Hospitality Enhances With Digital Edge

Technologies are significantly changing our lives and the industries, and India’s hospitality industry is no exception to this all pervasive trend.

- Swarnendu Biswas

Technologies are significantly changing our lives and the industries, and India’s hospitality industry is no exception to this all pervasive trend. Several facets of digital technology are influencing guests to select a hospitality property, are influencing guests’ satisfaction levels within their stay at the property, and are also influencing in permeating guests’ feedback about the property across the globe, after they have left the concerned property.

One obvious example of the role of digital technology in hospitality is of a potential guest browsing through various hotel websites before online booking of room/s of a particular hotel; a hotel whose information and presentation of content on its website matches her/his criterion.

In fact, online hotel booking is no longer an emerging trend in India’s hospitality industry; it has already gone mainstream. According to a Google India-BCG report titled Demystifying the Indian Online Traveller, by 2020 one in three hotel rooms in India will be booked online. According to the same report, India’s online hotel market will grow to 4 billion USD by 2020, with 31 percent penetration, at a CAGR of 25 percent. It goes without saying that abundance of smart phones is one of the important factors facilitating online hotel booking in the country.

Soft Copy of Hotels

And a person booking online is very much likely to browse through various hotel reviews and hotel websites before arriving at her/his choice of the hotel. “We want to gauge our market at every stage of the guest journey, especially in the planning stage. Today’s guests also make spontaneous travel plans when on the move and book tickets & hotel rooms over their phones, thereby making the need of a relevant website that is mobile optimal extremely vital to increasing our chances to be their hotel of choice,” explained Ajith Nair, DOSm of Novotel Imagica Khopoli.