The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for leaner hotel operations and enhanced tech features for both staff and guests.

Panelists in a session of the online Hotel Optimization Conference titled “Technology — Are You With IT?” said the brands used to drive tech investment decisions, but recently franchise owners are taking the lead.

Neal Patel, treasurer of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association and managing partner at Blue Chip Hotels, said that in response to COVID-19, hotels are implementing technologies that some hotel owners thought they’d never need.

“A lot of times, we were driven by the brands,” he said. “The brands were telling us, ‘You have to do this, you have to do that,’ but now the hotel owners are taking initiative, because we know these are unprecedented times and we have to step up and get the guest confidence back.”

Scott Strickland, chief investment officer at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, said his company has also shifted in that sense, adding that many of its franchisees suddenly became both owners and operators during the crisis. In the past, franchisees faced with similar challenges might have stepped away from their hotel.

“The best case is we’re listening to the franchisee. Let’s listen to the franchisee advisory council; let’s listen to AAHOA,” he said.

Cloud-based technology, 5G and machine learning are among common tech investments being implemented and considered by hotel owners.

Brian Kirkland, chief technology officer at Choice Hotels International, said 5G is going to be “an interesting driver for where guests’ expectations go.”

Patel said 5G could potentially save costs and eliminate the need for Wi-Fi.

“If 5G is much faster than what we are currently offering, then no one’s going to be using our hotel Wi-Fi and we’ll be saving huge costs. It’s going to be one of our major expenses being cut out,” he said.

Kirkland said cloud-based technology is also getting a lot of attention among hotel owners.

“The reality is there’s a lot of evolution happening that’s empowered by the cloud. The cloud is making it possible for some extremely advanced technologies to become mainstream — things that weren’t possible before. We didn’t have enough staff to go out and build machine-learning and [artificial-intelligence] capabilities and virtual assistance,” he said.

Kirkland said cloud-based technologies allow hotels to leverage experiences more easily for guests while hopefully driving down costs for franchisees. Choice has made headway on its journey to migrate to the cloud, he added.

Leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence, such as advanced pricing algorithms, will be key to helping franchisees make the right decisions in terms of revenue management, he said.

Strickland said Wyndham’s revenue management considerations include offering guests the option to choose their own room.

“If somebody’s interested in that corner room on the second floor, let them choose it and then charge them $5 more for it. That $5 is critical. It’s pure profit, and it’s going through a direct channel for us … for our franchisee,” he said.

Wyndham accelerated some initiatives originally planned for later in 2021 or even 2022, he said. That includes fast-tracking contactless, mobile payment options.

“In our next release of our mobile app, we’ll have Google Pay [and] Apple Pay. That’ll be great because it’s one less interaction point for everybody that’s involved,” Strickland said.

He added that property-level technology remains the company’s top investment, consuming roughly 40% of Wyndham’s total capital IT budget.

Wyndham guests often have wanted to know when their guestroom was last occupied, because there is a perception that a guestroom vacant for 48 hours or more is safer, he said.

“We immediately developed separate reports for our franchisees that showed them when [the room was] last rented. They could have found it in the system, it was a little bit awkward, but we put it front and center,” he said. “That was one of those mini projects that we could quickly roll out.”

Wyndham also made digital cleaning and safety checklists for housekeeping staff to easily access.

Panelists all emphasized that staff training has increased and become more versatile as it has moved online.

Kirkland said his team needed to find new ways to roll out training for existing and new staff coming on board at hotels as they reopen.

“For us, we put a huge investment in our Choice University and making massive strides with what we’re able to roll out. [We’ve] pivoted extensively to that platform,” he said.

Strickland said his company’s Wyndham University has pivoted its training to Zoom. As Wyndham rolls out its new property management systems, he said most of the education around that will be via Zoom.

Staff can watch short training and how-to videos, he said, which Wyndham found is the “way the new generation wants to learn anyway.”

In the past, training required a team member at the property to train staff in person.

Patel said AAHOA this year alone hosted more than 200 webinars. Of those, 180 were COVID-19-related.

“We are trying to make sure that the members have everything they need to educate themselves about this pandemic. We’re also learning new information every day, and [we] want to make sure that the owners and members and our team know exactly what’s going on or what the best practices are,” he said.