Hotels Are Still Too Slow to Adopt Tech Post-Pandemic
Skift Take
Even after the pandemic decimated the hotel industry, operators are still shy about adopting new technologies — and they’re inevitably losing precious dollars because of it.
Travel Tech Briefing
Editor’s Note: Exclusive reporting on technology’s impact on the travel industry, delivered every Thursday. The briefing will guide executives as they decide if their companies should “build, buy, or partner” to stay ahead.Before the pandemic hit, hotels had spent roughly 2.5 percent of revenue on new technologies. The size of that investment dropped during the pandemic.
Many hoteliers have said that they are implementing new technology now, or they plan to. A 2022 survey of 500 hoteliers by hotel tech company Stayntouch and the NYU Tisch Center of Hospitality found that 50 percent expected to grow innovation by the end of 2022.
Despite the growth, it’s not happening fast enough — especially considering the financial state of the industry — and hotels are needlessly losing money to inefficient systems in the process. Yes, it takes money to adopt new technology, but there is a payoff long-term — that's how investment works.
All of the third-party hotel tech companies, new or old, each contract a small fraction of the number of hotels worldwide, though their
