Tech to the Rescue ; a Shortage of Manpower and Soaring Overheads Have Forced Hotels to Adopt Technology to Lower Costs and Improve Service.

Summary

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You walk into a hotel lobby, select your room from a touch- screen kiosk, swipe your credit card and quietly collect your encoded key card from the kiosk's vending slot. Nope, that's not the future of the hospitality industry but the present and it's happening at Ginger Hotels, the no-frills brand from Roots Corporation of IHCL. No long queues at the reception counter, no waiting for the luggage to be brought in and no traditional welcome tika and garland (for the die-hard tika fans, their TVC does show a guest applying it himself!).

Welcome to the world of automated hospitality. In an industry that is renowned for its human interface with guests, brands like Ginger are not just redefining the rules of the game but in the process changing the game itself. "Mom-n-pop no-frills hotels have been around in India for a long time, but because of their limited investment and know-how, many of them offer poor value," says Prabhat Pani, CEO, Roots Corporation, which offers rooms at Rs 999 a night (at select properties) and competes with guest houses and unbranded hotels.

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Extract

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Tech to the Rescue ; a Shortage of Manpower and Soaring Overheads Have Forced Hotels to Adopt Technology to Lower Costs and Improve Service.

While Pani's reason for cutting down on human interaction is his focus on the no-frills segment, a shortage of skilled manpower is the reason for the larger and more expensive hotels. While earlier it was the BPO sector that dipped into the hospitality pool, retail and airlines are now taking turns draining manpower away from the industry. Some, like Lemon Tree Hotels, have introduced employee stock options (...

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