The hotel guest of the future is tech-savvy and hotels need to incorporate innovative and efficient technology solutions to meet their needs, said hotel consultant Maximilian Laborenz at the ITB on Wednesday.

“It’s important that the guest is number one priority and the guest needs technology devices. They are used to it from their everyday life. That’s why hoteliers need to adapt to technology,” said Maximilian Laborenz. 

Websites such as hotelwifitest prove that an increasing number of travellers chose only hotels that have Wi-Fi, argues Laborenz. “This is a catastrophe” considering that 25-35% of all hotels in Germany don’t offer access to internet, he added.

But internet is not all tech-savvy guests are looking for in hotels. According to a 2014 survey by the German newspaper Die Welt cited by Laborenz at the ITB, 13.9 % of travellers would like to control their hotel room (lights, temperature, TV, etc.) with a hotel-owned tablet. 7.1% would even prefer to control everything with their own mobile phone, including locking and unlocking their hotel room. 

 “The digitalization and individualisation of products is inevitable,” said Laborenz. “Hotels need to gear up for IT-savvy, demanding and informed guests.”

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