The hospitality industry is gaining competition for quite a few months. 2021 was a landmark year in the hospitality management industry where everyone saw some revolutionary changes which made the expectations of the customers rise to the sky.
The hospitality industry is very diverse in nature that includes everything from hotels and other accommodation sectors, to restaurants, bars, travel agents and even tour operators are considered in the hospitality industry. After the lockdown ended, the priorities of the customers changed drastically due to Covid and they started to focus on the comfort and views rather than the cost associated with it. The hospitality industry has become very competitive, and businesses are required to keep up with the latest hospitality trends of the market to avoid being left behind by customers.
Additionally, keeping pace with the industry as a whole is a great way to ensure your business delivers the kind of customer experience people want and expect. With the rise of more and innovative technologies, hospitality management is all set to create a new benchmark for every new startup in the same region.
Speaking of technology, the rise of technology like artificial intelligence has led to a trend where machine learning can be seen in the market very frequently, and Artificial Intelligence technology is deployed more frequently for customer service purposes.
All the sectors that are mentioned above and are a part of the hospitality industry should be well aware of what the trends are going on in the market to attract their past customers as well as new customers increasing their revenue. Here are some of the most important hospitality trends accelerated by the pandemic. Although COVID played a major role in accelerating these trends, there is a good chance that these trends will stick around for a very long time.
1: Contactless Payments-
Starting up with the key trends in hospitality management, contactless payments have skyrocketed like anything during the times of Covid. This is not a new method but has been used very frequently when covid made you go contactless for everything. Contactless Payments make it very easy for the customers to make the payments. This method is very secure bringing in the trust of both parties making it an even more important trend to follow by all the hospitality management industry.
Aside from removing friction and improving the customer experience, contactless payments have helped the customer to pay from wherever and whenever they want. Many customers or even staff members feel very uncomfortable in handling a huge amount of cash and providing the option for contactless payments may be seen by many as a necessity rather than a luxury.
2: Robots and Automation in Hotels-
Speaking of technology, automation, and artificial intelligence; Post covid, many hotels have started to use robots to serve their customers in order to give the best services with better efficiency. Within the hotel setting, robots have been used to offer room service, perform cleaning, and other housekeeping chores.
Meanwhile, the other sector of hospitality management which is the restaurants potentially use robots to carry out aspects of food service. This can be especially useful when dealing with restaurant customers who are trying to reduce close contact with people as much as possible. As Covid taught us to maintain social distancing with people, robots are the new age automated machines who will serve the customers in almost all sectors of hospitality management with better efficiency.
3: Mobile Check-In Service-
Mobile Check-In Service is primarily associated with hotels, resorts, and other forms of accommodation. Offering a mobile check-in service is one of the most useful and fancy hospitality trends for reducing the need for human-to-human contact and this is an especially important concept within the context of the COVID pandemic and to sustain the social distancing norm given by the government.
With that being said, not only during the Covid times, even in more normal times, mobile check-ins can allow customers to benefit from self-service and will make the arrivals part of the customer experience much faster.
4: Personalization-
Personalization can be deployed in a variety of ways within the hospitality management industry and is one of the most trending methods used by this industry. Within hotels, or resorts, for instance, returning customers can be automatically provided with similar services to the last time they stayed, this would make them even more comfortable and they will feel very elated that the hotel still remembers their past services. The customers can also be personally greeted by a member of staff upon arrival, using GPS technology and booking data. This will help the first appearance and image of the hotel to leverage by great levels. This would also enable all the new customers to come back again to enjoy these services.
5: Tasty and Healthy Food-
Because of the pandemic, many people restrained themselves in their homes where they did not eat food in hotels, restaurants, etc. Thus, not only after Covid, this trend of giving the best quality food which is healthy and organic to the customers is the most essential part of hospitality management. Most of the customers rate the hotel by the food they get to eat and thus, it is very necessary to provide the customers with good food on time of their preference. Some of the hotels, resorts, and other accommodation places have discovered a new way to have a fixed time slot for their food servings. This does not only help the hotels but also the guests to have flexible timings for eating good food.
These were some of the key trends of the hospitality management industry which came in trend because of the pandemic but are here to stay. Every sector of the hospitality management industry will be affected by these trends and would have to abide by these trends as well.