Introduction
The following research paper analyzes in-room technologies used in the hotel rooms, which have been used by most hotels globally. It also looks into how the technological advances all over the globe affect the hotel industry and how the industry is prepared to adopt the in-room technologies which are used inside the hotel rooms specifically for the guests. The hotel management directly provides the technologies by installing the devices in all the rooms.
The management can also facilitate the use of such technologies by installing the necessary hardware and software to enable the guests to use their devices when in the rooms. The research highlights the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities as well as threats presented by these technologies to the hotel industry, and hotel rooms services in particular.
The first part of the discussion touches upon different factors that have facilitated the development of the in-room technology as part of the background information. The second part explores different types of in-room technologies used in hotels. The final part of this essay is a SWOT analysis of the in-room technologies to determine their benefits and costs that they bring to the hotel industry.
Background information
In the past hotel would provide a bed and a linen and the guests would be fully satisfied with such things. However, nowadays the hotels have intensified the marketing and competition for the travelers in the hotel industry. The gyms or spacious rooms are not enough to provide comfort when travelling (Clow, 2003).
The modern technologies have been integrated into everyday life and most of the guests cannot agree to live in an area where there are no technological services such as the internet, television or power connections to charge their cell phones. This means that the modern technologies must be accounted for when taking care of the guests.
The hotel markets have also changed drastically due to the increased availability of information for the travelers on where they can get fair rooms services enabling the guests to compare places where they can receive the utmost value for their investment.
This has reduced customer loyalty hence programs previously offered by the hotel companies to loyal customers have not been effective as they were previously. The baby boomers’ generation that is considered loyal and has been the target of the hotels service providers has diminished and there are new markets from generation X that is people born between 1960’s and 1980’s (Nicholas, 2007).
With the increased competition among the hotel service provides, the need to provide in room services has been on the rise. Days when the recreation and hotel rooms were for people on transit and leisure alone, are gone. Hotel rooms need to accommodate the travelers’ preferences (Schultz, 2000).
The modern day guests in the hotel rooms are not concerned with the outdoor experiences only but want a place where they can be entertained while in their rooms. This means that the hotels must have ways of providing in-room entertainment to the guests.
The hotel room technologies
The first technology is the television, which is important in the hotel rooms. The guests prefer hotel rooms that will keep them abreast with what is happening outside the rooms, in other words, in the world. Although guests prefer hotels with mainstream television channels, hotel service providers who want to cut a niche in the market and develop return customers, have to provide cable television to the rooms.
This is preferable for the customers who want in-room entertainment and may prefer to watch movies or cable programs through the cable television. For guests who prefer to watch movies a Video player or VCR player is preferred (Ming, Yang & Zhong, 2000).
The second major device, which is of importance in the hotel rooms is the power plug with multi plug power sockets to allow the guests to connect to the electricity. These are imperative as the modern day guests and travelers have devices such as laptops, cell phones, and Ipads, which they have to connect to the power sources. Having multiple power plugs will be advantageous because it will enable the guests to use different types of technological equipment that they have (Ming, Yang & Zhong, 2000).
The other device that is useful as part of in-room technology that must be in hotel rooms is the customized speakers where the guests in their rooms can interconnect iPods, laptops, music and entertainment for themselves (Ming, Yang & Zhong, 2000). It enables the guests to customize the entertainment in their rooms to suit their preferences.
Having internet connection in the room is very imperative because it is a key component of modern day guesthouses. In the advent of the modern day technology, guests move around with their laptops and may need to communicate with their friends through the social networks.
Others may be in a hotel on business trip so they need to use Internet for the work purposes. Therefore, internet connectivity is a major technology that will brand the company as a guesthouse and is a way of increasing the resources and capital of the company. Most of the hotels have WIFI internet connection where the roomers can interconnect their laptops to the connection. Some managers of the guesthouses prefer to have networked computers interconnected with the internet (Pickton, 2000).
The other device nowadays being considered part of in-room technology is the dial up phone. It is a device, which allows the consumers to communicate with the hotel attendants in case they need any service. This device has contributed to the increased privacy of the guests as they do not have to move in and out of the room to request for a service.
The third in-room technology that is on the rise in its use is the mood lights or light adjustment systems. It allows the guests to control the rooms’ lighting in such a way that the guests can use lighting to create the desired mood for relaxation. The lightings are imperative in the creation of the desired atmosphere for the clients. Other than light adjustments, air conditioning in the rooms is imperative as it ensures that the guests are comfortable with the temperature (Ming, Yang & Zhong, 2000).
The other devices that the hotels have to provide are gaming equipment. The generation Y and generations X guests have a tendency to engage in computer games. Providing devices that have games is critical to the development of guests’ entertainment. Gaming devices such as PC and game boards are the major source of indoor recreation and most of the young guests prefer hotels that have such devices.
The other devices that are useful in the hotel rooms are the mirror televisions. These are televisions installed in the washrooms to ensure that the guests are catered for and entertained. Mirror televisions have touch screens which enable guests to adjust them when need arises. The other device used inside the rooms is the internet radio device that connects to more than four thousand radio stations (Ming, Yang & Zhong, 2000).
SWOT analysis of in-room technologies
The following is an analysis of in-room technologies discussing the effects of the room technologies by analyzing its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as well as the implications of having in-room technology in the hotels.
The strengths
In-room technologies present the following strengths in a hotel. The first strength or advantage that they offer to the hotel service is that they provide the customers with high quality services.
In travelling and hotels industry, experience that the guest has is what determines whether the client will come and stay again or not. Providing in-room technologies gives the travelers hosted in the hotels a near-home experience where they can customize the technologies to suit the atmosphere that they have at home.
This gives the guests a good experience as they enjoy the services provided. At a time when many people have access to the new technology, many of the guests cannot stay without their cell phones, laptops and iPods.
It is imperative for any hotel service provider who wishes to use this technology to make an effort of providing support services that will accommodate the use of those gadgets in the rooms where the guests are. Apple has sold more than one hundred million smart phones and iPods, which are popular and almost everyone with high disposable income has a Smartphone, a camera, or a laptop. Therefore, preparing the rooms to be accommodative to the guest’s technological devices is imperative (Zhang, 2010).
The other advantage posed by the in-room technologies is that they result into increased guests’ satisfaction. Feedback from guests indicates that they appreciate guestrooms that have WIFI connections.
They also appreciate the ability to customize entertainment in their rooms by interconnecting iPods to the speakers so they can listen to their own musical preferences or playlist other than the one provided in the hotel rooms. This shows that the hotels that have such services create an exceptional experience to the guests and the guests therefore feel satisfied and are likely to return to the hotel or recommend the services offered to another person.
In- room technologies are more effective in maintaining customer loyalty than other loyalty and bonus programs offered to loyal customers. The guests nowadays have more information on places where they can be accommodated at a fair price and increased competition among the hotel industry players. Loyalty programs are not effective and there is need for improvement.
The modern day guest is not loyal, they are dynamic, their preferences are unpredictable, and getting them committed to the service of one service provider is a difficult task. However, hotels have intensified their installation of in-room technologies to ensure that the customers have a good experience in their rooms and have reported increased sales from return customers. This shows that in-room technologies provide an added advantage to the hotel service providers (Zhang, 2010).
Due to the complexity and costs of installing in-room technologies hotels that have in-room technologies have reported high level of sales as well as having a definite competitive edge. The competition has significantly reduced in instances where the hotels had better in-room technologies as it gave them a competitive edge over their competitors.
The increased service provision for different types of people enables the hotel service provider to offer services and satisfaction to two distinct groups of travelers and guests. There are those who visit the hotel as business travelers, who are on transit to a particular destination. These types of travelers look for a place where they can relax as they are informed of the business developments. They therefore need in-room technologies as part of their travel.
The second category of guests that in-room technologies assist the hotel service providers to reach are the leisure travelers who are seeking for an in door experience outside home. Such travelers seek hotels that have indoor leisure facilities where they can relax and play games. In-room technologies enable the hotel service providers to increase their sales by reaching out this group of guests (Zhang, 2010).
The other strength of in-room technologies is that they enable the hoteliers to have different types of guests. It is imperative for the hoteliers to know that guests of different age categories have different leisure preferences hence different in room technologies are required for them. For instance, baby boomers that is, people born in 1950’s prefer television as their choice of entertainment. They also have a liking for slow music, classical music and jazz.
Providing them with in-room technologies that will enable them to watch television as well as listen to their favorite music will give the hotels an added advantage, as it will provide the guests with the desired experience. In addition, this generation has a tendency to be loyal and therefore providing them with the satisfactory services to ensure that they have increased loyalty is imperative to the development of increased profits and sales volume of the hotel (Pickton, 2000).
The generation X made up of people born in the 1960’s and 1970s has a tendency to have a high sense of self and are highly individualistic. Since they were born in time when technology was gaining momentum, they prefer in-room technologies that allow them to access the internet. They prefer indoor games and are perfectionists.
To reach out this group of people the most important thing is to ensure that the rooms have WIFI, power plug-in to help them connect with their devices including gaming ones to allow them to play games (Pickton, 2000).
The in-room technologies also allow the hotel service providers to reach out to the generation Y, which has ability to use technology than the previous generations. This generation is attached to the cell phone, which they use for different purposes. To reach out to this generation, it is imperative to have technological devices such as power plug to allow them charge their cell phones, customized speakers to enable them play their play lists as well as WIFI to connect to the internet.
This will play a major role in providing a good experience to those in this generation. Such technologies are crucial to the hotelier in appealing to guests who are in different generations. They enable the hotel to have customized services for each guest as per their preferences. The in-room technologies also increase the efficiency of service provision especially through the dial up connections where the guests can connect to the attendants and request for particular services as quickly as they wish (Ming, Yang & Zhong, 2000).
Weaknesses of in-room technologies
The first weakness is the financial implication that these technologies have on the hotels. This type of technology is capital intensive and involves high expenditure. The initial cost of set up for instance the WIFI connections may involve spending $10, 000. Installing television devices in every room will cost $600.
Installing the air conditioners in the rooms will cost $300 for each room. Installing the gaming devices in the rooms that will allow the guests to play the games they wish will cost about $700. Other services such as having dial up connection in the rooms where the guests can make calls will cost $200.
Providing customized lighting devices to allow the guests to change the mood in their room by adjusting the lights will cost $300. The power plug-ins to allow the guest charge devices that they move around with will cost $50. This shows that the installation of in-room technologies is very costly and capital intensive (Clow, 2007).
The second weakness that in-room technologies have is related to the maintenance costs. It is expensive to maintain these gadgets because they have to be customized to suit clients needs. Some of the guests may mess up with the gadgets, which may result in added costs for repairs and maintenance. Providing broadband and WIFI for the internet connections is expensive (Zhang, 2001).
The other weakness is that the guests cannot use all these gadgets at the same time. This means that even if they are installed some of the in-room technologies may remain unused for a long period and the hoteliers cannot remove such gadgets, as they may not know the customers’ preferences. In addition, when installing the in-room technologies the hotelier has to install the gadgets in all rooms because one cannot predetermine the guests’ preferences (Strokes, 2010).
The fourth weakness of in-room technologies is that the technologies are changing faster and what is in use today is considered obsolete in the following years.
This means that the hotels have to keep on shopping and bringing in new technologies to suit the dynamism of technologies because the consumers are also adopting new technologies faster than it was in the past. In addition, other competitors are also quick in adjusting to new technologies. Meeting the guests’ expectations is therefore a major challenge of the technology (Zhang, 2010).
The second weakness of the in-room technology is that they are at times perceived as designed to infringe the guest’s privacy. For example, installation of the CCTV and micro cameras to monitor the guest in case there is an emergency or a situation that calls for the hotel attendants. Such micro cameras infringe the guest’s privacy and guests do not prefer places where they know that they are being monitored (Clow, 2003).
The other weakness of these technologies is that they have diminished hotel revenues in terms of costs such as communication costs. In the 1980’s the hotels and guest rooms received huge amount of revenues from the calls that the guests had to make on the telephone booths installed in the hotel. Currently, with almost every guest having cell phones and laptops such revenues have ceased (Strokes, 2010).
The in-room technologies demand additional support services such as the installation of the enterprise resource planning by the administration. The enterprise resource planning software are technologies designed to reduce the operational costs and activities by using software operating from one location that is interconnected to all the devices and computers in the organization. The software provides alert when a device malfunctions or when a guest is in need of a particular service.
They enable the hotel to analyze the guests booked or particular rooms in advance and thereby provide the necessary services and technologies that will suit that particular guest. Although the support services are advantageous, they pose a challenge as they have additional costs. The cheapest enterprise resource software for the hotel industry costs about $500. This makes the installation of in-room technologies have a huge financial bearing on the business (Pickton, 2000).
Providing the in-room technologies alone does not imply that there will be resultant increase in hotel room bookings immediately. This means that the company has to continue to promote and market the hotel services as it did previously. The in-room technologies do not replace the traditional marketing methods.
The hotels have to continue their marketing and advertising programs for them to reach the potential hotel guests. In many instances when the hotels concentrate on installing the devices, they starve their marketing budget, which results in low sales volume, and eventual reduction of revenues even after the company has invested capital in the installation of in-room devices (Pickton, 2000).
Opportunities
The in-room technologies present an opportunity of growth for the hoteliers who have invested in the technologies at a time when globalization saw many people travelling from one place to another. It is estimated that more than five hundred million people in the globe have spent their time in a hotel during travel. This figure will rise up by the year 2015 to about seven hundred and fifty million people (Ming, Yang & Zhong, 2000).
The hotel companies need to prepare for this increase by having in-room technologies already installed in the hotel rooms (Nicholas, 2007).
The second opportunity that the in-room technology brings is related to the fact that the economy will recover from the global recession and that there will be more jobs and people will have disposable income. This will lead to inversed leisure activities and hotel industry must prepare for that opportunity by installing different types of in-room technologies that will appeal to the potential guests (Gregory, 1997).
The baby boomer generation is retiring and the generation Y is now starting to enter the workplace. Soon they will have high disposable income to afford the services provided. This generation’s choices of products and services depend on quality, hype and associations that the product or services provide. It is imperative for companies that want to be relevant in the future to start investing in the in-room technologies to benefit from this wide upcoming market for the hotel services (Morgan, 2006).
The increased business travel has presented a huge opportunity for hoteliers who have the in-room technologies. Hotels with the state of the art of in-room technologies have an added advantage due to the fact that many companies choose them as their preference or preferred hotels during their trips.
The increased awareness about business networking and trainings has seen many of the companies sponsoring conferences and seminars for their staff in order to network and interact with people from other companies. Such trainings and seminars include business travel and in most cases, the hotel service providers selected are those that have in-room technologies to allow the workers to do the business in their rooms. This shows that the in-room technologies present an opportunity for hoteliers to exploit (Schultz, 2000).
The other opportunity is that there is increased appreciation of indoor recreation where the guests or travelers prefer indoor recreation activities rather than outdoor recreation because most people prefer recreations that will give them leisure and a chance to recuperate while keeping in touch with what is happening in the outside world.
Other forms of outdoor recreation like hunting, mountain hiking, site seeing means that the guest or traveler may be alienated from the crucial devices such as cell phones and laptops. This makes it hard for the guests to appreciate such experiences and prefer instances where they can engage in recreation activities while at the same time engaging in activities that will interconnect them with the resources necessary in the development of appropriate resources (Pickton, 2000).
Threats
The following are threats that the in-room technologies present to the hoteliers. The first one is that they threaten the robust activities of travel such as site seeing as they keep the guest inside the room and deny them the opportunity to move around, shop as well as do other outdoor activities. The second major challenge presented by in-room technologies is linked with the fact that in-room technologies are expensive and may not present immediate financial results even after the installation of these technologies.
This calls for development of the technologies commensurate with the hoteliers’ capability to avoid losses and inability to fund other critical operations of the hotel such as marketing and managerial operations (McDonald, 2007).
The technologies are changing rapidly and what is on offer today is usually obsolete in the next two years. This is a major threat to the hoteliers who have to develop mechanisms of having up-to-date technologies to avoid investing in particular device that the future guests will find obsolete and outdated (Morgan, 2006).
The other threat presented by in-room technologies is that they make it hard for the hotelier to decide on the best entertainment to provide as the guests have different preferences. The hoteliers are thereby compelled to provide customized devices and entertainment to suit the customer’s needs.
This implies that there will be additional costs to cater for this customization (Zhang, 2010). The customization is risky as it may make some of the devices malfunction. The in-room technologies present a threat or endanger other in-room or indoor recreation such as swimming, pool tables that keep the guests entertained in their rooms (Gregory, 1997).
The perception that some of the in-room technologies interfere with the guest’s privacy has seen the reduction of security concerned guests preferring hotels where there are no such technologies. In-room technologies such as CCTV cameras reduce the number of guests in the hotel rooms because guests do not want to be monitored (Zhang, 2010).
Due to the high costs incurred in the installation of in-room technologies, some of the hotels have resulted to overcharging the guest or increasing the prices of their services above the current market prices. This results in low sales volume and affects the company negatively due to low profits for the hotelier even after investing in the in-room technologies (Zhang, 2010).
Conclusion
In-room technologies are critical to the creation and development of hotel profits. They create long-term motivation to the guest thus encouraging return customers. The in-room technologies interlink or are interrelated with the return on investment that the company would have.
There is need to ensure that in-room technologies are accompanied by well planned integrated marketing communications designed to appeal potential guests by portraying the advantages of in-room technologies in the guest rooms. The provision of such services is imperative in the development of the hotel industry in order to attract and retain potential customers.
By taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the in-room technologies, companies with the technologies will have an edge over their competitors. It is not only important to adopt the in-room technologies but also research and engage in development projects.
This will ensure that managers research and develop technologies that will give the guests the best experiences possible. The hoteliers must learn how to balance between the installation of the in-room devices and recovering the initial investment without overcharging the guests which has direct implication of reduced sales volume.
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