Centralizing IT for Improved Guest Experience

What if your mobile app became the ultimate key to your entire hotel experience—everything at your fingertips, from check-in to checkout, powered by AI? Imagine walking into your hotel room, and instead of fumbling with wall panels or remote controls, you open your app and seamlessly control everything—from adjusting the blinds and lights to setting the perfect room temperature. No more waiting for room service or calling the front desk for a reservation; it’s all done with a few taps on your phone. Now, imagine adding AI into the mix. The app doesn’t just remember your preferences—it anticipates them. Powered by AI, it learns from past stays, picking up on subtle details about what makes you comfortable. It knows your preferred room temperature, the meals you enjoy, or the time you prefer to check out. The app customizes the entire experience, offering tailored suggestions before you even ask. This vision of a mobile-first, AI-powered hospitality experience would create a seamless, personalized guest journey. It’s not just about offering convenience; it’s about connecting with guests intuitively and naturally. This approach would complement the essential human component of hospitality, which is core to the industry’s success, while also opening new opportunities for collaboration. Think about it: Companies in other industries—like AC providers or curtain vendors—could develop products that integrate seamlessly into this mobile-driven environment. Much like how Nest and Alexa have revolutionized the smart home, suppliers could create products that enhance the guest experience and work in harmony with these intelligent systems. Beyond that, this shift to mobile-first, AI-driven systems could also transform the hospitality workforce. Evolving existing roles and creating new hospitality career tracks focused on technology and data-driven guest experiences would not only upskill employees but also elevate the industry's overall service level. While this is a reimagined future of hospitality, it raises important questions for tech developers and hospitality leaders about how AI and mobile tech can elevate the guest experience. If you’re working on similar solutions or want to explore how such innovations could be implemented, let’s connect—I’d love to offer insights and help shape the future of hospitality tech.

Your hospitality company doesn't have a people problem. It has a systems problem. You've got a GM who can "read the room." A server who remembers regulars' drink orders. A front desk agent who somehow makes every guest feel like family. And the day they leave? Your scores drop. Your reviews mention it. Guests notice. That's not hospitality. That's a dependency dressed up as culture. I worked for St. Regis and Fairmont. Guests would say, "I don't know how you do it." They'd step out of their car. The doorman greeted them by name. By the time they reached the front desk, someone was already saying, "Welcome back, Mr. Knight—how was your flight?" It felt like magic. It wasn't. Behind the curtain: radios, pre-arrival notes, and playbooks that made precision look human. The best hospitality doesn't feel like a system—but it's built on one. Here's where to start: Pick one guest touchpoint that matters—arrival, checkout, service recovery, whatever breaks most often when someone's out sick. Map it. Write down every step. Every handoff. Every piece of information that needs to move from one person to another. Then ask: "What would need to be true for a brand-new hire to execute this at 80% on day one?" That's your first system. Because the guest experience isn't as strong as your best employee. It's only as strong as the systems that hold it up—even when that employee's gone. Great hospitality doesn't happen by accident. It happens by architecture.

Oh the irony.....AI might be the best way to bring humanity back to hospitality. I know, that sounds backwards. But think about it. Most hotels are drowning in data they can’t use. Fifteen different systems, each hoarding a piece of the guest story. So when a loyal guest walks in for the fifth time, they’re still asked: “Is this your first stay with us?” That’s not hospitality. That’s a missed opportunity. That's a disappointed guest. Here’s the twist: AI can fix this. Not by replacing people, but by giving them what they’ve been missing: context. Imagine a simple dashboard that tells the front desk: ✔️This guest prefers a cold room and two extra pillows. ✔️ They celebrated an anniversary here last year. ✔️ They had an issue with the Wi-Fi on their last stay. Now your staff isn’t starting from zero. They’re starting from recognition. From connection. From humanity. The catch? AI can only help if your data is in order. If your data is accessible. So here’s a bit of advice: if your systems are fragmented or hard to use, getting them unified and data is actionable is step one. At Hapi, we exist to help with exactly that... making it easier for your team to turn insights into genuinely personal guest experiences. Giving your team the ability to make a human connection. The winners in this industry will be the brands that stop treating AI as a gadget and start using it as a tool for their teams to be more… well, human. https://lnkd.in/dyRdnxMy

The Tech Fragmentation Trap 😖 The hotel industry has long been plagued by a fragmented tech stack, where different systems struggle to communicate effectively, leading to: - operational inefficiencies, - increased costs, and - a subpar guest experience. Hoteliers have been forced into a "Jenga Tower" of technology, where each additional tool adds complexity and increases the risk of failure. This fragmentation not only burdens hotel staff with learning multiple systems but also hinders the seamless flow of data, making it difficult to deliver a consistent and personalized guest experience. The industry’s over-reliance on piecemeal solutions has left hotels vulnerable to downtime, degraded service, and revenue loss. What hotels need is: - an integrated, -reliable, and - scalable technology, a natively integrate suite of commercial applications that consolidates key functions like CRS, BE, website, CRM, RMs, and PMS into a unified system. By breaking down the silos between different systems, you empower hoteliers to: - streamline operations, - reduce the learning curve for staff, and - enhance the guest experience.