The future of the hospitality industry in India and the role of technology in it
By Aditya Sanghi, Co-founder & CEO, Hotelogix
The Indian hospitality industry has shown promising growth for the last couple of years. Even though it was hit hard by the pandemic, it is demonstrating signs of improvements on various fronts. According to the Indian Brand Equity Foundation, the country expects to welcome about 30.5 billion international tourists by 2028, generating over $59 billion in revenue.
To anyone who has been watching the industry closely, these numbers look achievable. After all, India is home to some famed world heritage sites, biogeographic zones, and scenic beaches. Plus riding high on such optimism and to accommodate the above-stated growing number of tourists, the count of hotels, especially in the organised group brand, is also set to go up.
Here are some vital and relevant statistics about the projected growth of the hotel industry –
- From 2022 to 2024, India will add around 94 new hotels in both the 4-star and 5-star categories.
- Thanks to the growing pipeline from prominent international/homegrown brands and inventory reduction by independent players, the organised hotel market share will grow from 5% in 2019 to 8% in 2025.
Not to forget domestic travellers
It’s not only international tourists who will propel the growth. Instead, domestic travellers will also add value. While a significant percentage of them will travel for business purposes, most of them with remote work options will opt for a workcation. This will lead hotels to offer short-term and long-term stays around such packages depending on guests’ needs. However, only tweaking the room rate based on the length of stay is not enough. They will have to create the ideal environment to ensure a seamless workcation experience.
The role of technology
As always, and as in any other industry, technology will hold the key to long-term success with improved productivity and excellent guest service. Let’s see how –
Multi-property management
As the number of branded chain/organised hospitality entities grows, they need a robust solution to manage their operation. To be very precise, they would need something smart to get centralised control over their member properties scattered across locations. Technology will provide them with automation to save person-hours while reducing errors. This would no doubt fuel the demand for an enterprise-grade cloud-based Hotel PMS.
Reduced fixed costs
Here again, a cloud-based solution will do the job. With it, hotels can save huge costs by not investing in costly servers and IT teams. They don’t even have to worry about upfront investment in the Hotel PMS as they can get to work with any intelligent cloud solutions by paying subscription costs. And then, there are no expensive AMCs. They will be able to reduce the IT CAPEX and software ownership costs, which will help them realise assured and instant ROI.
360-degree approach to technology
They would need an all-in-one solution that allows them to do everything – from selling more rooms to increasing revenue and enhancing online reputation. They can achieve this by adopting a Hotel PMS that integrates with –
- Leading channel managers to help hotels sell more rooms via OTAs and metasearch engines. It will also help them avoid overbookings and double bookings.
- A host of intelligent revenue management solutions in configuring the right room rate at the right time for the right guest to ensure improved RevPAR. It does so by analysing the local market demand and competitor pricing.
- Online reputation management solutions of their choice to help improve online reputation and ratings. It enables them to attract more guests by showcasing positive feedback garnered from past guests.
- Additionally, a Hotel PMS with a booking engine can help them drive incremental direct bookings via their brand websites and social media pages.
Guest service
The role of technology becomes even more significant when serving guests, exceeding their expectations, and earning their loyalty. When hotels migrate to a multi-property management solution, they can access the centralised guest history module to understand their purchase history. Armed with such insights on guests’ preferences, they can offer personalised services to their returning guests consistent across their member properties.
Talking about guest service, how can we not look at the role of technology in offering contactless services. Triggered by the pandemic-related health concerns, today’s guests want hotels to provide them with contactless services by significantly reducing physical touchpoints. They wish to check-in/out, unlock the door, control in-room amenities, raise complaints/service requests and make payments – everything using their smartphones. No wonder they are even ready to pay a premium if the hotel offers them such services.
As India continues to attract more tourists and investments from global hotel brands, it made a remarkable jump from 40th in 2017 to 34th rank in 2019 in the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness index. It shows the true spirit of the Indian hospitality industry, and the credit goes to each stakeholder. We expect to witness a massive improvement for the sector in doing business with ease. Let’s work towards that.
Aditya Sanghi
Co-founder & CEO
Hotelogix
References:
https://www.ibef.org/industry/tourism-hospitality-india.aspx
https://tophotel.news/country-overview-more-than-150-hotels-in-the-pipeline-across-india-infographic/
https://mobilityforesights.com/product/hotel-industry-in-india/
