German Hotel Technology Landscape: Hotels must pursue a strong digital strategy to succeed in the market after the crisis
To give hotel executives an insight into the hotel tech market, the first report about the German Hotel Technology Landscape was published today by Hotelhero in partnership with the Hotelverband Deutschland (IHA) and in cooperation with HSMA Deutschland e.V. and techtalk.travel. This report underlines the importance for hotels to rely on a strong digital strategy in order to succeed in the market after the lockdown. At the same time, 80% of the surveyed managers in the hotel industry still complain about fundamental problems with regard to interfaces, budgets and data standardisation.
Otto Lindner, Chairman of the Hotelverband Deutschland e.V. "Although the COVID-19 pandemic is currently overshadowing almost all areas of everyday hotel life, it is particularly important to set the right course for the future. A major challenge for the hotel industry lies in the implementation of new technologies in existing infrastructure and their flexible interchangeability. More than ever before, hotels are required to adapt their business models, renew processes, make IT architectures more flexible and consistently expand digital communication channels. The need for action and support on the way to digitalisation is very different and individual for each hotel company."
Florian Montag, Managing Director and co-founder of Hotelhero, explains: "One can see that the subject of digitalisation, as a result of the pandemic, has become more important in the industry, but unfortunately there are still too many obstacles for hotels. Many experts hoped that the only positive outcome of the pandemic would be a digital boom for the industry, but this has not materialised due to lack of budgets and investment uncertainties." Montag emphasises: "Hotels must rely on an overall digital strategy and make sure that their system landscape is fully connected. The automation of processes and a technology ecosystem that offers flexibility will be more important than ever in the future".
The lack of interfaces, budgets and data standardisation make it difficult for most hotels to adopt the model of the interconnected plug & play platform known from other industries, such as retail. Given the lack of innovation in industry-specific solutions, some hotel groups, such as H-Hotels.com or Maritim Hotels, are turning to cross-industry solutions to meet their needs and requirements. It is to be expected that this trend will become even more important in the future.
The report shows that the focus for hotels is on digitalising processes around the guest journey and automating tasks around the check-in/out process. Currently, most executives see online check-in as the most important trend in the industry. Out of 41 analysed German hotel brands, almost 44% have a solution to either completely or partially digitalise the check-in process. Fully automating these processes is much more difficult for existing properties than for new builds. "After the pandemic, however, the human component will also come back to the forefront, because being able to automate a check-in/out, payment and invoicing process does not mean that there can be no more human interaction. It only means that manual tasks are automated. The technology will streamline processes and enable reception staff to act as real hosts," says Martin Stegner, CIO Novum Hospitality
"The Report about the German hotel technology landscape and our IHA Marketplace, where association members can register free of charge to find the systems that best fit the hotel's particular system set-up, are two excellent tools for quickly and easily gaining an overview of the latest technologies and respective providers. We are very pleased that with Hotelhero at our side we can bring more transparency and comparability for hoteliers into the tech jungle." rejoices Otto Lindner
The report is available for download to IHA members at www.hotellerie.de or can be downloaded free of charge from https://info.hotelhero.tech/en/german-hotel-technology-landscape-2020
About Hotelhero
Hotelhero is the online platform for hotel software. Hotelhero centralizes the search process and simplifies the technology selection for hotels. The platform introduces transparency into the hotel-tech market and helps hoteliers to make educated and confident purchasing decisions. Julien Schmit, Thibault Gence and Florian Montag founded the company in 2017 and officially brought Hotelhero on the market in April 2018.
Website: Hotelhero.tech I Twitter: @Hotelhero1 I Facebook: facebook.com/hotelhero.tech I Linkedin: @Hotelhero
Florian Montag
Co-Founder
