New Year’s Wishes For the Hospitality Industry
By Yani Deros, CIRQ+ CEO / Founder
Could 2019 be when Hospitality finally hits the tipping point where more hotels pursue a paradigm shift in modernizing their properties?
CIRQ+ has conducted extensive market research and met with hotels, properties, managements companies and brands all around the world having deep discussions about their future objectives, goals and aspirations. Our platform has inspired almost all that we have met with on many levels. Based on this, we have great insights on what we’d like to wish for them in 2019.
Technology
Our wish is for the industry to adopt new technology that will drive business and repeat bookings. For instance, in-room controls are the fastest growing technology in the industr above and beyond voice, wireless door locks or TVs. Hotels waste a tremendous amount of energy by continuing to cool and heat room that are empty 50 percent of the day hoping this will earn them a good review. This has to change and has in other areas globally like Europe and Asia where properties have adopted IoT controls for improving their energy consumption and efficiency that create more revenue for their bottom line / profit. CIRQ+ unified platform with a wireless connected IoT system coupled with advanced occupancy and temperature sensors is an industry first capacity system that the leading thermostat companies do not have allowing us to drive savings between 28 and in some instances over 50% energy saving in our early installations.
Environmental / Energy Responsibility
We wish hoteliers will adopt best practices when it comes to sustainability. Global carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018. Hoteliers who implement solutions with in room IoT Controls and an automation system, such at CIRQ+, to manage energy consumption while rooms are unoccupied, will be the winners, not only with their bottom line, but with the 68 percent (and growing) number of global travelers who prefer to stay in eco-friendly hotels to help reduce their impact to the environment. This is a win-win for everyone involved. The guests will feel good about being more stainable and the hotels with the proper system will begin to see increased economies in reducing their energy spend.
Guests Insights
We wish hotels will continue to ramp up survey methods to elevate awareness and visibility into their guests’ habits, practices and routines to evolve their marketing and messaging to differentiate themselves to the savvy traveler. Many are realizing that they need to upgrade their technology offerings to address several key areas of their experience based on our extensive global research: controls, comfort and connectivity. These are essential to influence positive experiences with guests inspiring them to share their experience on social media as well as leave positive reviews about the property.