Find out how smart building solutions are improving the hospitality industry for both employees and guests
Hospitality is one of the many industries that has improved greatly thanks to smart building solutions and automation. Whether you are coming from a management or guest perspective, recent developments in sensors, automated HVAC controls, and power over ethernet lighting have made the hospitality industry more efficient and sustainable. Today, we’re going to be exploring a few of the most impressive solutions that are being used in the hospitality industry today. But first, we need to understand exactly why these innovations are especially important for an enhanced customer service experience.
Why Are Smart Building Solutions So Important for Hospitality?
Smart building solutions put guest convenience and safety first
COVID-19 precautions are requirements for all branches of hospitality.
It is no secret that the hospitality industry must constantly adapt to changing guest expectations and tourism culture. For example, due to COVID-19 there has been an increased focus on cleanliness in all areas of customer service. Since 2020, hotels, airports and more have installed automatic air filtration systems for better air quality and greater guest and employee safety. Properties have also begun to install occupancy sensors to ensure that certain areas are not overcrowded. These automated solutions have mostly been implemented post-outbreak, but they are capable of more than mediating the spread of COVID-19.
The hospitality industry hinges on customer satisfaction, which often means predicting an individual guest’s needs before they make a request. Smart building solutions have powerful predicting capabilities that can both save the property money and create exceptional guest experiences. Let’s take a look at how these solutions improve the average guest room experience.
Smart Building Solutions for Guest Experiences
Automation enhances the guest experience while decreasing employee workload
Optimize guest rooms with automated controls.
Automation presents an opportunity for hotels to improve their guest experience by optimizing room controls and predicting guest needs. It can be difficult for guests to adapt to new room controls when they arrive, especially if they are frequent travelers. Often, guests will call on hotel staff to instruct them on how to use each system in the room including temperature, lighting, and the television. When these controls are less than obvious, it leads to frustration and even negative customer reviews.
Smart building solutions are designed to make all room controls easily accessible from a tablet. From an easy-to-use application, guests can control every aspect of their in room experience. These automations are not only limited to the room either — hotel management can install applications to assist guests with dinner reservations, frequently asked questions, and even communicate directly with guests via tablet. When it comes to customer service, these small touches help impress guests and alleviate employee workload.
Smart Building Solutions for a Hotel Operations
Beyond guest experiences, smart building solutions help hotel operations run smoothly and cut down on total energy consumption
Automation helps overall employee productivity and satisfaction.
Hotels are complicated and require all operating systems to be functioning at their highest capacity. That’s why automated smart building solutions are vital for the future of hospitality. Let’s take a look at some of the ways these solutions improve the industry from an employee perspective.
Energy Saving
Hotels spend a disproportionate amount of money on energy costs every year. Without smart technology and an IoT (Internet of Things) hotels continue to spend money on unnecessary heating, cooling, and lighting. When hotels implement sensors to detect occupancy and energy output, they see big improvements in energy conservation over time. Building management systems (BMS) have the capability to identify systems that need improvement through machine learning. For example, when you use power over Ethernet lighting, the sensors automatically communicate with the individual lighting fixtures to make adjustments based on natural light or room occupancy. These adjustments help hotels save money and stay as environmentally friendly as possible.
Cleaning Optimization
Along with air filtration systems, cleanliness has become a major concern for anyone visiting a hotel or working in the hospitality industry. Because of this, changes need to be made to keep up with guest expectations. Using occupancy sensors, smart building systems are capable of determining high traffic areas and predicting when certain areas need to be cleaned. This includes areas like restrooms, employee break rooms, restaurant spaces, and more. Communicating over the IoT, the sensors relay information to cleaning staff so they are able to identify high traffic areas that require cleaning.
The hospitality industry has changed permanently in the last few years. With the help of building automation, hotels, restaurants, and other service-oriented businesses have been able to keep up with ever changing customer expectations and demands. Overall, using smart building solutions is the only way to continually and automatically improve guest and employee experiences. We can expect further automated hospitality related developments in the near future as automation becomes the accepted standard for hotel property management.
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Hrvoje Horvat
hrvojeh75@gmail.com