Last week I attended HITEC, the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition & Conference, in Minneapolis. Polaris Wireless Solutions Marketing and Product Innovation Manager Anjul Bahuguna and I joined our partner Orion Labs (that is their booth shown in the above photo) to discuss the uses of 3D location in the hospitality industry and to conduct live demos of Polaris Wireless 3D location displayed on the Orion application for customers and media representatives. I was very impressed by how the hospitality industry is keen on utilizing the newest technologies to keep employees and guests safe, to improve customer service, and to operate hotels more efficiently. We spoke with many attendees who plan to use 3D location for these purposes, as well as to drive 3D location-based business analytics to assist the hotel properties in making strategic resource planning decisions. The trend in this industry is to find technology solutions that are software-based and hardware agnostic that can be easily integrated into the hospitality ecosystem of applications and platforms. Our solution fits these criteria very well and hence Polaris Wireless was in the right place.
As we drilled down further in our discussions we expanded our knowledge of what specifically is driving the industry to utilize 3D location with floor-level accuracy:
- Improving the guest experience – applications include proximity-based guest room access, room service and other amenities delivered to the guest wherever they are on the property, indoor navigation, and location-based communications.
- Employee and Guest safety – enabling panic buttons for hotel workers, locating the closest employee to quickly respond to guest needs, and tracking high-value equipment. Real-time location provides the capability for guests to locate their families easily within hotel property by using the hotel’s loyalty app.
Our demos with Orion Labs received great feedback from many of the conference attendees, including members of the International Luxury Hotel Association and editors from Hospitality Technology Magazine. We look forward to attending future HITEC events and working with the industry to make 3D location a must-have technology for hospitality.
