Bill Lally, president of hospitality integration firm Mode:Green talks to TravelDailyNews about how technology is becoming an expected amenity for all kinds of hotels, and that the smart hotel of the future can vary depending on the hotel brand and how it adds technology to enhance the guest experience.
TravelDailyNews: Which are the main characteristics and needs of the new breed of travelers and hotel guests, the Millennials?
Bill Lally: Millennials are impacting hospitality in both their vacation and business travel, and a combination that they have created called “bleisure.” For vacation, these young travelers seek experiences with less human interaction, preferring to use mobile apps and social media for booking and gaining information. A study by MyTravelResearch shows that “60 percent of millennial business travelers are happy to pay for premium services that improve the seamlessness of their trip – especially if it supports their appetite for technology.”
Technology is becoming an expected amenity for all kinds of hotels, where travelers are have higher standards for that of hotels than of their own home, according to research by the University of Delaware. Some key starting technologies to appeal to young travelers could include improved Wi-Fi services and mobile keys, expanding into in-room automation and entertainment. Many guests are expecting to be able to cast or stream content from their own accounts or device in the room, a new experience that is being added rapidly to hotels.
TDN: What kind of technologies should the hotels embrace to enhance guest experience and what steps they should follow?
B.L.: As hotels take on technology to suit the guest expectations of young travelers, the first part of the process is evaluating what experiences suit their brand and what operational challenges can be solved with technology. Adding automation to guestrooms, for example, can contribute to both the guest experience and the operational efficiency for the hotel – this kind of system can also be combined with other technologies such as concierge services and energy management to provide additional benefit.
Hotels looking to add technology to their hotel should first connect with an integrator in the space and start a discussion of their needs, wish list items, and problems that could be solved. The process usually starts with a session with the integrator talking about what experiences you’re looking to add, and what operational problems or challenges you have that could be solved with technology.
It’s also important to discuss not only items that you foresee fitting within the budget now, but items that you’d like to add to the guest experience down the road – this allows their team to plan a system for future additions and can impact the design process. From there, the team will move forward with a design for the experience and should also provide a plan and timeline for working with other trade groups involved in the renovation or technology add as well as project completion. Integrators also often provide maintenance contracts to help keep the system running smoothly and updated once it’s installed, which is an important factor in protecting the investment of the project.
TDN: How would you describe the "Smart Hotel" of the future?
B.L.: The smart hotel of the future can vary depending on the hotel brand and how it adds technology to enhance the guest experience. Some hotels have systems that are completely hidden from the guest, which are mainly used to streamline operations and contribute to sustainability. Other hotels integrate technology into an interactive guest experience, with mobile keys, in-room entertainment and lighting control, and even room control and information access through voice control. Also, both the guest tech and management tech can be provided in a combined system for added benefit and return-on-investment.
Automation in guestrooms can be combined with other hotel services for a smooth and immersive experience. For example, when a guest uses their mobile key to enter the room, it can trigger an automation “scene” that turns on the lights in the room, the TV to a welcome message, and adjusts the thermostat. During their stay, the guest can ask a voice assistant for more towels to be sent to the room, or what time a local restaurant opens. This can provide convenience and comfort for the guest and is useful for hotel management as well. With smart devices, the hotel can use a dashboard to see which rooms are occupied for instance, to properly delegate housekeeping or staff to retrieve room service trays. Some of these experiences can already be found in hotels including the Kimpton Seafire in Grand Cayman, 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park in New York, and the Four Seasons in Chicago.
TDN: To which extent automation can replace the human factor in hospitality and affect jobs?
B.L.: Interaction between guests and staff remains an integral component to many hotel experiences, and automation, energy management, and entertainment technology contribute to the experience without changing that. Automation in the rooms and throughout the hotel property can help to reduce energy usage, building management time, and make other processes more efficient. For example, automation controlling all devices and lights in the guestrooms can help housekeeping teams, by eliminating time spent shutting the different light fixtures in preparation for the next guest’s stay. This can also help reduce energy usage, by automating deactivation of thermostats and lights based on guest occupancy and providing data that can be used to service equipment throughout the hotel.
These technologies contribute to efficiency for team delegation but wouldn’t replace interaction with guests. Making a voice assistant available in the guestroom could cut down on calls for room service and towels perhaps, and allow for other areas to have increased or more personalized guest interaction.
Bill Lally is the president of hospitality integration firm Mode:Green. A serial entrepreneur, Bill has extensive experience and a unique background in a variety of areas ranging from commercial audiovisual and control systems to energy management, broadcast, recording, post-production and hospitality. In 2008, the culmination of this experience resulted in the successful foundation of Mode:Green, which provides advanced control systems and energy management in the hospitality and commercial markets with the goal of bridging the current gap between integrators, MEP engineers and contractors, GCs, lighting designers and architects. Capitalizing on having become the first LEED-AP / Crestron Master’s Level Certified programmer, Bill grew Mode:Green from a small independent programming house (with clients such as Disney, Four Seasons, Baccarat, 1 Hotel and even NASA), to an enterprise completing several fully integrated multi-million dollar projects over the past five years.
Mode:Green has become the foremost authority in meeting the demands of the luxury hospitality market and the ever-changing technology expectations of the world’s most advanced hotel guest rooms. Bill is on top of new technology trends in the latest and upcoming audio/video, energy management and automation technologies to use in work for his clients, and is a continuous technology tinkerer on the side. He was also a founding member of the STEP InfoComm Task Force and is part of the InfoComm Smart Building Task Force, which drew on his ability to create energy management solutions for commercial buildings. Bill attended the University of Miami for Music and Audio Engineering, and is a member of the US Green Building Council.
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