Tech or Touch

Tech or Touch
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Last month I found an interesting article on Jakarta Post. It discussed about hotel industry, so because I work on hotel at front office department, it may useful for me and others who work on the same field.  Inspired by the article on Saturday March 19, 2016 entitled "Hotels need tech but also human touch" I decided to post my thought on this blog. I see this important for me to share with others hoteliers.

Imagine in the future, guest can do check in and check out using their own device. It stated on the article that " Examples of the hotel brands already making innovative use of data to personalize the experiences their guests receive include Starwood Hotels, where guests can bypass check-in and unlock their rooms with their smartphones." These fact really blow my mind, the future is here! Some hotels already done it. In short I can say that it is key-less.

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Guests don't have to insert or tap their key to the door when they want to enter their room again. It will change the habit of the guest itself. Today they still need to bring card as a key to enter the room but in the future this tech is replaced by smartphone. May be there will exist technology that allow guests to open their room using their finger print. We don't know whether it is possible or not but let see the future.

Nowadays cloud system technology is replacing the portable hard-disk system on hotel management system.  Technology is reshaping the world we live in. Smartphone will link to smart-door to ease check in process. I take from the article that technology is the major driver in hotel industry today, in particular the Internet of Things. Internet give big data to predict guest's behavior from pre-arrival until post departure.

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Those are the impacts of tech on hotel industry. Now let's us talk about how important is human touch in the digital era.

"At the same time, the new tools that allow for more targeted service risk diverting attention from the very skill on which the hotel industry was built- Human interaction."

Of course we are talking about guest satisfaction, in balance with high-end tech and traditional human touch. To do this, hiring new staff or retraining existing employees with the right skills will be critical.

"The most innovative hotels are already responding to these challenges. Those brands that are slowest to react to the demand for greater innovation will increasingly find themselves cut adrift"

Technology should not replace all human interaction between guests and employee of hotel itself. In my opinion technology and human touch will be best if they run all together. What do you think? Please leave your comment.