Like many other industries, the recurring lockdowns have massively disrupted the country’s hospitality sector. But, with most parts of the country now under the most lenient travel restrictions and with the ongoing vaccination rollout, people are starting to go out for vacations and even staycations in hotels. For hoteliers, this presents a golden opportunity to get back on track to win their customers over the threshold.
But how can hoteliers ensure that they provide the best experience for travelers?
Nowadays, the name of the game in hospitality is sustainability. Aside from the disruptions caused by the pandemic, all industries face long-term challenges, such as climate change. In response to these challenges, consumers are now seen to embrace products and services that contribute to social and environmental causes. Businesses, too, including hotel chains, are listening and changing how they operate to reduce their environmental impact. According to Fujitsu’s global survey in 2020, 92% believe that providing value to society is vital for the mid-to-long-term sustainability of their business.
For Fujitsu, however, hotel technology can help hoteliers ensure that they meet their sustainability goals while providing the best experience to their customers. These technologies can contribute to reducing carbon footprint and creating an eco-friendlier hospitality industry.
Here are some of these hotel technologies that are making a difference in saving the planet:
Rise of Smart Hotel Rooms. As hospitality brands move along the path of digitalization, they can now provide smart hotel rooms with IoT (Internet of Things) devices and services. Now more than ever, guests expect a seamless and safe experience, especially with technologies that enable them to have touchless room keys or control multimedia content, room temperature, lighting mood, blinds, and more. This level of personalization will help transform the guest experience and optimize energy consumption.
Embracing Mobile Tech. With the rise of smartphone penetration, hotels are also integrating these devices into their services by developing mobile apps. For instance, guests can now check in via the hotel’s mobile app. A digital key will then be sent to their phones, communicating with the smart door locks. By doing so, guests can automatically check-in without even needing human contact at check-in desks.
Guests can use the app to choose their preferred dining, laundry, cleaning, and turn-down time services. Similarly, other service offerings can also be accessed in the app, such as gym or spa facilities, among others, providing that personalized hotel experience.
More than providing that seamless hotel experience, utilizing mobile apps has the potential to deliver the most significant environmental impact. Utilizing digital devices, which guests already have, can help hospitality brands and hotels reduce or even eliminate the use of paper. It also saves tons of water and chemicals used in paper processing and potentially eliminates the use of plastic keycards.
Laying the network infrastructure
To ensure seamless adoption of these technologies, Fujitsu noted that hoteliers need to ensure their underlying infrastructure us ready to scale.
Some hospitality brands may still consider implementing additional overlay network that support employee safety, guest experience, and other IoT user cases expensive and unnecessary, but nowadays, solution providers like Fujitsu can now help deploy a single platform to orchestrate seamlessly across the entire network.
For instance, Fujitsu provides Hospitality Solutions that enable wire, wireless, and security to enable highly secure and reliable Wi-Fi, as well as a range of IoT applications that help provide a superior experience for hotel guests. This infrastructure enable hotels to combine services and applications to deliver the customer experience that guests look for while supporting employees become more efficient.
Fujitsu also provides more advanced Wi-Fi solutions to support IoT platform. Businesses are now increasingly integrating Wi-Fi 6, the latest wireless technology designed to provide a powerful user experience, as the connectivity foundation for IoT.
By doing so, they can have enough bandwidth for seamless connectivity between several devices capable of enhancing guest experiences and in-house efficiencies. It also ensures seamless app-enabled navigation, frictionless mobile check-in or check-out options, mobile-enabled in-room media connectivity, preferences based on dining suggestions, proximity-enabled housekeeping, or lost child location service among others.
These are just some of the technologies, hospitality brands need to ensure they provide the best customer to their customers while helping create a more sustainable future. For Fujitsu, the sector is now prepared to constantly evolve by having the right foundation and network solutions, which can be the right starting point to becoming a smarter, more intuitive digital hotel. It will also help hoteliers get ahead of expectations, especially with the changing customer demands and guest experiences.
To learn more about Fujitsu, visit its website at https://www.fujitsu.com/ph/.
