Wouter Geerts

With no way of knowing how long this crisis will last or what recovery will look like, we look back at two past crises to see how the industry reacted then, and what lessons can be learned. Many, as it turns out.

There is no doubt that these are some of the toughest times for the hotel industry. Hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry is on its knees. Recovery will come, but when and in what shape is wholly uncertain. Understanding the current situation, and what a recovery might look like, will help the industry to prepare for when that day comes.

There are so many technologies that can and will impact the travel industry, but it is hard to poke through all the hype and see what will fundamentally change the future of travel. Here are four technology buckets with the largest potential.

Legacy PMS vendors have for too long reaped the rewards without truly pushing the boundaries of what they could offer hoteliers. Now technology has passed them by, and they are playing catch-up. Cloud computing, open APIs, marketplaces, and middleware layers are shaking up this stale corner of hotel tech, and it’s crazy exciting.

We head into 2020 with more question marks than any year of this cycle. Risks are rising and the global economy is slowing. But, crucially, we are still growing and our base case forecast travel growth to continue next year.

The UK is an important contributor to global travel, but the uncertainty over Brexit will impact its place in the world and its residents’ willingness to spend on international vacations. The questions are just how and where the impact will be felt most.

The short-term rental sector is rapidly expanding, and it is not just Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com that benefit from this. A growing ecosystem of property managers and B2B vendors are professionalizing the sector, while making a decent penny.

Let’s place loyalty programs into a larger realm of technology which can improve and increase guest engagement and personalization, with all these tools working in parallel to achieve a truly loyal guest.

Revenue management is unquestionably becoming more important for hotels in an ever-more competitive market. Revenue Management Systems play an important role in automating pricing, but hotels should not see these as a one-stop solution to all their problems. There are bigger strategic questions that need answering.