Hotel-tech in overdrive - How to onboard a hotel in a day

Accor, a global hotel company, has set an ambitious goal to become the first hotel company to enable owners to onboard a hotel in 24 hours. The company recognizes the challenges of the traditional onboarding process, including the need for quick technology deployment, reduction of repetitive tasks, cyber security, and easy training for staff. Accor plans to address these challenges by maximizing the use of cloud technology, automation, and establishing a 'zero trust' security environment. The company aims to move all of its applications and assets to the cloud in the next few years for better cost efficiency, security, and streamlining. Automation will also help reduce administrative tasks, and biometrics will simplify the check-in process. The final challenge for Accor is the hiring and retention of staff, which is becoming increasingly difficult in the hospitality industry.

By temperament, tech people are impatient: we love the next exciting possibility and to imagine how tech solutions can make things quicker and easier. Since my first pre-opening over two decades ago, I have been frustrated and fascinated by how long the process of getting a new hotel on board can take from a technology perspective. It’s been accepted that preparations can take as long as six months, which today, is simply far too slow.

It only takes 48 hours to become an Uber driver or 30 minutes to become an AirBnB host. For Accor, this realization has helped us define one of our key strategic challenges for the future. Can we set up a hotel in 24 hours? We believe we will.

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The Hotel Yearbook 2023 - Annual Edition

As we have embarked on 2023, it is evident that the hotel industry has made a robust recovery from the pandemic. Occupancy and pricing have returned to their pre-pandemic levels. However, the future of our industry is contingent on how nimble the hospitality sector can be in adapting to ongoing innovation, changing market conditions, evolving consumer preferences, new staffing challenges, and sustainability realities. These uncertainties are the new normal in an unpredictable world.
www.hotelyearbook.com/edition/2023.html