Technology - Friend or Foe?

Sure, I know what you’re thinking; is he crazy?  Look at all the advancements in technology that we have experienced over the last decade, and look at all the great things that have come from those advancements.

Fair enough, but have you also noticed that the technology that is supposed to “make the world smaller” and make us all so much “more connected” is also responsible for creating more distance between people than ever before?

Take a ferry between two cities, jump on a bus, take a look around you the next time you are at the airport or on a plane, or, just look around when you’re walking downtown and notice how many people have their faces buried in their IPhone or Blackberry and how many of them are wearing headphones at the same time, and as a result, how many people are NOT speaking to each other.

The same can be said, to some degree, in the workplace.  That is, that the technology that was supposed to “make our lives easier” and contribute to “work/life balance” is instead increasing peoples’ workload, their stress levels, and their inability to have any work/life balance based on the fact that they are always reachable, and always expected to be reachable.  There is no longer an “off” switch for many people.

One of the additional symptoms of this to me is when you receive an email from someone whose office is next to yours or around the corner about something that does not require a documentation trail.  In short, they could have either picked up the phone or popped around the corner to your office to have had a conversation with you, but who has the time?

As simple as it may seem in the face of this situation, one of the simple solutions that I put in place to increase relationships and connectedness within the workplace in one of the hotels where I worked was to create “email free day” one day a week, every week.

The “rules” were simple and we got everyone on-board with participation.  On email free days you could not send any emails internally, except where there was a sense of urgency around some form of documentation that had to be circulated on that day, such as BEOs or changes to BEOs for banquet events scheduled within that week.

External emails to/from clients, corporate office or other hotels within the company could be responded to, to ensure we continued to comply with our commitment to respond to all correspondence within 24 hours of receipt.

But if you sent an email internally on email free day, you were fined $1.00 and the funds generated from those emails was donated to charity.

At first, there were some people who responded as if we had asked them to work with one hand tied behind their back, but quickly people saw that their job was not in fact made any more difficult, and, as you would expect, there was a whole lot more interaction between people, not to mention that people who habitually had been locking themselves in their offices all day were now seen meeting and talking to people all over the hotel, and they turned out to be some of the biggest fans of email free day.

Give it a try.  You may be pleasantly surprised to see how much more liveliness and fun get produced in your workplace.

We spend a good deal of our lives at work.  Is it too much to ask that we have a little fun while we’re there?   I don’t think so.

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Virtual Meetings – Virtually Fabulous, or, a Virtual Flash in the Pan?

I know that I could very well end up being known in the same manner as those people who said that talking movies were just a fad, but I just don’t see virtual meetings taking hold to an extent that gives Hotels any cause for concern.

I love technology and I do think a great deal of this particular technology, but I just don’t see businesses running out to rent these technology suites to use instead of travelling to the location of their other offices, and it’s expensive, from the quotes that I have seen from Hotels that have invested in the technology.

I have a bias as well, just to be up front about it, in the interest of full disclosure.

During a time when I was functioning as an Asset Manager for a company that owned a number of Hotels, some branded and some not, we were approached by one of the major brands that we worked with to put in a technology suite, which we could in turn rent out to clients who wanted to defer the cost of travel in favour of a virtual meeting with their counter-parts in other parts of the world.

According to the brand, our city was identified as one of the major cities where this need was identified as being significant in the coming years and we were being given the opportunity to jump on the band wagon to capture on this market when it takes hold.

Problem is, the technology required is VERY expensive, and, even if you use the suggested rental prices that the brand felt were appropriate, (which I could not imagine anyone paying), the ROI on this investment just isn’t there – not in my opinion anyway.

In case you haven’t already guessed, we did not invest in the technology suite.  I told the owner I thought that the brand was being irresponsible with his money by proposing this investment, and that it was my strong recommendation that he not authorize this expenditure, at that time.  He agreed.

I can see this technology being tremendously successful with companies who have multiple offices in multiple locations around the world, but I would see those same companies investing in the technology themselves, to have in their own offices, so they could meet whenever they please, and with little or no notice required, potentially saving them a great deal of money on travel, and giving them a respectable ROI that would justify their investment.

That was another problem that I had with the brand proposal – they were suggesting that by investing in this technology in our Hotel, in our city, people would travel to our city and choose our Hotel so that they could use our technology for their virtual meeting.  In short, they were suggesting that business executives would still travel, albeit shorter distances, then have a virtual meeting, from our Hotel, with their company executives, at another of our brands’ Hotels, presumably which they too may have had to travel too.

I’m sorry, but I think that’s crazy.  The whole point of the virtual meeting is to avoid the cost of travel, not just reduce it a little bit.

And let’s not forget that the real cost of travel is not just the hard costs associated with air fare and Hotel costs and the like.  As big a consideration is the loss of productivity.  In spite of the improvements in technology, people are not as productive on the road as they are in their offices, it’s a fact.

Also, given the speed with which companies like Skype are improving their platforms, I suspect that it won’t be long before we can have a virtual meeting in any number of ways that may work for us, and at a significantly reduced cost that makes sense for the majority of us.

Lastly, and as important as anything that I’ve already said, is the argument for the benefit of travel as it relates to relationships.  Sure, you can have a good and productive meeting using virtual meeting technology, but it does nothing to maintain or enhance relationships, and as I have been guilty of saying repeatedly, I believe that the hospitality business is all about relationships.

If you agree with that assessment, then you would also agree that there will always be a need, and a benefit, to travel in our industry.  In a business that is all about people, it will always be important to meet, face to face, with the people in our business. 

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Technology - The Great Equalizer

I opened a new Hotel earlier this year, in the highly competitive Vancouver marketplace.

One of the first questions that I was asked by the Hotel Owner, very shortly after I was hired, was whether or not we needed to brand the Hotel?

Given that he actually asked me this question on day 1 of starting with the company, I asked him for a few more days to give him, what I hoped would be, a more intelligent, well thought out answer, at the end of the week, although I did have an opinion already.

I won’t bore you with the process, but I spent a lot of time over those next few days reviewing management and franchise agreements, the terms within them, their fees of course, as well as reviewing the strength of the respective brands, their level of brand recognition among consumers, and especially, their loyalty programs.

What did I recommend in the end?

Let’s just say that at the time of writing this post, the Hotel has been open for approximately 5 months, it is unbranded, it is exceeding preliminary budget projections, and has found its place in the market.

Of course, there are many factors that have contributed to the success of the Hotel to date, but the key lies in the accessibility of technology to ALL hotels, regardless of the size of their bank account, or the historic strength of their brand.

In the current economy, any Hotel that commits to doing so, has an equal opportunity to reach consumers through the internet, through web marketing, e-blasts, social media sites, third party re-selling sites, and above all, search engine optimization SEO).

In the past, the “big boys” as we used to refer to them, could crush the smaller operators, the independents, because they had much bigger budgets from which to launch their expansive, and expensive marketing campaigns, and the little guys could just watch and hope to pick up some overflow, or benefit from overall compression in their market.

But not now, now, if you put the effort and the resources toward the effective and strategic use of technology, you can get more than your share of the market, and what’s more, you can sometimes catch the big boys while they are asleep.

In short, the internet has levelled the playing field and created equals among ALL of the Hotels.

So long as consumers continue to migrate more and more to the internet in search of whatever they need, and, so long as those same consumers continue to look for the best deal out there, whatever that means to them, brand loyalty is in jeopardy, and those companies that see the trends and take action, will be stealing share, biting off a bigger piece of the pie, and winning the game, so if you haven’t done so already, put someone in your Hotel in charge of dominating technology for your Hotel, and go eat some pie.

Technology in the Hotel Business. How Much is Too Much?

Let me start by saying that I would probably be described as quite "technology proficient" and although I do not necessarily run out to be the first to buy the latest IPHONE, I do like the technology toys and everything that I can do with them.

And, I do think very highly of the technology that we can use on behalf of our guests, such as automated features in guest rooms that adapt to that persons' language, and items whereby guests can access the latest technology in their rooms for their own entertainment and/or for their work use.

Okay, I've hopefully laid the foundation that I don't want to revert back to having every hotel guest fill in a lengthy registration card every time they show up, and all of us producing as much paperwork as possible, all of this turning into a 20 minute check-in process.

Okay, so that said, how much technology is too much, when it comes to dealing with the guest one-on-one? Should hotels be moving even more toward automated check in kiosks and the like, or, should we be using technology to free up our guest agents and other front line staff, as an example, to give them MORE time to interact with our guests?

I confess, in this respect, I consider myself a purist. When I arrive at a destination, tired and worn out from having endured the airlines, the luggage fiasco, the car rental process, and now I have finally found the hotel, nothing makes me happier than to have some bright smiling face look up at me, welcome me (genuinely and sincerely) to the hotel and offer to assist me. That's what I want, that's what I'm paying for . . . service.

At the end of the day, the hotels themselves are having more and more difficulty differentiating themselves on product. Everyone has a great bed these days, although I give full credit to Westin for getting it right, first, and winning the hearts, minds, and tired bodies of travellers well before everyone else figured it out.

Regardless, the "war" will be won on service. And if we're going to have a war, (on service), I want it fought by soldiers, not computers and kiosks...

Think about it, technology has almost always been “sold” to us as making our lives easier, somehow happier and more fulfilled. Try this, (and yes, I am guilty myself), next time you have 5 or 10 minutes, or you are walking to an appointment a couple of blocks away, put your own IPHONE or Blackberry away and look at how many people you see that have ear phones stuck in their ears, or, their faces are downward because they are reading something on their PDA, or, BOTH.

The point is, all of this technology is giving us an excuse NOT to interact with people, and, it has become completely socially acceptable. No one even looks twice at an elevator filled with people with virtually everyone with their ear buds in, not that anyone speaks in an elevator anyway.

So, we’re back to the question…. How much is too much, especially in an industry that is all about people?