IOT in your Hotel Bathroom?

The advent of AirBnB, VRBO, and others have give consumers more choices for where they stay on a vacation or business trip. This rapid rise of technology enabled new entrants have challenged hotels to compete. While some hotels have tightened their belts and focused on competing on price, others have seen this as an opportunity to differentiate themselves and focus on the guest experience. Many consumers believe that a better experience is worth the extra dollars.

But how can you improve your current offering to guests?

While there still opportunities on offering just premium versions of the basic essentials, there are plenty of opportunities to incorporate technology to enable a better guest experience and operational efficiency for the hotel operators.

Alexa, The Hotel Concierge

More Alexa devices are being added to hotels for the advantage of offering guests music selections and automated wake up alarms. The hotel industry is getting to a critical mass of Alexa integrations where software offerings are beginning to pop up. This skill offers a complete automated hotel concierge. Don’t know the wifi password? just ask Alexa. Need a resturaunt recommendation close by? just ask Alexa. Check out and close out the bill without the line? yes please.

Smart Mirrors

Intelligent mirrors are beginning to be marketed to the US consumer market and offering weather information and more. Some of these startups like MirrorCache is approaching the hospitality industry to offer room service options, temperature control, and a in room concierge. The convenience of accessing a concierge will continue to be a trend and multiple startups are beginning to enter this market.

Robot Housekeeping?

An interesting startup, Maidbot, is taking the idea of Roomba to the hospitality industry. This can be an interesting solution to offer a cleaner room while reducing one of the highest variable costs facing hotel operators. In the future, the technology will continue to improve to offer on demand cleaning and tracking of what rooms have been cleaned.

Digital Toilets

Visitors to hotels in Asia usually comment to friends on the cool toilet technology they found abroad. The innovations at Toto with a heated seat and bidet have been an excellent luxury experience to guests. New startups like where I’m working at, Shine, are expanding this experience with cost saving features for hotel operators such as self cleaning and remote leak detection. This is an opportunity for guests to experience a luxury not found in AirBnbs and for hotel operators to save money

What innovations do you see impacting the hotel industry in the next 5 years?