Hotel business shows great promise of rising as one of the key sectors driving growth in the service industry. However, hospitality is the only industry where superior customer experience and offering enhanced services defines success. Hotels have always worked hard to provide a wonderful and comforting experience to their guests. Over the years, hoteliers have gained substantial knowledge regarding the guest’s expectations and requirements. By combining this experience and understanding of the latest IT trends, hotel owners are continuously trying to experiment with their existing infrastructure.
Continuous technology upgrades has increased the IT spending of every hotel. Looking at the statistics, the growth of IT sectors in hotels is increasing every year by approximately 10.7% from the last 5 years. Owing to the impact of digitalization on everyday lifestyle, guests have started expecting the same level of comfort at hotels too. Therefore, hotel owners are forced to invest in some high-end solutions that caters to guests’ requirement of remaining connected with the world.
Latest technological changes apparently require huge investment, but they offer much better features against old communication systems, billing systems, reception systems and food ordering functionality. These changes also play a major role in helping retain their existing guests and convert first time visitors to loyal guests.
- New communication systems have evolved from Analog to IP systems involving VOIP technology, which has further evolved to Unified Communications. Unified Communications is the latest technology, making communication device independent. For example you can pick up your mobile call from your desk phone or laptop, meaning you have the convenience and freedom of selecting any one of the interface as per your choice.
- New billing systems include Property Management Software (PMS) for simplified billing and report generation. The software can be directly integrated with the communication systems, offering configuration and monitoring of certain features such as call billing, report generation, alarms and much more from a consolidated interface.
- Modern hoteliers can also leverage the power of better reception services with Auto-attendant facility for frequently asked questions, in turn saving the front desk executives’ time and improving their productivity. Voicemail system enables a user to inform the caller regarding their unavailability and ask them to drop urgent messages in their mailbox. Bring Your Own Device attribute allows guests to use hotel communication system from their own devices like smartphones, tablets or laptops for calling, accessing internet, messaging, ordering food or laundry and availing other facilities offered by the hotel.
Many hotels are still dependent on the old communication systems and want to shift to latest technologies due to increasing guests’ requirements and impact of latest IT trends.
Change is the only constant in the world and it is proved daily by the ever-evolving advancements. A new technology named IoT (Internet of Things) is evolving, which is more advanced than Unified Communications. Even now, Unified Communications is considered a very new technology, but soon IoT will replace it for betterment.
If we differentiate between these two:
- Unified Communications: Real-time and non-real-time communications integrated to optimize business processes.
- Internet of Things: A network of everyday devices, appliances and other objects equipped with computer chips and sensors collect and transmit data through the internet.
The crux of pointing out the differences is that UC is more about unifying business communications whereas IoT is intended towards the end-user’s daily communication.
Thus, IT sector has brought a combined lot of challenges and opportunities for the hospitality sector which if addressed diligently can be used to get more customers and revenue. Therefore, to scale up as per the evolving technologies and trends has become essential for the hoteliers to sustain in the market.
Matrix SARVAM UCS – Unified Communication Server for Modern Enterprises is engineered to meet the distinct communication needs of small to large hotels with 20 to 3,000 rooms. SARVAM UCS offers built-in PMS and CAS integration for streamlining routine hotel operations. The single platform supports VOIP, POTS, GSM, BRI and PRI to satisfy the hotel’s need of accessing different networks from a compact system. It incorporates mobility extensions for Android/iOS based smartphones and Windows PC and CNR interface with HF/VHF/UHF radio network for secured connectivity. With a basket of facilities such as Personalized Guest Greetings, Check-in/Check-out, Guest-in/Guest-out, Room Clean, Reservation, Wake-up Calls and Reminders, Matrix Unified Communication Server help hotels enhance staff productivity and customer service.
