We are starting to see a step change in the attitude and relationship between hotel and technology partners, which is very refreshing.
The opinion of hotels used to be that technology companies were just there to do it their way and make money, with no collaboration and no one playing nicely.
We have always been clear that we do want to play nicely. We want to be part of a consortium of solutions and an ecosystem to drive the right value and the right experiences.
And a large part of that is hotels needing to ask how many of their staff or their designers or their strategists have come from the industry that we're building technology for. Because if the answer is none, then all that all that's happening is they're building a solution that they think you need and not what you actually need.
That is now starting to shift. The majority of our product strategy and customer-facing teams have worked in hospitality, from running hotels to delivering in all areas of operations. That demonstrates a true understanding of the environment that they're building the solution for and true commitment to wanting to build a solution that is right for the user.
We are now seeing that realization and desire from clients; one of the questions we are starting to see come through in requests for proposal is “how many of your teams have worked in hospitality?” And that’s massively positive, because you can only you can only deliver valuable, relevant technology if you understand the environment.
This extends out even further from hotels into the sectors which are now embracing a hospitality mindset. Operational real estate is complex and dynamic, and it needs that fundamental understanding of the sector.
We're very quick to criticize hotels and hospitality investors, developers or operators for not understanding technology. But if they're faced with technology providers who don't understand that sector, then they are likely to be building something that doesn't necessarily fit and it’s just never going to come together.
Traditional landlords never thought about bringing the hospitality element to their buildings. But now in sectors such as offices and even residential, there is demand for food and beverage, for more cafes, more open space and more collaboration, and hotels can lead the way.
One aspect to note from those investors is that they all want diversification across their portfolio. We see so much more blending where investors are investing in long-term residential real estate alongside short-term rentals and aparthotels, alongside actual hotels, all potentially even in the same development or very nearby. But technology is behind.
Something we have seen from our Hospiria technology customers is the need for a built-in customer relationship management system which can do short-term and long-term rentals. We do that by partnering, to provide best in class CRM, rather than try to build everything ourselves. We don’t have big marketplaces with basic connections because what you need are products which are very specific in one area, which can plug into a single central system and help operational teams work in a seamless way.
That’s where hotel investors get out of their depth. It's where that specific knowledge comes into play and where the technology industry should be solving those problems for customers by ensuring that best-in-class technologies can partner with each other. Investors might be able to get their heads around one tech product, but they’re certainly not getting their heads around multiple tech products from multiple different operational uses.
The most likely model would be a combination of a front-end system with multiple back-end systems, so you can have an all-in-one solution, even if it might mean several different technologies. This is probably the first step to getting to a new technology world across the industries and the first step to spreading that hospitality experience across real estate.
Heather Byron is senior vice president of services at Alliants.
Rebekah Tobias is founder and managing director of Independence Ventures.
Merilee Karr is founder and CEO at UnderTheDoormat Group.
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