In order to make the digital transformation necessary to incorporate new IoT and smart features at your hotel, you need a responsive IT partner with the expertise to deliver an all-inclusive platform incorporating the reliable network infrastructure, fast connectivity and scalable bandwidth to support necessary changes. A partner who understands that your guests’ ability to seamlessly and securely connect to your hotel network from their ever-increasing number of devices is a key driver in their overall satisfaction.
As smart hotel rooms become more universally implemented throughout the hospitality industry, hotels with the capability to take advantage of this technology will be rewarded with more efficient workflows and a return on investment of up to 75 percent, as well as greater guest engagement and loyalty.7
If you want to learn more about smart hotel room technology, or are considering a network upgrade, partner with the experienced connectivity and entertainment solutions experts at Spectrum Enterprise as you prepare for the future.
1 Schwartz, David. How Much Does a Running Toilet Really Cost? The Water Scrooge, 1 Feb. 2022, https://www.thewaterscrooge.com/blog/how-much-does-a-running-toilet-really-cost.
2 Ibid
3 “2021 Customer Engagement Study.” Hospitality Technology, 17 Dec. 2021, https://hospitalitytech.com/customer-engagement-
4 Energy Savings Tips for Small Businesses: Lodging. Energy Star, https://www.energystar.gov/buildings/resources_audience/small_biz/lodging.
5 Cisco Annual Internet Report. Cisco, 9 Mar. 2020, https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/executive-perspectives/annual-internet-report/white-paper-c11-741490.html.
6 “2022 Lodging Technology Study: Redefining the Guest Experience.” Hospitality Technology, 12 Jan. 2022, https://hospitalitytech.com/2022-lodging-technology-study.
7 Ibid., [11]
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