Elements such as cloud storage, mobility, and social media are essential for hotel businesses today and in the future. The combination of robotics and Big Data provides us with the information we need to better understand our customers, personalize our offerings, and deliver greater value.
Digital onboarding technology is revolutionizing customer service through techniques such as cross-selling and up-selling, and a customer journey design is implemented to increase customer loyalty. Furthermore, artificial intelligence will enable new forms of interaction; experiential marketing, augmented reality, and immersive experiences will allow us to personalize the experience of an increasingly demanding customer. In short, we are creating a new generation of consumers.
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Smart Hotels: The Hotels of the Future
The hotel of the future must be more than just a building; it must be a concept designed and built using new materials and technologies, always with the goal of providing new features, services, and better experiences for guests. Undoubtedly, it will also be made of recyclable materials that consume very little energy during manufacturing and have nearly infinite lifespans.
What sets this project apart are the materials that incorporate intelligence and sensory elements, enabling the materials themselves to react to certain stimuli—such as allowing us to turn on a light without switches—and, ultimately, to configure different spaces to our liking. The change is radical; everything we know today will therefore disappear, giving way to self-managed hotel platforms that support the free development of the business and the architecture itself, with design becoming an added value.
What other features will the hotels of the future have?
In addition to the concept of smart hotels, the hotels of the future will have other distinctive features:
- They will be sustainable and environmentally friendly. The hotels of the future will incorporate renewable energy into their daily operations, use sustainable materials, and minimize waste as much as possible.
- They will include workspaces in the guest rooms. New remote work models will mean that all rooms will feature an office space equipped with high-speed internet and comfortable desks and chairs. They will also offer rooms specifically designed for work, serving as in-house coworking spaces within the hotel.
- We’ll be able to customize our rooms. In the hotels of the future, a control panel at the entrance to the room will allow us to control aspects such as ambient lighting, humidity, and the sounds we hear, with the goal of enhancing the experience.
What do creative and innovative hospitality products bring to the market?
The smart hotels of the future don’t want guests to have to wait at the front desk. New programs are available to help speed up the check-in process for travelers in a hurry, allowing them to go straight to their rooms and use their smartphones to unlock the door. Hotels of the future also aim to build a stronger relationship with the food and beverage sector, where guests can order drinks from the pool via an app. The Starwood Hotels and Resorts chain was one of the first to incorporate this service.
All things considered, facilities are a key factor for success in the hotel industry; rooms will feature technology that allows guests to turn lights on and off from their cell phones or turn on the air conditioning; other features include smart mirrors that can take photos of us and upload them to the social media platforms of our choice, touchscreen tables, background music throughout the room, and a TV projected onto the wall. These new tools are already being incorporated into some spaces, but for now, due to their high cost and the need for specific resources (such as space and facilities), they are still very rare and are only being implemented in very exclusive locations.
As a result, customers are increasingly drawn to lodging, due to new innovations, staying informed about the competition to keep pace with the global market, promoting their identity through digital marketing, developing contingency plans to address various changes in the business, ensuring sufficient advance notice for guests, monitoring and evaluating services, and market segmentation, among other factors.
Conclusion
The future is coming to our hotels, and we won’t have to wait too long to see it for ourselves. The goal of these projects is to bring these futuristic technologies to our guests so they can enjoy the journey that brought them to the city—and, of course, the hotel experience itself. New sensory experiences in the form of audiovisual projections will transform our accommodations into a new way to rest and unwind.
