We sat down with Nikita Jones, Global Head of Customer Engagement, and Customer Success at Hudini, to ask her about the key challenges hoteliers face – and how to overcome them – when planning the roll-out of new hotel Tech.

In your role as Global Head of Customer Engagement and Customer Success, what are key challenges you see hoteliers face when implementing new technology and how can these be overcome?

From my experience, one of the biggest hurdles is when the team that initiates the search and selection of new Tech for a hotel are not necessarily the same people that will be responsible for the implementation, adoption and use of it in their daily work. This can lead to hesitation in taking ownership for the project from key stakeholders which can impact project delivery times and sometimes even results and ROI.

One way to overcome this, is for hotels to set up a project team from the onset, comprising stakeholders from across the business with clear responsibilities and shared accountability for success. This not only fosters engagement and communication but also helps in securing buy-in, driving adoption, and ensuring project ownership.

This is especially true for larger tech implementations that impact multiple departments in a hotel and for which the successful deployment relies on the support and assistance from different teams.

Where a cross functional project team is not the right fit for the project, another way to ensure successful deployment and adoption is to get key stakeholders involved as early as possible so they are aware of the project, have a clear understanding of the importance and value for the hotel, and perhaps most importantly, know their respective roles and responsibilities in the implementation. This will help balance priorities and create a sense of urgency to ensure teams are ready when they’re needed and have shared priorities and accountability for the success of the project. What we want to avoid at all cost is that teams see a tech implementation as additional work, or as a disruption to their own duties and priorities.

In your experience, what are some of the common hesitations or reservations hoteliers have when considering the adoption of AI-driven solutions and how can these be mitigated?

Hoteliers are often concerned about finding and keeping the right balance between tech and the human touch in the guest experience. They are keen to make operations more efficient and provide more personalised service but are conscious about replacing people with tech, especially when it comes to front of house services. They often also have hesitations about how new technologies integrate with their existing systems and solutions, avoiding risks of potential disruptions in service delivery and dependencies on other vendors.

To address these concerns, it’s important to work closely with hoteliers to understand their unique operational challenges, pain points and opportunities and to tailor tech solutions to their needs, their vision for innovation, service ethos and brand standards. Also important is to carefully consider their existing tech stack to ensure that new solutions seamlessly integrate.

When it comes to AI specifically, levels of comfort with the rapidly changing technologies differ vastly. Guest privacy and data security are key considerations and priorities for hoteliers and it’s important to address any concerns they have.

What new hotel Tech do you see the most demand for, what are the tech priorities for hotels?

Check-in remains one of the key priorities for hoteliers with a strong focus on enhancing the arrival experience, reducing queues at reception and the ability to provide more personalised services. Besides mobile and online check-in solutions hoteliers are increasingly looking for new ID verification tools, chat functionality, and payment solutions, including online tipping.

At Hudini we seamlessly connect with over 100 leading tech partners to create a cohesive and seamless guest experience. From PMS and POS to ID verification and payment solutions our solutions are amongst the more robust in the industry and yet easy to deploy.

What is the difference in new tech implementation for newly built hotels versus existing properties?

This is a great question and at Hudini we work with both new hotels and operational properties to implement our solutions. What is key to success in either scenario, is the readiness of the team for tech deployment.

In new hotels you have the opportunity to start from scratch; to design and develop a tech solution that is fully aligned with the tech vision and with less concerns about potentially complex integrations with existing systems. However, we often find that these projects can have a longer implementation cycle than in existing hotels because of construction and infrastructure timelines and the availability of key team members as they come onboard.

In operational hotels, Tech can be easier to deploy as the teams are already in place but integration with existing systems is critical to ensure the guest experience remains unaffected during the transition. With Hudini’s100+ APls from leaders in hospitality tech we can ensure seamless integration with existing systems, making the deployment easier.

You mentioned the importance of staff involvement and readiness in the successful deployment of new Tech in hotels, what recommendations to you have for staff engagement?

Firstly, it’s very important to have buy-in from leadership and have them actively involved in not just the implementation phase, but also in the selection and procurement of the new Tech to ensure it aligns with the hotel’s tech strategy and that there is confidence in the team on the vendor site to ensure successful deployment. This also provides a great opportunity for leaders to show how the technology will act as an enabler to help achieve the hotel’s vision and goals, to further enhance the guest experience and drive operational excellence and performance.

To ensure team readiness, we recommend translating the hotel’s tech vision and project goals into departmental and even individual objectives to establish cross functional ownership and accountability from the onset of the project and avoid teams working in silos.

Staff engagement doesn’t stop once the tech is deployed, continued effort post implementation to make the technology work for everyone involved is key. This includes training for new team members, refreshers for existing staff members as well as the use of the handbooks and materials we provide at Hudini as part of our starter packs post implementation. In addition, we highly encourage teams to stay in close touch with us to answer any questions they may have, share best practices and ensure the ongoing success of the tech in the hotel.