According to Lightspeed, the hotelier industry is at a tipping point when it comes to cloud solutions, with the industry expected to invest 7-8% more on the technology over the next 2 or 3 years. Trivago placed cloud-based software as one of the top Hotel trends to watch in 2018, stating that due to “a greater focus being placed on the quality of the guest experience than ever before, hotels of all sizes are looking to streamline operational processes and facilitate inter-staff communication as much as possible this year with cloud-based management systems.” Digital and cloud technologies are changing the way the world works and travels.
Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) Can Aid the Hospitality Industry in Top Tech Challenges
Every year, Hospitality Technology publishes a survey on Lodging Technology. For 2018, the top challenges the Hotel and Lodging industry is experiencing is maintaining the current infrastructure (33%) and the lack of a sufficient IT budget (40%). Cloud technologies, like Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) can help both of these challenges. Here’s how.
Challenges of Maintaining the Current Infrastructure
As the Hospitality Technology survey found, 33% of hotels surveyed are experiencing challenges with maintaining the current infrastructure. The challenges can vary from site to site but almost all can be put into one of the following buckets:
- Complexity of incorporating various disparate infrastructure
- High infrastructure costs such as the storage space required to support and run apps
- Time and resource costs
Desktop-as-a-Service (or DaaS) can take these challenges head on. Utilizing the technology relieves in-house IT of the burden of maintaining and supporting the current infrastructure needs, and the solution is really quite simple. The DaaS provider takes on all of the burden of maintaining, procuring of equipment and licenses and staffing to perform all of the maintenance. When a hotel partners with a DaaS provider, all of the above tasks fall on their shoulders, leaving the internal staff free to focus on other priorities, such as working to improve the guest facing technology needs. When IT can focus on the guests and customer, they can help to improve the guest experience which can bring in more guests and by default, more revenue.
Challenges Of the Lack of a Sufficient IT Budget
This one is pretty self-explanatory. IT has the need for more technology and equipment and talent than the budget allows. Again, this is something that DaaS can solve for the hospitality industry.
When a hotel partners with a DaaS provider, the savings are immediate. IT can deprovision the onsite infrastructure, reducing rent and utilities costs of maintaining the room. Additionally, the physical equipment will be provided and housed with the DaaS partner, and the burden of procurement and maintenance relies on them. All of this can put IT Department budgets back into the black.
Lesser Known Benefits of Cloud Technologies like DaaS
According to Software Advice, 96% of Hotels are now looking for a cloud solution due to the lower cost and enhanced flexibility. One of the reasons cloud solutions can help hotels lower costs is due to the ability of the solution to allow employees to work when and where they choose. Analysis by Global Workplace Analytics found that a typical business can save up to $11,000 per year just by allowing employees to work from home for 50% of the time
How Can The Hotel And Travel Industry Take Advantage Of DaaS?
Brittain Resorts is one such organization that has found the benefits of utilizing DaaS – specifically for their call center reservations and sales staff. Previously, the Resorts used the traditional IT procurement and support model for new employees. Brittain had already determined to use a remote workforce for portions of their resort staff, and Brittain’s IT department was tasked with procuring laptops for each new employee before they began the required new employee training. IT had to maintain and keep track of a large inventory of devices and had to incur shipping fees to and from the employee.
Recently, the resort moved to a Bring-your-own-Device (BYOD) strategy, especially in the case of their remote employees. In order to simplify the process of bringing on new employees, the resort also chose to implement a cloud based Desktop-as-a-Service solution from dinCloud. The team saw immediate results. The time for remote employees to become productive was significantly reduced and the team was still able to maintain full control over their IT environment. Support for the actual device became the responsibility of the employee and support of the virtual environment became dinCloud’s responsibility. The staff was free to focus on the other high priority tasks.
Reduce the Complexity of your Hotel’s Technology Needs
Organizations across industries are realizing the value of moving to cloud solutions. From reduced complexity and reduced costs to increased security and business continuity and disaster recovery. Trivago, who touts themselves as the world’s top hotel comparison site, summarized the benefits of a cloud-based solution the best: “By taking their properties to the cloud, hoteliers are able to save themselves time and money and put their focus back on their guests, on reaching them with marketing activities and improving their overall experience. Hoteliers also give themselves the freedom to leave the desk, to travel, to attend conferences, to be anywhere other than their place of work. It’s an especially appealing aspect, because hoteliers are people too.”
Learn more about how your hospitality business can take advantage of the many benefits of cloud desktops by downloading our most recent case study or contacting one of our cloud specialists.
