From Revenue to Customer Stickiness – Why Your HotelMust be Digital

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Table of Contents

2FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS – WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL

Introduction

Chapter 1: The digital opportunity

Chapter 2: Personalising the customer experience

Chapter 3: New revenue opportunities

Chapter 4: Building partnerships and supply chain opportunities

Chapter 5: Challenges: IT infrastructure and management

Chapter 6: Challenges: IT security and privacy

Summary

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The days of attracting business travellers with networking corners and wireless connectivity in the lobby are over. Site wide Wi-Fi is the new norm, and business travellers increasingly choose where they dispense their expense account on the basis of speed and convenience.

In a 2017 survey of business travellers who had booked a stay in the last 12 months, three quarters said that free Internet access was a very important factor in determining their choice of hotel.

Younger travellers, who may travel on their own budget, will often be more discerning. It’s never been easier or cheaper to head off around the world, after all. Yet, these next-gen mobile travellers don’t expect to be out of touch when they’re out of the country. For many, unless they can post it to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, their travel experience never existed. Social updates are an integral part of the adventure, with many happily exchanging physical contact for the digital equivalent. Despite the fact that, while cell contracts are trending towards

unlimited texts and calling, data is frequently capped or extremely expensive while roaming.

Reliable and robust Wi-Fi is both an enabler and a money-saver for such travellers, and will help them feel like they’re getting more value from their select-ed hotel. A good connectivity experience can build loyalty and, in this day and age, free marketing opportunities that lead to both new and repeat business.

It’s also important to understand that technology is no longer just enabling guests to connect to the web or just solving back end business problems. Today, technology is enabling hospitality to offer guests an immersive, personalized experience like never before; from wayfinding and push notifications based on time, location, and personal preferences to simplified check-in/check-out and a more “homelike” experience while they traveling. Technology is no longer just about infrastructure. It is a true enabler in offering the traveller a "wow" experience in every step of their journey.

COMPETING WITH THE SMALLEST PLAYERS

Travellers are clearly becoming more demanding. The rise of room-sharing and short-stay home rental is giving them more choice than ever—and making cookie-cutter hotels look staid and old-fashioned.

Indeed, when guests can choose accommodation that satisfies every whim—from a barge to a tree house, and every elevation between—hotels must work harder to provide similar levels of personalisation on a grander yet more granular scale. Although they may be managing multi-room empires hoteliers need to make sure every stay intimately suits each guest.

Data is King. Hoteliers, with their increased resources, are harnessing the ability to gather and analyse a wider spectrum of customer data to track their clients’ preferences over time, and across a wider range of properties, allowing them to refine their offering on a head-by-head basis.

This is the digital dividend from which a solo Airbnb host will never benefit. And as we’ll see in the next chapter, it allows any hotel, from the one-off boutique to a multi-national chain, to identify with their guests more closely and, in doing so, have the tools they need to offer WOW guest experiences that lead to increased loyalty and customer spend.

Introduction

FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS—WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL

Chapter 1: The digital opportunityBespoke software applications and third-party integration, with platforms like Facebook and Slack, have changed the way that hotels and guests interact.

It was once the norm for guests to air their grievances in the lobby, for staff to carry radios and track their jobs on paper. Today, convergence on Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, inexpensive broadband and widespread Wi-Fi have changed all that.

In doing so, they’ve produced an unprecedented digital opportunity for the hospitality industry.

ALL ABOUT THE APPAccording to Oracle1, 94 percent of business and 80 percent of leisure travellers want to use their own smartphones to message hotel staff. Many favour texting and social media but encouraging them to install an app has two key benefits; It lets them do more for themselves, and it allows the hotel to gather data for analysis and use.

With a branded app on their guest’s phone, a hotel can send notifications, facilitate booking, service the customer during their stay and follow-up through a device of the guest’s own choosing. It also gives them a place in the guest’s pocket, and opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling throughout their stay.

The trick is to make the application a sufficiently compelling proposition that the client is willing to leave it on the device between each visit.

A MULTI-PLATFORM EXPERIENCEHowever compelling an app might sound, not every-one will install it—and, of those that do, they won’t use it for every interaction.

The JD Power 2017 North America Hotel Guest Satisfac-tion Index2 found that only 4 percent of travellers with a

hotel app on their phone used it for check-in, and 1 percent for check-out. Yet both interactions were associated with higher guest satisfaction. Could it be that front desk staff are the real blocks to keeping customers happy?

For some guests, an alternative to face-on-face inter-action is a benefit, but supplementing staff with an app doesn’t necessarily mean that a venue is getting less personal. Rather, it’s becoming more personalised, allowing the customer to take charge of their interac-tion, as well as how and when it happens.

Research by Phocuswright for Oracle3 asked 2,700 business travellers how they used technology during a stay and found that while only 2 percent wanted to summon assistance via an app, a majority would use messaging apps, like SMS, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger via their mobile phone. 87 percent would use them to order toiletries and extra pillows, 86 percent to reserve tables at venues outside the hotel, and 89 percent to get recommendations and informa-tion on nearby activities.

Giving guests the choice of app, text or personal interaction increases the number of touchpoints they have with the hotel. Simultaneously, it reduces the effort required to achieve a particular goal or discover required information. Every interac-tion, regardless of the platform, allows the hotel to build a clearer picture of a guest and their preferences, with which it can further personalise the customer experience—as we’ll discover in the next chapter.

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Chapter 2: Personalising the customer experienceData is a commodity—as hotels with loyalty programmes have long known. Gathering that data usually requires that the venue gives something in return. Often, that kick-back is convenience.

Guests at Marriott can register for SPG Keyless, an alternative to traditional door cards that uses the group’s existing loyalty app, installed on a phone or Apple Watch, to unlock the customer’s room. When they arrive at one of Starwood’s Aloft-branded hotels, beacons detect the guest’s device and text them their room number. The lock will be primed to respond to their phone or Watch as soon as they’re standing outside it, allowing them to skip the regular process of checking in.

THE HOTEL WITHOUT A FRONT DESKOne hotel in Budapest has taken things a step further: it’s done away with the front desk entirely in favour of a virtual key, which acts a door key, a remote control for

AN INNOVATIVE USE-CASE

American hotelier Marriott has long been an innovator. It’s credited with being first to install televisions in every room and is now making inroads in mobile.

In autumn 2017, it introduced the world’s first tablet-enabled shower door4. Recognising that humans often do their best thinking when relaxing in the shower—and that a steamy shower screen is the perfect canvas—its tablet-enabled shower has touch-sensitive areas that send whatever the guest has drawn on the glass to their phone or tablet. It’s currently only available at one hotel, in Irvine, California, but if it proves a success it’s likely to receive a wider roll-out.

Elsewhere, with 70 percent of Marriott’s guests making fitness a priority, the chain thought about how it could sync hotel gym equipment with guests’ own phones. The result was the Flex Fitness Centre5 in its Charlotte hotel, which features a wall-mounted touch screen that recommends local running routes. Picking a route lets the guests send it to their own device, allowing them to follow it even if they don’t know the city.

Differentiators like these helps build loyalty and attract positive social feedback, on which future guests will rely when making their own travel choices.

the room’s air conditioning, and a link to the concierge. Better yet, to ensure that guests don’t find themselves locked out, the hotel has also provided chargers in the lobby.

With fewer—or no—lobby staff, a centralised help desk, and reduced hardware costs (the guest provides the phone, so the hotel doesn’t need key cards), virtual keys can deliver significant savings. More importantly, they allow the hotel to gather passive customer data.

It’s no longer necessary to ask whether they used the spa when the visitor checks out: their entry to the spa area will be logged centrally, either because they tapped to unlock the door, or because a beacon logged them passing by. The hotel can update its customer record, and if the app remains on the phone beyond the end of the visitor’s stay, send a notification next time they’re running a spa promotion.

While such an offer would only attract a business traveller if they already needed to book a hotel, it might be enough to encourage a business user to visit for leisure. The two aren’t mutually-exclusive groups, after

all, and attracting repeat visits in different contexts will allow the venue to learn more about them—and further personalise future visits.

IN-ROOM IoTWe’re getting increasingly comfortable living with the Internet of Things (IoT). Voice-controlled lighting and heating are becoming the norm in our homes, courtesy of assistants like Alexa and Google Home. When similar tools are missing from the hotel room, it feels like we’ve taken a step backwards.

Yet there’s no reason why this should be. IoT, which was once a mess of competing and incompatible standards, is starting to coalesce as innovators like Ruckus Wireless deliver hospitality-focused IoT integra-tion tools. Its SmartZone Controller, in-room APs and IoT modules go beyond the smart door lock to central-ise the guest’s lighting and climate controls over the establishment’s existing wireless network. While reducing wear and tear on physical controllers, they reinforce the image of the hotel as a forward-thinking, dynamic and agile establishment.

BEYOND THE BEDROOM DOORA guest knows their own tastes better than anyone else. So, what’s the point trying to second-guess how they’d like to spend their downtime? High speed, unlimited broadband can blur the distinction between hotel and home by allowing visitors to pick up streamed box sets right where they left off.

Only 1 percent of occupied rooms order paid video-on-demand (VoD), according to Hotel Manage-ment magazine, yet hotels with Netflix see 40 percent of occupants stream as much as 90 minutes of content every day. In-room entertainment provider Enseo lets guests log in to their own Netflix, YouTube, Pandora and Hulu accounts and makes sure their credentials are cleared automatically as soon as they check out.

Yet, speaking to Variety6 at the CES 2017 technology trade show, Enseo CEO Vanessa Ogle admitted that encouraging hotels to dump their existing VoD services isn’t easy. Why? Because they traditionally include adult

entertainment, which delivers 90 percent of their VoD profits. Is it worth it if only 1 percent of guests are paying it any attention?

STREAMING AND LIFE AFTER VODMarriott has moved away from video-on-demand and the programmes that worked well in the past. It’s partnered with Netflix directly to integrate the service with its in-room televisions and, like Enseo’s imple-mentation, automatically wipes users’ data on check-out. It also offers a 30-day free trial for non-subscribers, allowing them to sample the service and, potentially, convert the trial to a paid account.

For hotels that aren’t ready to replace their in-room televisions, Roomcast from Teleadapt7 plugs into regular HDMI sockets to upgrade existing screens. It then allows guests to stream from more than 1,000 Chromecast-enabled applications using the device they’re already carrying. There’s no need for the hotel to manage guest accounts and, because the Roomcast access point also provides Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections, it puts access points in every room for the best possible coverage.

FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS—WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL

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Chapter 2: Personalising the customer experienceData is a commodity—as hotels with loyalty programmes have long known. Gathering that data usually requires that the venue gives something in return. Often, that kick-back is convenience.

Guests at Marriott can register for SPG Keyless, an alternative to traditional door cards that uses the group’s existing loyalty app, installed on a phone or Apple Watch, to unlock the customer’s room. When they arrive at one of Starwood’s Aloft-branded hotels, beacons detect the guest’s device and text them their room number. The lock will be primed to respond to their phone or Watch as soon as they’re standing outside it, allowing them to skip the regular process of checking in.

THE HOTEL WITHOUT A FRONT DESKOne hotel in Budapest has taken things a step further: it’s done away with the front desk entirely in favour of a virtual key, which acts a door key, a remote control for

the room’s air conditioning, and a link to the concierge. Better yet, to ensure that guests don’t find themselves locked out, the hotel has also provided chargers in the lobby.

With fewer—or no—lobby staff, a centralised help desk, and reduced hardware costs (the guest provides the phone, so the hotel doesn’t need key cards), virtual keys can deliver significant savings. More importantly, they allow the hotel to gather passive customer data.

It’s no longer necessary to ask whether they used the spa when the visitor checks out: their entry to the spa area will be logged centrally, either because they tapped to unlock the door, or because a beacon logged them passing by. The hotel can update its customer record, and if the app remains on the phone beyond the end of the visitor’s stay, send a notification next time they’re running a spa promotion.

While such an offer would only attract a business traveller if they already needed to book a hotel, it might be enough to encourage a business user to visit for leisure. The two aren’t mutually-exclusive groups, after

all, and attracting repeat visits in different contexts will allow the venue to learn more about them—and further personalise future visits.

IN-ROOM IoTWe’re getting increasingly comfortable living with the Internet of Things (IoT). Voice-controlled lighting and heating are becoming the norm in our homes, courtesy of assistants like Alexa and Google Home. When similar tools are missing from the hotel room, it feels like we’ve taken a step backwards.

Yet there’s no reason why this should be. IoT, which was once a mess of competing and incompatible standards, is starting to coalesce to deliver hospitality-focused IoT integration tools. In-room APs and IoT modules now go beyond the smart door lock to centralise the guest’s lighting and climate controls over the establishment’s existing wireless network; reinforcing the image of the hotel as a forward-thinking, dynamic and agile establishment.

BEYOND THE BEDROOM DOORA guest knows their own tastes better than anyone else. So, what’s the point trying to second-guess how they’d like to spend their downtime? High speed, unlimited broadband can blur the distinction between hotel and home by allowing visitors to pick up streamed box sets right where they left off.

Only 1 percent of occupied rooms order paid video-on-demand (VoD), according to Hotel Manage-ment magazine, yet hotels with Netflix see 40 percent of occupants stream as much as 90 minutes of content every day. In-room entertainment provider Enseo lets guests log in to their own Netflix, YouTube, Pandora and Hulu accounts and makes sure their credentials are cleared automatically as soon as they check out.

Yet, speaking to Variety6 at the CES 2017 technology trade show, Enseo CEO Vanessa Ogle admitted that encouraging hotels to dump their existing VoD services isn’t easy. Why? Because they traditionally include adult

entertainment, which delivers 90 percent of their VoD profits. Is it worth it if only 1 percent of guests are paying it any attention?

STREAMING AND LIFE AFTER VODMarriott has moved away from video-on-demand and the programmes that worked well in the past. It’s partnered with Netflix directly to integrate the service with its in-room televisions and, like Enseo’s imple-mentation, automatically wipes users’ data on check-out. It also offers a 30-day free trial for non-subscribers, allowing them to sample the service and, potentially, convert the trial to a paid account.

For hotels that aren’t ready to replace their in-room televisions, Roomcast from Teleadapt7 plugs into regular HDMI sockets to upgrade existing screens. It then allows guests to stream from more than 1,000 Chromecast-enabled applications using the device they’re already carrying. There’s no need for the hotel to manage guest accounts and, because the Roomcast access point also provides Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections, it puts access points in every room for the best possible coverage.

FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS—WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL

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Chapter 3: New revenue opportunitiesWith your application on a guest’s device, you have push access to their screen. Next time the kitchen has over-ordered lobster, for example, you can send an offer to every device that has notifications turned on. It’s subtler than an announcement, and more effective than a note in the menu that wouldn’t be seen by anyone eating elsewhere.

LOCATION-BASED RETAILBut cutting prices to shift a perishable commodity is ineffective and chance-based. To maximise the revenue potential of an application, hotels should be looking to integrate it with the building itself.Unless the feature has been turned off, smartphones are inherently aware of their surroundings. They can triangulate to within a few feet using Wi-Fi alone, and position themselves with remarkable precision with a little help from beacons. These discrete, wall- or ceiling-mountable units, provided by Aruba Networks, don’t require direct pairing to deliver location-sensitive features to a guest app.

At their simplest, they can add turn-by-turn directions to an app’s hotel floor plan. When combined with location-relevant offers and notifications, they allow on-site boutiques, bars and restaurants to push pop-ups to customers who they know are nearby. Each may be the inducement they needed to step inside and spend.

By keeping track of how many devices are in range, beacons can manage footfall. When a particular bar starts to get crowded, guest apps can start promoting alternative bars or restaurants where the queues are shorter. Seeing that they’ll be served more quickly at one of a venue’s other eateries may discourage guests from exploring alternatives off-site.

REVENUE AND DATA CAPTUREIf a guest makes an app-based request for a high chair or cot, it’s instantly recorded. The job will be assigned

to housekeeping and, in a savvy establishment, the client’s profile tailored to fit. They can now be sent marketing material designed for families, without relying on hotel staff to manually update their record.

Likewise, if a guest rarely orders room service, but they book a wake-up call, a push notification sent at the appointed time can invite them to order breakfast. When the offer is sitting on the phone that they’ve just picked up to mute, it’s a single tap from being ordered. Tying together two services—a wake-up call and meal service—can turn a high margin option into an impulse purchase.

TWO-WAY COMMUNICATIONAn effective app is a filtered view of the hotel’s PMS (Property Management Solution). They don’t know it, but the guest is interacting directly with housekeeping, booking and maintenance. Navigating menus and ordering with a single tap sends their requests directly into the back-end and assigns the fulfilment to staff or, increasingly, a robot.

Aloft’s Botlr8 is a roaming butler, delivering room service food, towels, toothbrushes—in fact, anything the visitor might have left at home. It’s a novel convenience for guests which, more importantly, helps save on laundry and consumables.

Botlr has been roaming the halls since 2014, and in 2017 was joined by ChatBotlr, a Facebook bot that guests can use both on-site and off to order wake up calls, retrieve hotel information, and download Aloft’s Spotify playlist. According to the company’s figures, two-thirds of Aloft customers interact with the bots, which have five second response times. In many cases that’s quicker than a front desk could answer the phone.

Companion bots for Slack, Facebook Messenger and Google Assistant extend similar features to more than 4,500 hotels in the Marriott family, which first offered message-enabled servicing in 2015. Since then, it’s received in excess of 2.5 million online requests, more than half of which arrive before the guest has even checked in.

FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS—WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL

SummaryMore than half of travellers are willing to share their personal data, but only if they get something of value in return—so says Forrester research12, in a report commissioned by Sabre Hospitality Solutions.

“Building and maintaining customer loyalty isn’t simply about letting customers accumulate points,” says Sabre president, Alex Alt. “It’s about finding ways to make customers feel special and to recognise and honour their preferences. Hoteliers who use data and technology to elevate the customer experience will ultimately generate loyalty that drives revenue.”

The tools that help hoteliers do this are more diverse and fully-featured than at any other time in the history of hospitality. They allow hosts to track customers to within a few feet, sell products based on location, tailor services to each guest’s tastes and gather information that will help them attract repeat custom. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, it can also feed into the fundamentals of hotel design and the changing norms of the service industry.

No single solution will suit every venue, even within a single chain, but one factor ties them all together: they rely on robust, reliable and secure network infrastructure.

Guests might think of Wi-Fi as nothing more than a means of getting online. The fact that point of sale, management, security and myriad other services run off the same back end is one of the best-keptsecrets in hospitality.

The stability of the networks delivered by Aruba helps keep it that way. From providing seamless broadband to unifying the hotel’s back office, Aruba’s range of location-aware access points, with integrated beacons, provide the necessary infrastructure while gathering vital analytics.

Up-selling, clearing unused inventory with time-limited offers and building customer loyalty can all take place while analys-ing how customers respond in real-time. The question, then, is less why a hotel should offer guests free Wi-Fi, and more what they’ll be losing if they don’t.

automatically updated in sync. Once they reach a lower limit, they can be flagged for re-ordering, ensuring that the venue neither runs out or finds itself over-stocked, and that by waiting until it can make a worthwhile order it benefits from the best possible supplier’s discount.

Chapter 5: Challenges: IT infrastructure and managementWe have already seen how Aruba handles Wi-Fi access and promotions through a unified interface, but Aruba is more than just a connection point. It’s an end-to-end solution that spans the guest app, hotel back end, and everything in between.

A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL NETWORKSite-wide networks are the backbone through which the hotel’s access system, security cameras, VoIP and cloud-enabled applications communicate and stay online. A robust, stable network is as important as electricity, water and air conditioning.

A fully-managed solution will separate the various traffic on the network, using QoS (Quality of Service) to prioritise the data on which the business is dependent. AppRF, built into Aruba’s networking hardware, lets system admins prioritise data, voice and video apps in real-time so that the PMS, point of sale and other mission-critical applications remain online at all times.

BANDWIDTH CONSIDERATIONSWithout sufficient bandwidth, however, QoS can only go so far. If guests can no longer access Netflix because the back-office is consuming more than its share of resources, a flurry of one-star reviews is sure to follow.

So how much bandwidth is sufficient? There are multiple considerations to take into account, and a site survey prior to any roll-out is essential. Where video streaming is concerned, Teleadapt

recommends budgeting 5 Mbit/sec per device, with an anticipated concurrent usage of one device in 20. The maths is fairly simple here: divide the number of rooms by four to get your answer (if you’re running a 1000-room hotel, budget for at least 250 Mbit/sec for video alone).

Alternative entertainment infrastructure will have varying overheads. Roomcast may be controlled wirelessly from the user’s device, but it streams over Ethernet and delivers its output over HDMI. A purely wireless solution will place strain on the Wi-Fi access point, as well as the underlying network, potentially impacting other users logged in through the same hub.

CASE STUDY: EMIRATES PALACE HOTELEmirates Palace Hotel provides internet access to more than 600 guests a day. When it’s hosting a conference, this number can double, yet it still needs to present its users with a simple, secure experience that’s no more difficult to use than their own home broadband.

As well as using the network to complete cloud-based business tasks, delegates would need to use video conferencing tools like Skype and Facetime. During their leisure, they might stream HD TV from a range of consumer services, including Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Having assessed its options, the hotel settled on Aruba Mobility Infrastructure, and installed more than 1,000 access points across its extensive estate. These are location-ready, so can be deployed as controller-managed, controllerless or for remote access, depending on the design, scope and scale of the network. Their native operating system, ArubaOS 8, offers seamless roaming for complete coverage, while the build-in AirMatch technology ensures every client associates with the best access point in their vicinity to provide a strong signal and optimal performance.

While the Emirates Palace Hotel has the necessary staff to manage the infrastructure locally, many

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Chapter 4: Building partnerships & supply chain opportunitiesRolling out a site-wide digital infrastructure has never been more cost-effective. As we have seen, integrating with guests’ own devices further reduces overheads. Keyless locks, beacons, geofencing and in app purchases simplify interaction between a hotel and its guests and helps the host to gather analytics about its customers.

These physical data points are no less valuable than feedback showing a visitor’s path through a website. By monitoring aggregate data, they can track guests within the property, which informs future hotel design and shows them which areas are over- and under-used. High-traffic locations deliver effective marketing opportunities and will command premium rates from concession boutiques.

PRIME DIGITAL REAL ESTATEFor many guests, their most frequent interaction with the hotel’s digital real estate will be the Wi-Fi portal.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company solution simplifies the task of onboarding guests to reduce the burden of support on the front desk, while its ClearPass technology integrates with popular PMS like Agilysys, Protel and Silverbyte.

A white-box solution offering custom branding, the portal UI can carry whatever content the venue should choose. In addition to in-house offers, this could include deals with key partners—both digital and physical.

More than half of all hotel guests turn to non-hotel sources for in-destination queries, according to Oracle9. These queries include recommendations for activities and restaurants. Being able to capture this traffic for itself by presenting recommendations in an easily-accessible location allows the hotel to push its own services and those of its partners.

THE HYBRID HUMAN TOUCHYet, not all of this promotion needs to—or should—happen on the guest’s own device. The ideal mix combines digital and personal interaction, which Hilton and IBM have taken one step further, with Connie, the robot concierge.

Using Watson, IBM’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine, Connie answers questions in the style of Google or Siri, while sensing guests’ emotions and urgency the way a human receptionist would. Unveiled in 2016, it employs a range of AI technologies, including speech-to-text, text-to-speech and natural language classifiers—and logs every interaction so the hotel can learn more about its customers’ needs.

Much of the information is drawn from WayBlazer, a Watson-driven recommendation platform that analyses cues from the guest’s input to determine the most appropriate output. The results are based not only on what the hotel might like to present, but reviews, blog posts and recommendations posted online.

Connie isn’t designed to replace reception staff entirely —yet. They’re still there for more complex tasks, but by having the basics handled by an intelligent robot they can devote more of their time to what matters, like resolving problems and handling sales.

BEHIND THE SCENESAnalysing the kind of data that Connie and guest apps gather helps hotels plan strategy and, in particular, marketing activities. Hotels don’t always need to be looking so far into the future, though.

The more space a hotel devotes to storage, the less it’s able to earn from rooms and retail, so maintaining an efficient supply chain, with stock arriving close to the time when it’s needed, is key.

As we have already seen, the most effective guest apps are those that interact directly with the PMS—a factor that’s particularly relevant here. As guests order consumables or optional extras, stock levels will be

smaller rivals might not—but with Aruba this shouldn’t be an issue. The access points’ remote management tools can be set up to allow access from beyond the local network, for centralised management, a unified security policy and, ultimately, lower overheads.

The resulting network provided solid 1.3 Gbit/sec wireless connectivity, including along the hotel’s private 1.3km-long beach, with guaranteed security throughout. Being centrally managed, a small but dedicated IT team could monitor and shape network traffic, and update access points without requiring physical access.

“Complaints about poor network performance have virtually disappeared,” says Mehmet Akdeniz, director of IT and AV at Emirates Palace11. “Our business customers are often amazed to find how quickly we can accommodate their connectivity requirements.”

Yet this is just the first step as far as Emirates Palace is concerned. Future plans, which will roll out across the Aruba infrastructure, include in-house IPTV, gaming, music streaming and even smart-device room control.

Chapter 6: Challenges: IT security and privacyAt the very least, a hotel—or chain—needs to be collecting basic contact information—but stopping there is leaving the job half done. By making data integral to the guest’s stay, they can solicit a wider range of data in exchange for “smart”, personalised services.

Tying these together in a robust CRM will give an increasingly clear picture of guests’ likes and require-ments over time. Yet, collecting such diverse data places a responsibility on the hotel to ensure it is stored, managed and, when appropriate, deleted securely. With the enactment of GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, in May 2018, those who fail in this respect face potential fines of up to €20

million or 4 percent of the company’s global turnover.

A SECURE SOLUTIONOracle Opera is the world’s most popular PMS. It’s cloud-enabled, and integrates a hotel website with its distribution channels, allowing the hotelier to manage room inventory and use dynamic pricing to fill empty beds. Housekeeping will know when a guest has checked out without having to knock on doors as their view of the PMS updates when the guests performs self-check-out, or beacons in the hotel detect that they’ve left the premises.

It also allows the hotel to capture personal data like dietary requirements, and tailor each room service menu to the tastes of the occupant, theoretically driving higher sales of premium food services.

As a cloud-based solution it frees staff to break away from the front desk when required, and allows the venue to devote more of its team to looking after guests, rather than maintaining IT. From a security standpoint, outsourcing these services to the cloud also solves many of the problems of a locally-hosted solution. Being held off-site, the data is beyond the physical reach of either the hotel staff or intruders, and the servers on which the application runs are patched as soon as vulnerabilities are identified.

When the PMS is an integral part of a virtual key system, underpins your gift, food and drink outlets and handles bookings and billing, the benefit of outsourcing can be in the peace of mind it provides, as much as the savings it delivers.

SECURITY AT THE CLIENT LEVELYet, as we’ve discussed, a PMS is often only half of the solution, to which guests’ own devices have access. Although hotels can limit applications so they only install on up-to-date handsets, they have a commercial obliga-tion to support the last two or three OS versions if they want to collect the broadest possible range of usable data. To this extent, they’ll need to accommodate devices that might not be as secure as the back-end.

FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS—WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL

Aruba ClearPass does much to mitigate such concerns. While making it easy for guests to access hotel Wi-Fi, it places limits on what the device can access to neutral-ise potential vulnerabilities. The allied AirWave network management tools generate compliance reports, track appli-cation performance across different devices and identify issues on the network before they become discernible problems.

Security sits that the core of Aruba network products, with RFProtect prevent-ing denial-of-service and man-in-the-mid-dle attacks, as well as over-the-air security threats. Providing the industry’s only integrated wireless security and spectrum analysis system for enterprise WLANs, RFProtect can use Aruba access points as dedicated air monitors that focus on detecting and containing unauthorised APs and devices. Better still, being fully integrated means system admins will never need to evaluate third-party security add-ons for compatibility and suitability, and can be confident that software updates will work flawlessly with existing security provisions.

SummaryMore than half of travellers are willing to share their personal data, but only if they get something of value in return—so says Forrester research12, in a report commissioned by Sabre Hospitality Solutions.

“Building and maintaining customer loyalty isn’t simply about letting customers accumulate points,” says Sabre president, Alex Alt. “It’s about finding ways to make customers feel special and to recognise and honour their preferences. Hoteliers who use data and technology to elevate the customer experience will ultimately generate loyalty that drives revenue.”

The tools that help hoteliers do this are more diverse and fully-featured than at any other time in the history of hospitality. They allow hosts to track customers to within a few feet, sell products based on location, tailor services to each guest’s tastes and gather information that will help them attract repeat custom. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, it can also feed into the fundamentals of hotel design and the changing norms of the service industry.

No single solution will suit every venue, even within a single chain, but one factor ties them all together: they rely on robust, reliable and secure network infrastructure.

Guests might think of Wi-Fi as nothing more than a means of getting online. The fact that point of sale, management, security and myriad other services run off the same back end is one of the best-keptsecrets in hospitality.

The stability of the networks delivered by Aruba helps keep it that way. From providing seamless broadband to unifying the hotel’s back office, Aruba’s range of location-aware access points, with integrated beacons, provide the necessary infrastructure while gathering vital analytics.

Up-selling, clearing unused inventory with time-limited offers and building customer loyalty can all take place while analys-ing how customers respond in real-time. The question, then, is less why a hotel should offer guests free Wi-Fi, and more what they’ll be losing if they don’t.

9

automatically updated in sync. Once they reach a lower limit, they can be flagged for re-ordering, ensuring that the venue neither runs out or finds itself over-stocked, and that by waiting until it can make a worthwhile order it benefits from the best possible supplier’s discount.

Chapter 5: Challenges: IT infrastructure and managementWe have already seen how Aruba handles Wi-Fi access and promotions through a unified interface, but Aruba is more than just a connection point. It’s an end-to-end solution that spans the guest app, hotel back end, and everything in between.

A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL NETWORKSite-wide networks are the backbone through which the hotel’s access system, security cameras, VoIP and cloud-enabled applications communicate and stay online. A robust, stable network is as important as electricity, water and air conditioning.

A fully-managed solution will separate the various traffic on the network, using QoS (Quality of Service) to prioritise the data on which the business is dependent. AppRF, built into Aruba’s networking hardware, lets system admins prioritise data, voice and video apps in real-time so that the PMS, point of sale and other mission-critical applications remain online at all times.

BANDWIDTH CONSIDERATIONSWithout sufficient bandwidth, however, QoS can only go so far. If guests can no longer access Netflix because the back-office is consuming more than its share of resources, a flurry of one-star reviews is sure to follow.

So how much bandwidth is sufficient? There are multiple considerations to take into account, and a site survey prior to any roll-out is essential. Where video streaming is concerned, Teleadapt

recommends budgeting 5 Mbit/sec per device, with an anticipated concurrent usage of one device in 20. The maths is fairly simple here: divide the number of rooms by four to get your answer (if you’re running a 1000-room hotel, budget for at least 250 Mbit/sec for video alone).

Alternative entertainment infrastructure will have varying overheads. Roomcast may be controlled wirelessly from the user’s device, but it streams over Ethernet and delivers its output over HDMI. A purely wireless solution will place strain on the Wi-Fi access point, as well as the underlying network, potentially impacting other users logged in through the same hub.

CASE STUDY: EMIRATES PALACE HOTELEmirates Palace Hotel provides internet access to more than 600 guests a day. When it’s hosting a conference, this number can double, yet it still needs to present its users with a simple, secure experience that’s no more difficult to use than their own home broadband.

As well as using the network to complete cloud-based business tasks, delegates would need to use video conferencing tools like Skype and Facetime. During their leisure, they might stream HD TV from a range of consumer services, including Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Having assessed its options, the hotel settled on Aruba Mobility Infrastructure, and installed more than 1,000 access points across its extensive estate. These are location-ready, so can be deployed as controller-managed, controllerless or for remote access, depending on the design, scope and scale of the network. Their native operating system, ArubaOS 8, offers seamless roaming for complete coverage, while the build-in AirMatch technology ensures every client associates with the best access point in their vicinity to provide a strong signal and optimal performance.

While the Emirates Palace Hotel has the necessary staff to manage the infrastructure locally, many

Chapter 4: Building partnerships & supply chain opportunitiesRolling out a site-wide digital infrastructure has never been more cost-effective. As we have seen, integrating with guests’ own devices further reduces overheads. Keyless locks, beacons, geofencing and in app purchases simplify interaction between a hotel and its guests and helps the host to gather analytics about its customers.

These physical data points are no less valuable than feedback showing a visitor’s path through a website. By monitoring aggregate data, they can track guests within the property, which informs future hotel design and shows them which areas are over- and under-used. High-traffic locations deliver effective marketing opportunities and will command premium rates from concession boutiques.

PRIME DIGITAL REAL ESTATEFor many guests, their most frequent interaction with the hotel’s digital real estate will be the Wi-Fi portal.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company solution simplifies the task of onboarding guests to reduce the burden of support on the front desk, while its ClearPass technology integrates with popular PMS like Agilysys, Protel and Silverbyte.

A white-box solution offering custom branding, the portal UI can carry whatever content the venue should choose. In addition to in-house offers, this could include deals with key partners—both digital and physical.

More than half of all hotel guests turn to non-hotel sources for in-destination queries, according to Oracle9. These queries include recommendations for activities and restaurants. Being able to capture this traffic for itself by presenting recommendations in an easily-accessible location allows the hotel to push its own services and those of its partners.

THE HYBRID HUMAN TOUCHYet, not all of this promotion needs to—or should—happen on the guest’s own device. The ideal mix combines digital and personal interaction, which Hilton and IBM have taken one step further, with Connie, the robot concierge.

Using Watson, IBM’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine, Connie answers questions in the style of Google or Siri, while sensing guests’ emotions and urgency the way a human receptionist would. Unveiled in 2016, it employs a range of AI technologies, including speech-to-text, text-to-speech and natural language classifiers—and logs every interaction so the hotel can learn more about its customers’ needs.

Much of the information is drawn from WayBlazer, a Watson-driven recommendation platform that analyses cues from the guest’s input to determine the most appropriate output. The results are based not only on what the hotel might like to present, but reviews, blog posts and recommendations posted online.

Connie isn’t designed to replace reception staff entirely —yet. They’re still there for more complex tasks, but by having the basics handled by an intelligent robot they can devote more of their time to what matters, like resolving problems and handling sales.

BEHIND THE SCENESAnalysing the kind of data that Connie and guest apps gather helps hotels plan strategy and, in particular, marketing activities. Hotels don’t always need to be looking so far into the future, though.

The more space a hotel devotes to storage, the less it’s able to earn from rooms and retail, so maintaining an efficient supply chain, with stock arriving close to the time when it’s needed, is key.

As we have already seen, the most effective guest apps are those that interact directly with the PMS—a factor that’s particularly relevant here. As guests order consumables or optional extras, stock levels will be

smaller rivals might not—but with Aruba this shouldn’t be an issue. The access points’ remote management tools can be set up to allow access from beyond the local network, for centralised management, a unified security policy and, ultimately, lower overheads.

The resulting network provided solid 1.3 Gbit/sec wireless connectivity, including along the hotel’s private 1.3km-long beach, with guaranteed security throughout. Being centrally managed, a small but dedicated IT team could monitor and shape network traffic, and update access points without requiring physical access.

“Complaints about poor network performance have virtually disappeared,” says Mehmet Akdeniz, director of IT and AV at Emirates Palace11. “Our business customers are often amazed to find how quickly we can accommodate their connectivity requirements.”

Yet this is just the first step as far as Emirates Palace is concerned. Future plans, which will roll out across the Aruba infrastructure, include in-house IPTV, gaming, music streaming and even smart-device room control.

Chapter 6: Challenges: IT security and privacyAt the very least, a hotel—or chain—needs to be collecting basic contact information—but stopping there is leaving the job half done. By making data integral to the guest’s stay, they can solicit a wider range of data in exchange for “smart”, personalised services.

Tying these together in a robust CRM will give an increasingly clear picture of guests’ likes and require-ments over time. Yet, collecting such diverse data places a responsibility on the hotel to ensure it is stored, managed and, when appropriate, deleted securely. With the enactment of GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, in May 2018, those who fail in this respect face potential fines of up to €20

million or 4 percent of the company’s global turnover.

A SECURE SOLUTIONOracle Opera is the world’s most popular PMS. It’s cloud-enabled, and integrates a hotel website with its distribution channels, allowing the hotelier to manage room inventory and use dynamic pricing to fill empty beds. Housekeeping will know when a guest has checked out without having to knock on doors as their view of the PMS updates when the guests performs self-check-out, or beacons in the hotel detect that they’ve left the premises.

It also allows the hotel to capture personal data like dietary requirements, and tailor each room service menu to the tastes of the occupant, theoretically driving higher sales of premium food services.

As a cloud-based solution it frees staff to break away from the front desk when required, and allows the venue to devote more of its team to looking after guests, rather than maintaining IT. From a security standpoint, outsourcing these services to the cloud also solves many of the problems of a locally-hosted solution. Being held off-site, the data is beyond the physical reach of either the hotel staff or intruders, and the servers on which the application runs are patched as soon as vulnerabilities are identified.

When the PMS is an integral part of a virtual key system, underpins your gift, food and drink outlets and handles bookings and billing, the benefit of outsourcing can be in the peace of mind it provides, as much as the savings it delivers.

SECURITY AT THE CLIENT LEVELYet, as we’ve discussed, a PMS is often only half of the solution, to which guests’ own devices have access. Although hotels can limit applications so they only install on up-to-date handsets, they have a commercial obliga-tion to support the last two or three OS versions if they want to collect the broadest possible range of usable data. To this extent, they’ll need to accommodate devices that might not be as secure as the back-end.

FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS—WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL

Aruba ClearPass does much to mitigate such concerns. While making it easy for guests to access hotel Wi-Fi, it places limits on what the device can access to neutral-ise potential vulnerabilities. The allied AirWave network management tools generate compliance reports, track appli-cation performance across different devices and identify issues on the network before they become discernible problems.

Security sits that the core of Aruba network products, with RFProtect prevent-ing denial-of-service and man-in-the-mid-dle attacks, as well as over-the-air security threats. Providing the industry’s only integrated wireless security and spectrum analysis system for enterprise WLANs, RFProtect can use Aruba access points as dedicated air monitors that focus on detecting and containing unauthorised APs and devices. Better still, being fully integrated means system admins will never need to evaluate third-party security add-ons for compatibility and suitability, and can be confident that software updates will work flawlessly with existing security provisions.

SummaryMore than half of travellers are willing to share their personal data, but only if they get something of value in return—so says Forrester research12, in a report commissioned by Sabre Hospitality Solutions.

“Building and maintaining customer loyalty isn’t simply about letting customers accumulate points,” says Sabre president, Alex Alt. “It’s about finding ways to make customers feel special and to recognise and honour their preferences. Hoteliers who use data and technology to elevate the customer experience will ultimately generate loyalty that drives revenue.”

The tools that help hoteliers do this are more diverse and fully-featured than at any other time in the history of hospitality. They allow hosts to track customers to within a few feet, sell products based on location, tailor services to each guest’s tastes and gather information that will help them attract repeat custom. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, it can also feed into the fundamentals of hotel design and the changing norms of the service industry.

No single solution will suit every venue, even within a single chain, but one factor ties them all together: they rely on robust, reliable and secure network infrastructure.

Guests might think of Wi-Fi as nothing more than a means of getting online. The fact that point of sale, management, security and myriad other services run off the same back end is one of the best-keptsecrets in hospitality.

The stability of the networks delivered by Aruba helps keep it that way. From providing seamless broadband to unifying the hotel’s back office, Aruba’s range of location-aware access points, with integrated beacons, provide the necessary infrastructure while gathering vital analytics.

Up-selling, clearing unused inventory with time-limited offers and building customer loyalty can all take place while analys-ing how customers respond in real-time. The question, then, is less why a hotel should offer guests free Wi-Fi, and more what they’ll be losing if they don’t.

automatically updated in sync. Once they reach a lower limit, they can be flagged for re-ordering, ensuring that the venue neither runs out or finds itself over-stocked, and that by waiting until it can make a worthwhile order it benefits from the best possible supplier’s discount.

Chapter 5: Challenges: IT infrastructure and managementWe have already seen how Aruba handles Wi-Fi access and promotions through a unified interface, but Aruba is more than just a connection point. It’s an end-to-end solution that spans the guest app, hotel back end, and everything in between.

A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL NETWORKSite-wide networks are the backbone through which the hotel’s access system, security cameras, VoIP and cloud-enabled applications communicate and stay online. A robust, stable network is as important as electricity, water and air conditioning.

A fully-managed solution will separate the various traffic on the network, using QoS (Quality of Service) to prioritise the data on which the business is dependent. AppRF, built into Aruba’s networking hardware, lets system admins prioritise data, voice and video apps in real-time so that the PMS, point of sale and other mission-critical applications remain online at all times.

BANDWIDTH CONSIDERATIONSWithout sufficient bandwidth, however, QoS can only go so far. If guests can no longer access Netflix because the back-office is consuming more than its share of resources, a flurry of one-star reviews is sure to follow.

So how much bandwidth is sufficient? There are multiple considerations to take into account, and a site survey prior to any roll-out is essential. Where video streaming is concerned, Teleadapt

recommends budgeting 5 Mbit/sec per device, with an anticipated concurrent usage of one device in 20. The maths is fairly simple here: divide the number of rooms by four to get your answer (if you’re running a 1000-room hotel, budget for at least 250 Mbit/sec for video alone).

Alternative entertainment infrastructure will have varying overheads. Roomcast may be controlled wirelessly from the user’s device, but it streams over Ethernet and delivers its output over HDMI. A purely wireless solution will place strain on the Wi-Fi access point, as well as the underlying network, potentially impacting other users logged in through the same hub.

CASE STUDY: EMIRATES PALACE HOTELEmirates Palace Hotel provides internet access to more than 600 guests a day. When it’s hosting a conference, this number can double, yet it still needs to present its users with a simple, secure experience that’s no more difficult to use than their own home broadband.

As well as using the network to complete cloud-based business tasks, delegates would need to use video conferencing tools like Skype and Facetime. During their leisure, they might stream HD TV from a range of consumer services, including Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Having assessed its options, the hotel settled on Aruba Mobility Infrastructure, and installed more than 1,000 access points across its extensive estate. These are location-ready, so can be deployed as controller-managed, controllerless or for remote access, depending on the design, scope and scale of the network. Their native operating system, ArubaOS 8, offers seamless roaming for complete coverage, while the build-in AirMatch technology ensures every client associates with the best access point in their vicinity to provide a strong signal and optimal performance.

While the Emirates Palace Hotel has the necessary staff to manage the infrastructure locally, many

Chapter 4: Building partnerships & supply chain opportunitiesRolling out a site-wide digital infrastructure has never been more cost-effective. As we have seen, integrating with guests’ own devices further reduces overheads. Keyless locks, beacons, geofencing and in app purchases simplify interaction between a hotel and its guests and helps the host to gather analytics about its customers.

These physical data points are no less valuable than feedback showing a visitor’s path through a website. By monitoring aggregate data, they can track guests within the property, which informs future hotel design and shows them which areas are over- and under-used. High-traffic locations deliver effective marketing opportunities and will command premium rates from concession boutiques.

PRIME DIGITAL REAL ESTATEFor many guests, their most frequent interaction with the hotel’s digital real estate will be the Wi-Fi portal.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company solution simplifies the task of onboarding guests to reduce the burden of support on the front desk, while its ClearPass technology integrates with popular PMS like Agilysys, Protel and Silverbyte.

A white-box solution offering custom branding, the portal UI can carry whatever content the venue should choose. In addition to in-house offers, this could include deals with key partners—both digital and physical.

More than half of all hotel guests turn to non-hotel sources for in-destination queries, according to Oracle9. These queries include recommendations for activities and restaurants. Being able to capture this traffic for itself by presenting recommendations in an easily-accessible location allows the hotel to push its own services and those of its partners.

THE HYBRID HUMAN TOUCHYet, not all of this promotion needs to—or should—happen on the guest’s own device. The ideal mix combines digital and personal interaction, which Hilton and IBM have taken one step further, with Connie, the robot concierge.

Using Watson, IBM’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine, Connie answers questions in the style of Google or Siri, while sensing guests’ emotions and urgency the way a human receptionist would. Unveiled in 2016, it employs a range of AI technologies, including speech-to-text, text-to-speech and natural language classifiers—and logs every interaction so the hotel can learn more about its customers’ needs.

Much of the information is drawn from WayBlazer, a Watson-driven recommendation platform that analyses cues from the guest’s input to determine the most appropriate output. The results are based not only on what the hotel might like to present, but reviews, blog posts and recommendations posted online.

Connie isn’t designed to replace reception staff entirely —yet. They’re still there for more complex tasks, but by having the basics handled by an intelligent robot they can devote more of their time to what matters, like resolving problems and handling sales.

BEHIND THE SCENESAnalysing the kind of data that Connie and guest apps gather helps hotels plan strategy and, in particular, marketing activities. Hotels don’t always need to be looking so far into the future, though.

The more space a hotel devotes to storage, the less it’s able to earn from rooms and retail, so maintaining an efficient supply chain, with stock arriving close to the time when it’s needed, is key.

As we have already seen, the most effective guest apps are those that interact directly with the PMS—a factor that’s particularly relevant here. As guests order consumables or optional extras, stock levels will be

10

smaller rivals might not—but with Aruba this shouldn’t be an issue. The access points’ remote management tools can be set up to allow access from beyond the local network, for centralised management, a unified security policy and, ultimately, lower overheads.

The resulting network provided solid 1.3 Gbit/sec wireless connectivity, including along the hotel’s private 1.3km-long beach, with guaranteed security throughout. Being centrally managed, a small but dedicated IT team could monitor and shape network traffic, and update access points without requiring physical access.

“Complaints about poor network performance have virtually disappeared,” says Mehmet Akdeniz, director of IT and AV at Emirates Palace11. “Our business customers are often amazed to find how quickly we can accommodate their connectivity requirements.”

Yet this is just the first step as far as Emirates Palace is concerned. Future plans, which will roll out across the Aruba infrastructure, include in-house IPTV, gaming, music streaming and even smart-device room control.

Chapter 6: Challenges: IT security and privacyAt the very least, a hotel—or chain—needs to be collecting basic contact information—but stopping there is leaving the job half done. By making data integral to the guest’s stay, they can solicit a wider range of data in exchange for “smart”, personalised services.

Tying these together in a robust CRM will give an increasingly clear picture of guests’ likes and require-ments over time. Yet, collecting such diverse data places a responsibility on the hotel to ensure it is stored, managed and, when appropriate, deleted securely. With the enactment of GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, in May 2018, those who fail in this respect face potential fines of up to €20

million or 4 percent of the company’s global turnover.

A SECURE SOLUTIONOracle Opera is the world’s most popular PMS. It’s cloud-enabled, and integrates a hotel website with its distribution channels, allowing the hotelier to manage room inventory and use dynamic pricing to fill empty beds. Housekeeping will know when a guest has checked out without having to knock on doors as their view of the PMS updates when the guests performs self-check-out, or beacons in the hotel detect that they’ve left the premises.

It also allows the hotel to capture personal data like dietary requirements, and tailor each room service menu to the tastes of the occupant, theoretically driving higher sales of premium food services.

As a cloud-based solution it frees staff to break away from the front desk when required, and allows the venue to devote more of its team to looking after guests, rather than maintaining IT. From a security standpoint, outsourcing these services to the cloud also solves many of the problems of a locally-hosted solution. Being held off-site, the data is beyond the physical reach of either the hotel staff or intruders, and the servers on which the application runs are patched as soon as vulnerabilities are identified.

When the PMS is an integral part of a virtual key system, underpins your gift, food and drink outlets and handles bookings and billing, the benefit of outsourcing can be in the peace of mind it provides, as much as the savings it delivers.

SECURITY AT THE CLIENT LEVELYet, as we’ve discussed, a PMS is often only half of the solution, to which guests’ own devices have access. Although hotels can limit applications so they only install on up-to-date handsets, they have a commercial obliga-tion to support the last two or three OS versions if they want to collect the broadest possible range of usable data. To this extent, they’ll need to accommodate devices that might not be as secure as the back-end.

FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS—WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL

Aruba ClearPass does much to mitigate such concerns. While making it easy for guests to access hotel Wi-Fi, it places limits on what the device can access to neutral-ise potential vulnerabilities. The allied AirWave network management tools generate compliance reports, track appli-cation performance across different devices and identify issues on the network before they become discernible problems.

Security sits that the core of Aruba network products, with RFProtect prevent-ing denial-of-service and man-in-the-mid-dle attacks, as well as over-the-air security threats. Providing the industry’s only integrated wireless security and spectrum analysis system for enterprise WLANs, RFProtect can use Aruba access points as dedicated air monitors that focus on detecting and containing unauthorised APs and devices. Better still, being fully integrated means system admins will never need to evaluate third-party security add-ons for compatibility and suitability, and can be confident that software updates will work flawlessly with existing security provisions.

11

SummaryMore than half of travellers are willing to share their personal data, but only if they get something of value in return—so says Forrester research12, in a report commissioned by Sabre Hospitality Solutions.

“Building and maintaining customer loyalty isn’t simply about letting customers accumulate points,” says Sabre president, Alex Alt. “It’s about finding ways to make customers feel special and to recognise and honour their preferences. Hoteliers who use data and technology to elevate the customer experience will ultimately generate loyalty that drives revenue.”

The tools that help hoteliers do this are more diverse and fully-featured than at any other time in the history of hospitality. They allow hosts to track customers to within a few feet, sell products based on location, tailor services to each guest’s tastes and gather information that will help them attract repeat custom. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, it can also feed into the fundamentals of hotel design and the changing norms of the service industry.

No single solution will suit every venue, even within a single chain, but one factor ties them all together: they rely on robust, reliable and secure network infrastructure.

Guests might think of Wi-Fi as nothing more than a means of getting online. The fact that point of sale, management, security and myriad other services run off the same back end is one of the best-keptsecrets in hospitality.

The stability of the networks delivered by Aruba helps keep it that way. From providing seamless broadband to unifying the hotel’s back office, Aruba’s range of location-aware access points, with integrated beacons, provide the necessary infrastructure while gathering vital analytics.

Up-selling, clearing unused inventory with time-limited offers and building customer loyalty can all take place while analys-ing how customers respond in real-time. The question, then, is less why a hotel should offer guests free Wi-Fi, and more what they’ll be losing if they don’t.

automatically updated in sync. Once they reach a lower limit, they can be flagged for re-ordering, ensuring that the venue neither runs out or finds itself over-stocked, and that by waiting until it can make a worthwhile order it benefits from the best possible supplier’s discount.

Chapter 5: Challenges: IT infrastructure and managementWe have already seen how Aruba handles Wi-Fi access and promotions through a unified interface, but Aruba is more than just a connection point. It’s an end-to-end solution that spans the guest app, hotel back end, and everything in between.

A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL NETWORKSite-wide networks are the backbone through which the hotel’s access system, security cameras, VoIP and cloud-enabled applications communicate and stay online. A robust, stable network is as important as electricity, water and air conditioning.

A fully-managed solution will separate the various traffic on the network, using QoS (Quality of Service) to prioritise the data on which the business is dependent. AppRF, built into Aruba’s networking hardware, lets system admins prioritise data, voice and video apps in real-time so that the PMS, point of sale and other mission-critical applications remain online at all times.

BANDWIDTH CONSIDERATIONSWithout sufficient bandwidth, however, QoS can only go so far. If guests can no longer access Netflix because the back-office is consuming more than its share of resources, a flurry of one-star reviews is sure to follow.

So how much bandwidth is sufficient? There are multiple considerations to take into account, and a site survey prior to any roll-out is essential. Where video streaming is concerned, Teleadapt

recommends budgeting 5 Mbit/sec per device, with an anticipated concurrent usage of one device in 20. The maths is fairly simple here: divide the number of rooms by four to get your answer (if you’re running a 1000-room hotel, budget for at least 250 Mbit/sec for video alone).

Alternative entertainment infrastructure will have varying overheads. Roomcast may be controlled wirelessly from the user’s device, but it streams over Ethernet and delivers its output over HDMI. A purely wireless solution will place strain on the Wi-Fi access point, as well as the underlying network, potentially impacting other users logged in through the same hub.

CASE STUDY: EMIRATES PALACE HOTELEmirates Palace Hotel provides internet access to more than 600 guests a day. When it’s hosting a conference, this number can double, yet it still needs to present its users with a simple, secure experience that’s no more difficult to use than their own home broadband.

As well as using the network to complete cloud-based business tasks, delegates would need to use video conferencing tools like Skype and Facetime. During their leisure, they might stream HD TV from a range of consumer services, including Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Having assessed its options, the hotel settled on Aruba Mobility Infrastructure, and installed more than 1,000 access points across its extensive estate. These are location-ready, so can be deployed as controller-managed, controllerless or for remote access, depending on the design, scope and scale of the network. Their native operating system, ArubaOS 8, offers seamless roaming for complete coverage, while the build-in AirMatch technology ensures every client associates with the best access point in their vicinity to provide a strong signal and optimal performance.

While the Emirates Palace Hotel has the necessary staff to manage the infrastructure locally, many

Chapter 4: Building partnerships & supply chain opportunitiesRolling out a site-wide digital infrastructure has never been more cost-effective. As we have seen, integrating with guests’ own devices further reduces overheads. Keyless locks, beacons, geofencing and in app purchases simplify interaction between a hotel and its guests and helps the host to gather analytics about its customers.

These physical data points are no less valuable than feedback showing a visitor’s path through a website. By monitoring aggregate data, they can track guests within the property, which informs future hotel design and shows them which areas are over- and under-used. High-traffic locations deliver effective marketing opportunities and will command premium rates from concession boutiques.

PRIME DIGITAL REAL ESTATEFor many guests, their most frequent interaction with the hotel’s digital real estate will be the Wi-Fi portal.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company solution simplifies the task of onboarding guests to reduce the burden of support on the front desk, while its ClearPass technology integrates with popular PMS like Agilysys, Protel and Silverbyte.

A white-box solution offering custom branding, the portal UI can carry whatever content the venue should choose. In addition to in-house offers, this could include deals with key partners—both digital and physical.

More than half of all hotel guests turn to non-hotel sources for in-destination queries, according to Oracle9. These queries include recommendations for activities and restaurants. Being able to capture this traffic for itself by presenting recommendations in an easily-accessible location allows the hotel to push its own services and those of its partners.

THE HYBRID HUMAN TOUCHYet, not all of this promotion needs to—or should—happen on the guest’s own device. The ideal mix combines digital and personal interaction, which Hilton and IBM have taken one step further, with Connie, the robot concierge.

Using Watson, IBM’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine, Connie answers questions in the style of Google or Siri, while sensing guests’ emotions and urgency the way a human receptionist would. Unveiled in 2016, it employs a range of AI technologies, including speech-to-text, text-to-speech and natural language classifiers—and logs every interaction so the hotel can learn more about its customers’ needs.

Much of the information is drawn from WayBlazer, a Watson-driven recommendation platform that analyses cues from the guest’s input to determine the most appropriate output. The results are based not only on what the hotel might like to present, but reviews, blog posts and recommendations posted online.

Connie isn’t designed to replace reception staff entirely —yet. They’re still there for more complex tasks, but by having the basics handled by an intelligent robot they can devote more of their time to what matters, like resolving problems and handling sales.

BEHIND THE SCENESAnalysing the kind of data that Connie and guest apps gather helps hotels plan strategy and, in particular, marketing activities. Hotels don’t always need to be looking so far into the future, though.

The more space a hotel devotes to storage, the less it’s able to earn from rooms and retail, so maintaining an efficient supply chain, with stock arriving close to the time when it’s needed, is key.

As we have already seen, the most effective guest apps are those that interact directly with the PMS—a factor that’s particularly relevant here. As guests order consumables or optional extras, stock levels will be

smaller rivals might not—but with Aruba this shouldn’t be an issue. The access points’ remote management tools can be set up to allow access from beyond the local network, for centralised management, a unified security policy and, ultimately, lower overheads.

The resulting network provided solid 1.3 Gbit/sec wireless connectivity, including along the hotel’s private 1.3km-long beach, with guaranteed security throughout. Being centrally managed, a small but dedicated IT team could monitor and shape network traffic, and update access points without requiring physical access.

“Complaints about poor network performance have virtually disappeared,” says Mehmet Akdeniz, director of IT and AV at Emirates Palace11. “Our business customers are often amazed to find how quickly we can accommodate their connectivity requirements.”

Yet this is just the first step as far as Emirates Palace is concerned. Future plans, which will roll out across the Aruba infrastructure, include in-house IPTV, gaming, music streaming and even smart-device room control.

Chapter 6: Challenges: IT security and privacyAt the very least, a hotel—or chain—needs to be collecting basic contact information—but stopping there is leaving the job half done. By making data integral to the guest’s stay, they can solicit a wider range of data in exchange for “smart”, personalised services.

Tying these together in a robust CRM will give an increasingly clear picture of guests’ likes and require-ments over time. Yet, collecting such diverse data places a responsibility on the hotel to ensure it is stored, managed and, when appropriate, deleted securely. With the enactment of GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, in May 2018, those who fail in this respect face potential fines of up to €20

million or 4 percent of the company’s global turnover.

A SECURE SOLUTIONOracle Opera is the world’s most popular PMS. It’s cloud-enabled, and integrates a hotel website with its distribution channels, allowing the hotelier to manage room inventory and use dynamic pricing to fill empty beds. Housekeeping will know when a guest has checked out without having to knock on doors as their view of the PMS updates when the guests performs self-check-out, or beacons in the hotel detect that they’ve left the premises.

It also allows the hotel to capture personal data like dietary requirements, and tailor each room service menu to the tastes of the occupant, theoretically driving higher sales of premium food services.

As a cloud-based solution it frees staff to break away from the front desk when required, and allows the venue to devote more of its team to looking after guests, rather than maintaining IT. From a security standpoint, outsourcing these services to the cloud also solves many of the problems of a locally-hosted solution. Being held off-site, the data is beyond the physical reach of either the hotel staff or intruders, and the servers on which the application runs are patched as soon as vulnerabilities are identified.

When the PMS is an integral part of a virtual key system, underpins your gift, food and drink outlets and handles bookings and billing, the benefit of outsourcing can be in the peace of mind it provides, as much as the savings it delivers.

SECURITY AT THE CLIENT LEVELYet, as we’ve discussed, a PMS is often only half of the solution, to which guests’ own devices have access. Although hotels can limit applications so they only install on up-to-date handsets, they have a commercial obliga-tion to support the last two or three OS versions if they want to collect the broadest possible range of usable data. To this extent, they’ll need to accommodate devices that might not be as secure as the back-end.

FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS—WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL

Aruba ClearPass does much to mitigate such concerns. While making it easy for guests to access hotel Wi-Fi, it places limits on what the device can access to neutral-ise potential vulnerabilities. The allied AirWave network management tools generate compliance reports, track appli-cation performance across different devices and identify issues on the network before they become discernible problems.

Security sits that the core of Aruba network products, with RFProtect prevent-ing denial-of-service and man-in-the-mid-dle attacks, as well as over-the-air security threats. Providing the industry’s only integrated wireless security and spectrum analysis system for enterprise WLANs, RFProtect can use Aruba access points as dedicated air monitors that focus on detecting and containing unauthorised APs and devices. Better still, being fully integrated means system admins will never need to evaluate third-party security add-ons for compatibility and suitability, and can be confident that software updates will work flawlessly with existing security provisions.

SummaryMore than half of travellers are willing to share their personal data, but only if they get something of value in return—so says Forrester research12, in a report commissioned by Sabre Hospitality Solutions.

“Building and maintaining customer loyalty isn’t simply about letting customers accumulate points,” says Sabre president, Alex Alt. “It’s about finding ways to make customers feel special and to recognise and honour their preferences. Hoteliers who use data and technology to elevate the customer experience will ultimately generate loyalty that drives revenue.”

The tools that help hoteliers do this are more diverse and fully-featured than at any other time in the history of hospitality. They allow hosts to track customers to within a few feet, sell products based on location, tailor services to each guest’s tastes and gather information that will help them attract repeat custom. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, it can also feed into the fundamentals of hotel design and the changing norms of the service industry.

No single solution will suit every venue, even within a single chain, but one factor ties them all together: they rely on robust, reliable and secure network infrastructure.

Guests might think of Wi-Fi as nothing more than a means of getting online. The fact that point of sale, management, security and myriad other services run off the same back end is one of the best-kept secrets in hospitality.

The stability of the networks delivered by Aruba helps keep it that way. From providing seamless broadband to unifying the hotel’s back office, Aruba’s range of location-aware access points, with integrated beacons, provide the necessary infrastructure while gathering vital analytics.

Up-selling, clearing unused inventory with time-limited offers and building customer loyalty can all take place while analys-ing how customers respond in real-time. The question, then, is less why a hotel should offer guests free Wi-Fi, and more what they’ll be losing if they don’t.

12

1 https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/s/delivery_production/docs/-FY16h1/doc35/Guest-Experience-Report-2016-V7.pdf 2 http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/jd-pow-er-2017-north-america-hotel-guest-satisfaction-index-study 3 https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/s/delivery_production/docs/-FY16h1/doc35/Guest-Experience-Report-2016-V7.pdf 4 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/travel/genius-in-our-mist.html 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_riaDBFMWM6 http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/netflix-ho-tel-room-vod-porn-1201953183/ 7 http://roomcast.teleadapt.com/ 8 aloft-hotels.starwoodhotels.com/hotel-technology9 https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/s/delivery_production/docs/-FY16h1/doc35/Creating-C-Guest-Experiences-E.pdf 10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC0I08qt5VU 11 https://issuu.com/computernewsme/docs/aruba_supplement_-_fi-nal-low_res 12 http://www.sabrehospitality.com/resources/hotel-indus-try-news/technology-and-data-hold-key-elusive-guest-loyalty-and-fuel

Sources

automatically updated in sync. Once they reach a lower limit, they can be flagged for re-ordering, ensuring that the venue neither runs out or finds itself over-stocked, and that by waiting until it can make a worthwhile order it benefits from the best possible supplier’s discount.

Chapter 5: Challenges: IT infrastructure and managementWe have already seen how Aruba handles Wi-Fi access and promotions through a unified interface, but Aruba is more than just a connection point. It’s an end-to-end solution that spans the guest app, hotel back end, and everything in between.

A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL NETWORKSite-wide networks are the backbone through which the hotel’s access system, security cameras, VoIP and cloud-enabled applications communicate and stay online. A robust, stable network is as important as electricity, water and air conditioning.

A fully-managed solution will separate the various traffic on the network, using QoS (Quality of Service) to prioritise the data on which the business is dependent. AppRF, built into Aruba’s networking hardware, lets system admins prioritise data, voice and video apps in real-time so that the PMS, point of sale and other mission-critical applications remain online at all times.

BANDWIDTH CONSIDERATIONSWithout sufficient bandwidth, however, QoS can only go so far. If guests can no longer access Netflix because the back-office is consuming more than its share of resources, a flurry of one-star reviews is sure to follow.

So how much bandwidth is sufficient? There are multiple considerations to take into account, and a site survey prior to any roll-out is essential. Where video streaming is concerned, Teleadapt

recommends budgeting 5 Mbit/sec per device, with an anticipated concurrent usage of one device in 20. The maths is fairly simple here: divide the number of rooms by four to get your answer (if you’re running a 1000-room hotel, budget for at least 250 Mbit/sec for video alone).

Alternative entertainment infrastructure will have varying overheads. Roomcast may be controlled wirelessly from the user’s device, but it streams over Ethernet and delivers its output over HDMI. A purely wireless solution will place strain on the Wi-Fi access point, as well as the underlying network, potentially impacting other users logged in through the same hub.

CASE STUDY: EMIRATES PALACE HOTELEmirates Palace Hotel provides internet access to more than 600 guests a day. When it’s hosting a conference, this number can double, yet it still needs to present its users with a simple, secure experience that’s no more difficult to use than their own home broadband.

As well as using the network to complete cloud-based business tasks, delegates would need to use video conferencing tools like Skype and Facetime. During their leisure, they might stream HD TV from a range of consumer services, including Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.

Having assessed its options, the hotel settled on Aruba Mobility Infrastructure, and installed more than 1,000 access points across its extensive estate. These are location-ready, so can be deployed as controller-managed, controllerless or for remote access, depending on the design, scope and scale of the network. Their native operating system, ArubaOS 8, offers seamless roaming for complete coverage, while the build-in AirMatch technology ensures every client associates with the best access point in their vicinity to provide a strong signal and optimal performance.

While the Emirates Palace Hotel has the necessary staff to manage the infrastructure locally, many

Chapter 4: Building partnerships & supply chain opportunitiesRolling out a site-wide digital infrastructure has never been more cost-effective. As we have seen, integrating with guests’ own devices further reduces overheads. Keyless locks, beacons, geofencing and in app purchases simplify interaction between a hotel and its guests and helps the host to gather analytics about its customers.

These physical data points are no less valuable than feedback showing a visitor’s path through a website. By monitoring aggregate data, they can track guests within the property, which informs future hotel design and shows them which areas are over- and under-used. High-traffic locations deliver effective marketing opportunities and will command premium rates from concession boutiques.

PRIME DIGITAL REAL ESTATEFor many guests, their most frequent interaction with the hotel’s digital real estate will be the Wi-Fi portal.

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company solution simplifies the task of onboarding guests to reduce the burden of support on the front desk, while its ClearPass technology integrates with popular PMS like Agilysys, Protel and Silverbyte.

A white-box solution offering custom branding, the portal UI can carry whatever content the venue should choose. In addition to in-house offers, this could include deals with key partners—both digital and physical.

More than half of all hotel guests turn to non-hotel sources for in-destination queries, according to Oracle9. These queries include recommendations for activities and restaurants. Being able to capture this traffic for itself by presenting recommendations in an easily-accessible location allows the hotel to push its own services and those of its partners.

THE HYBRID HUMAN TOUCHYet, not all of this promotion needs to—or should—happen on the guest’s own device. The ideal mix combines digital and personal interaction, which Hilton and IBM have taken one step further, with Connie, the robot concierge.

Using Watson, IBM’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine, Connie answers questions in the style of Google or Siri, while sensing guests’ emotions and urgency the way a human receptionist would. Unveiled in 2016, it employs a range of AI technologies, including speech-to-text, text-to-speech and natural language classifiers—and logs every interaction so the hotel can learn more about its customers’ needs.

Much of the information is drawn from WayBlazer, a Watson-driven recommendation platform that analyses cues from the guest’s input to determine the most appropriate output. The results are based not only on what the hotel might like to present, but reviews, blog posts and recommendations posted online.

Connie isn’t designed to replace reception staff entirely —yet. They’re still there for more complex tasks, but by having the basics handled by an intelligent robot they can devote more of their time to what matters, like resolving problems and handling sales.

BEHIND THE SCENESAnalysing the kind of data that Connie and guest apps gather helps hotels plan strategy and, in particular, marketing activities. Hotels don’t always need to be looking so far into the future, though.

The more space a hotel devotes to storage, the less it’s able to earn from rooms and retail, so maintaining an efficient supply chain, with stock arriving close to the time when it’s needed, is key.

As we have already seen, the most effective guest apps are those that interact directly with the PMS—a factor that’s particularly relevant here. As guests order consumables or optional extras, stock levels will be

smaller rivals might not—but with Aruba this shouldn’t be an issue. The access points’ remote management tools can be set up to allow access from beyond the local network, for centralised management, a unified security policy and, ultimately, lower overheads.

The resulting network provided solid 1.3 Gbit/sec wireless connectivity, including along the hotel’s private 1.3km-long beach, with guaranteed security throughout. Being centrally managed, a small but dedicated IT team could monitor and shape network traffic, and update access points without requiring physical access.

“Complaints about poor network performance have virtually disappeared,” says Mehmet Akdeniz, director of IT and AV at Emirates Palace11. “Our business customers are often amazed to find how quickly we can accommodate their connectivity requirements.”

Yet this is just the first step as far as Emirates Palace is concerned. Future plans, which will roll out across the Aruba infrastructure, include in-house IPTV, gaming, music streaming and even smart-device room control.

Chapter 6: Challenges: IT security and privacyAt the very least, a hotel—or chain—needs to be collecting basic contact information—but stopping there is leaving the job half done. By making data integral to the guest’s stay, they can solicit a wider range of data in exchange for “smart”, personalised services.

Tying these together in a robust CRM will give an increasingly clear picture of guests’ likes and require-ments over time. Yet, collecting such diverse data places a responsibility on the hotel to ensure it is stored, managed and, when appropriate, deleted securely. With the enactment of GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, in May 2018, those who fail in this respect face potential fines of up to €20

million or 4 percent of the company’s global turnover.

A SECURE SOLUTIONOracle Opera is the world’s most popular PMS. It’s cloud-enabled, and integrates a hotel website with its distribution channels, allowing the hotelier to manage room inventory and use dynamic pricing to fill empty beds. Housekeeping will know when a guest has checked out without having to knock on doors as their view of the PMS updates when the guests performs self-check-out, or beacons in the hotel detect that they’ve left the premises.

It also allows the hotel to capture personal data like dietary requirements, and tailor each room service menu to the tastes of the occupant, theoretically driving higher sales of premium food services.

As a cloud-based solution it frees staff to break away from the front desk when required, and allows the venue to devote more of its team to looking after guests, rather than maintaining IT. From a security standpoint, outsourcing these services to the cloud also solves many of the problems of a locally-hosted solution. Being held off-site, the data is beyond the physical reach of either the hotel staff or intruders, and the servers on which the application runs are patched as soon as vulnerabilities are identified.

When the PMS is an integral part of a virtual key system, underpins your gift, food and drink outlets and handles bookings and billing, the benefit of outsourcing can be in the peace of mind it provides, as much as the savings it delivers.

SECURITY AT THE CLIENT LEVELYet, as we’ve discussed, a PMS is often only half of the solution, to which guests’ own devices have access. Although hotels can limit applications so they only install on up-to-date handsets, they have a commercial obliga-tion to support the last two or three OS versions if they want to collect the broadest possible range of usable data. To this extent, they’ll need to accommodate devices that might not be as secure as the back-end.

Aruba ClearPass does much to mitigate such concerns. While making it easy for guests to access hotel Wi-Fi, it places limits on what the device can access to neutral-ise potential vulnerabilities. The allied AirWave network management tools generate compliance reports, track appli-cation performance across different devices and identify issues on the network before they become discernible problems.

Security sits that the core of Aruba network products, with RFProtect prevent-ing denial-of-service and man-in-the-mid-dle attacks, as well as over-the-air security threats. Providing the industry’s only integrated wireless security and spectrum analysis system for enterprise WLANs, RFProtect can use Aruba access points as dedicated air monitors that focus on detecting and containing unauthorised APs and devices. Better still, being fully integrated means system admins will never need to evaluate third-party security add-ons for compatibility and suitability, and can be confident that software updates will work flawlessly with existing security provisions.

FROM REVENUE TO CUSTOMER STICKINESS—WHY YOUR HOTEL MUST BE DIGITAL