Connected hospitality: Investing in IoT to own the stay
August 28, 2018
August 28, 2018
The Walt Disney once said, “Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others …”.1
This is good advice for hospitality organizations in constant competition to win guest loyalty and grow market share. To effectively compete in today’s marketplace, hospitality organizations must constantly differentiate themselves—building stronger, more personalized offerings and deeper guest connections to increase loyalty, reduce price sensitivity and generate repeat visits. As revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth compresses, companies must look to emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to differentiate.
Recent Accenture Strategy research found that nine out of 10 organizations agree their growth strategy is technology driven.2 For hospitality organizations, the sheer number of technologies is overwhelming, but the IoT provides an enabling foundation, which combined with capabilities around analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), can reinvent the guest experience.
With the rapid adoption of new IoT technology across the marketplace, customer expectations are growing rapidly, and organizations must develop and pursue personalized experiences. Consumers are embracing innovation—our research shows fewer than a quarter of consumers feel overwhelmed by how fast companies are using new technologies to interact with them or deliver products/services.3
Leading organizations must understand which of these technologies are table stakes, which drive new revenue and reduce cost to serve, and which are simply fads. From both an experience and operational standpoint, some of the more compelling IoT opportunities exist in the areas of location-based services (LBS), real time personalization and emerging experiential possibilities. The key is to define the vision around what creates a compelling experience and value case versus what is just “cool”.
Our research found almost 30 percent of customers expect companies with which they engage to know more about them than ever before.
To move from vision to execution, organizations must connect their business and technology strategies to ensure alignment and to determine how and where to move at speed. Specific areas of focus should include:
A leading family entertainment company is already replacing hotel room keys, theme park tickets and credit cards with a single IOT-enabled wearable that supports capabilities like the upload of photos from theme park photographers to an individual’s online account. A major cruise line is introducing similar technology to help staff know a guest’s name and preferences, while recommending activities based on prior experiences. By executing a first mover strategy related to the IoT, leading hospitality organizations will position themselves to be the disruptor, and not the disrupted.
1 “3 Principles Disney Uses to Enhance Customer Experience”, Harvard Business Review, February 2018
2 Accenture Strategy 2018 Revenue Growth Research
3 Accenture Strategy 2017 Global Consumer Pulse Research
4 Accenture Strategy, “Exceed Expectations with Extraordinary Experiences”, 2017
5 Ibid