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Technology Moving Into The Cloud At this week's HITEC IT executives talked about the future of technology. Tuesday, June 23, 2009 Glenn Haussman

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A cloud is rolling in on the hospitality industry. But fortunately this cloud isn’t symbolic of the future the health of the lodging business. No, this cloud is all about taking computer power out of the hotel and shifting to a third party.

It’s an idea that’s been bandied about for more than a decade amongst IT professionals, but has been met with limited success through so-called application service providers (ASPs). But now that high speed internet connectivity is seemingly universal amongst businesses in the United States, it looks as if the stars are finally aligning just right to make the cloud a viable solution for the lodging business. 

Here at the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC) in Anaheim, the first full day of the event was met with speculation about the adoption this and other technologies as well as how IT professionals are changing the ways they do business as the economy has scared off significant business at many hotels. 

“We are a very large company and in November will start offering storage of utilities. We suck at storage and managing a ton of all this data,” joked Scott Campbell, senior vice president and CIO of MGM Mirage, a casino resort company. “We are putting tier 1 storage in a cloud. If we can put as much data on it and get a bill every month with no long term agreement I can back it up on tape and lower my bills, just like any other utility, if I need to. We want to put as much in the cloud as possible. I think that is where we are going.”

RP Rama, vice president and Director IT, JHM Hotels said he believes the cloud will not only be utilized by hoteliers, but their guests as well. He sees a future where guests utilize an iPhone, for example, to connect with their data. “The iPhone will be a traveling PC. Guests will attach a keyboard and screen to it and connect to the internet. It will also serve as your driver license and have your bio metrics on it. Imagine connecting to the cloud anywhere. We have five senses, but there is a sixth being innovated; the technology gadget,” Rama said.

Conversations at HITEC are also focusing on adopting future technology that will accentuate guest relationships with a hotel brand or property. It’s all about striking up two way conversations rather than the traditional one way conversation hoteliers currently have with guests through emails, for example.

“For us it is all about interactivity with the guest both on and off site,” said John Edwards, director IT, North America, Millennium Hotels and Resorts. We are going away from traditional e-mails and figuring out how we can get true interactivity. With two way communication we know who [guests] are, what they are about and can figure out personalized ways to cater to them.”

Edwards added their biggest project CRM guest management and that to accomplish their goal the company is taking best of breed packages offered from different suppliers and working toward building what he calls a “true CRM.” When complete he’d like to be able to fully integrate web 2.0 into the CRM to better understand what guests think of Millennium Hotels and then use that information to leverage sales and hone the guest experience on a one-to-one basis.

Jeremy Ward, senior vice president of IT with Kempinski Hotels said there is no “killer app” that will fundamentally change the way hoteliers conduct business, but he agrees it’s all about forging better relationships with guests. “In all areas there are new technologies that can affect relationships with the guest and how we do business at the corporate level. We need to be conscious of what is out there and do stuff that makes sense and not do it for IT’s sake.”

At MTM Luxury Lodging Director of IT Chuck Marrat is working on creating a vibrant database across all its managed hotels. “We use best of breed applications and now we are trying to maximize we are doing. There is quite a bit of clean up involved in this process and we should have put a structure in place earlier,” Marrat admitted.

Finally, tech experts said they are focusing more on technologies that have a short ROI or will immediately and positively affect the guest experience. Other technology investments have been put on the backburner. “I look at the return on investment as to where can I get my biggest bang in today’s market,” said Rama.