The utilisation of IT in the hospitality industry demands an understanding of the fundamental question: what is the hospitality industry? Before opting for an IT-based service, key aspects of the industry must be considered with respect to the concerned business. Business founders must see if the scalability of their enterprise is a good fit for IT services revolving around aspects like data security or intensive customer support.
These are some of the aspects that businesses consider when they employ IT support for their hospitality enterprise:
- Data security
- 24/7 customer support
- Flexibility
- Adaptability
As the market is a highly dynamic space, decisions regarding policy, customer service, and promotional campaigns, among other strategies, must be made in real time. Therefore, choosing a third-party IT solution would require a careful choice of requisites that are aligned with the current market trends.
If you are planning for IT assistance for the automation of certain hospitality processes or otherwise, here is a comprehensive guide to navigating queries like: what is the hospitality industry, and what are the challenges it is currently facing? Furthermore, read on for key considerations to make, current trends in the industry, and the benefits that IT support offers.
What is the Hospitality Industry?
The hospitality industry encompasses a lot of services:
- Accommodation
- Food and beverage
- Travel and event planning assistance
- Customer experience
These services are highly specialised and need skilled individuals to work in tandem and run things smoothly for businesses.
What are the Challenges to the Hospitality Industry?
The hospitality industry faces a lot of challenges that must be addressed with the help of IT support. The industry has to react to the trends in customer behaviour in the best way possible to stay relevant. Here are some of the challenges that always need attention:
- Sustainability: 45% of people in the UK and the US believe that individuals can make at least some positive difference to the environment by being eco-friendly, while 51% think a big difference can be made. Therefore, if a total of 96% of customers think in a certain way, the hospitality industry has to cater to it.
- Growth: Studies suggest that the hospitality industry will grow to the tune of 85.5 billion USD by 2029, which is a 20.05% increase in size from before 2024. While this statistic shows that there is scope for growth, the increase in running costs has seen hotels shut their doors.
- Customer assistance: Customer demands have been on the rise after the pandemic had the worst ever effect on the hospitality industry. The industry must now be more accommodating to customer needs pertaining to cancellation/alteration of bookings. Monetary loss on that front has to be expected, and policies framed to counter that.
Apart from these factors, sustained issues like scouting the right workforce and finding the right IT solution continue to exist.
What Considerations to Make Before Choosing an IT Service?
Hospitality IT support needs careful consideration before a final choice is made. These are the points that must be borne in mind:
- 24/7 Customer Support: Customer experience is a key area that the hospitality industry focuses on. Working in a market environment that fosters competition, retaining customers is essential to a business’s survival. If you want to build a customer base that remains satisfied with your services and keeps coming back, you have got to trust Atidiv’s customer experience services.
- Social Media Support: Social media has emerged as one of the most important platforms to pitch your services to prospective clients. In the current scenario, the hospitality industry focuses on selling an idea that sells cultural and social status more than a service. Furthermore, social media support is a constant service you need in order to monitor your online image, address grievances expressed online by customers, and potentially gain new customers.
- Live Chat Service: As a hospitality business founder, you must respect the mode of communication favoured by your clients. E-commerce giants offer at least two to three modes of communication, including email, phone and live chat. Among these, a live chat service is one of the most popular tools because it allows customers to express their grievances comprehensively. Moreover, since chats are restored for some time, it saves the customer the time and effort required to reiterate their concern, which might be frustrating to do over phone calls.
What are the Key Benefits of IT Support in Hospitality?
There are several benefits of IT support in the hospitality industry, and here are a few of them:
- Prioritising Guest Experience: Seriously, what is the hospitality industry without the huge customer base that keeps it alive even after the pandemic struck hard? It must be understood that these customers have other options, and the challenge at hand is to leverage IT support to make them prefer you over other businesses. Firstly, the booking and pre-arrival procedure must be made smooth and hassle-free for the guest because that is where you leave your first impression with them. Secondly, the check-in and check-out process needs to be modernised to reduce waiting time. Thirdly, customers want to stay connected with their social circle, so it is mandatory to provide them with essentials like wifi, smart TVs, voice assistants, wireless chargers, etc.
- Legal Compliance: IT support helps businesses stay abreast of legal norms so that your business can run smoothly and you remain on the right side of the law. It adds to the goodwill of your establishment and helps you earn a reputation in the market.
- Better Publicity: This point is a roadmap to grab more eyeballs. With an RFID-enabled card or mobile app, you can let customers access all the amenities you provide, from gyms to swimming pools. Doing this will make customers feel included and empowered, making them talk about your business, essentially leading to publicity. This is where IT support can help hype your business: you are essentially providing the same services at no extra cost, but you are now yielding more value out of them.
- Data Security and Protection: The data that your customers entrust you with is sensitive. Any security breach may put them in financial jeopardy, for which you cannot shrug off accountability. Opting for Atidiv’s services can keep you out of reach of such risks.
- Operational Efficiency: Operational efficiency goes a long way in establishing a name in the market for running a sustainable business. With the cost of running a business shooting through the roof, having a good operational efficiency would mean you would be able to function in an increasingly competitive space successfully. For instance, establishing cross-department training ensures that staff from one department can don the hat of another in case you are short-staffed. IT support can help you allocate and manage work to be done efficiently so that customers are not left unsatisfied during their stay.
- Improvement in staff productivity: The overall staff performance will surely go up with IT support. The reason for this improvement is that you will be able to keep a better watch on employee performance, and can reward/penalise them based on the same. Monitoring works towards setting a standard of service.
- Increased Revenue: IT support helps you deal with ad campaigns, thus helping you reach more and more people every day. Given that you continue with a high standard of service, you are definitely going to see a rise in revenue.
Key Trends in the Hospitality Industry 2025
It is important for businesses to take a close look at the latest developments in the hospitality sector with respect to IT support. Knowing what is going on in the market gives you valuable insight that informs your key decisions.
- Being eco-friendly and sustainable
- Using current technology, including AI, for research and sales purposes
- Personalising customer experience with the help of IT support
- Automating tasks for better customer satisfaction
- A post-pandemic awareness of hygiene and wellbeing
- Offering immersive travel experiences that are more comfortable than gimmicky
- Collaborating with indigenous communities to bring the guests a taste of local culture
FAQs on IT Support for the Hospitality Industry
1. What is hospitality industry most dependent on for success?
The hospitality industry is one of the most rapidly growing industries at the moment. However, businesses are also plagued by high costs of running their establishment, which threatens to take a big bite out of their revenues. To be successful in the current market scenario, the businesses in the hospitality industry depend upon categorically directed IT support that ensures customer satisfaction and a low rate of churn.
2. Can hospitality IT support make a big difference to my small business?
Yes, hospitality IT support can make a big difference to small businesses by upgrading its customer experience platforms, integrating AI-tech into research and work allocation, and ensuring a superior level of performance across departments. Therefore, if you are a small business, you should gauge the scalability of your enterprise and plan for deploying IT support in the near future.
3. How important are eco-friendly measures for the hospitality industry?
Modern customers are dedicated to the climate change cause, and a majority of them think that brands can bring about a change to the ongoing status quo. They trust in brands that share their concern for the planet, and are more likely to invest in them. Therefore, as a hospitality enterprise, you must be mindful of dealing with emissions and pollutants and promoting a sustainable use of resources. Thus, you can impress and retain your customers.
