Hospitality Technology’s Moment of Truth: Who Will Transform the Booking Experience?

Abstract

Can you name three great enterprise technology companies in hospitality? Or even one? The answer is likely "no," because most people have never been terribly impressed by the typical experience on a hotel's website. Where are the Salesforces, SAPs or Adobes of the hospitality world? What is hospitality technology missing that these kinds of platforms provide? It's not just that those firms have moved entire industries to the cloud — though I admit that job is a heavy lift, especially for an industry like hospitality where there's a long legacy of in-house, on-premise systems. I think an essential technology company has to empower the best possible user experience for the end customer. Hospitality technology, on the other hand, has always been built to optimize transactions. There is a real opportunity for hotels and casinos to transform not just the booking experience, but the entire guest journey, and bring the best elements of modern e-commerce to an industry that already prioritizes taking care of people to earn their loyalty.