Hotels are matching heightened guest expectations with an increase in hotel technology budgets, investing an average of 4.9% of revenue in IT. The biggest spenders by this metric are the mid-scale chains, which will spend 6.6% when compared to the 3.5% at the economy and luxury ends of the market.
These figures come from the latest Hotel Lodging Technology survey from Hospitality Technology magazine (available here), and show how mission-critical technology has become for all aspects of the guest experience. Technology has moved from only being a boost to behind-the-scenes activities to a guest-facing tool that positively affects the overall hotel experience.
Top tech priorities
Indeed, consumer-facing technologies were the highest priority for the surveyed cohort of IT professionals. The other important areas of tech upgrades are adding bandwidth to on-property systems (especially as the industry trends towards personal content consumption), and preparing for the upcoming shift in North America to the chip-and-pin technology.
