The lodging industry is one of the most client-driven businesses in the world. We monitor what guests say and shape the value of services according to the direction they would like us to go. 

Whether we like it or not, what guests say about telephone service in hotels has a major impact on redefining the value of telephone service in the hotel business. 

Hotels caught in the competition in the telecommunications industry - an industry they don¹t belong to, yet which they still find themselves competing in - are being forced to find new ways to shore up the declining value, to business travelers, of telecommunications in hotels. 

For now, the people who shape the future of telecommunications in the hotel industry are the major 
telecommunications competitors and guests -- not the hotel industry. While for some time there will be profit in the resale of telecommunications, these profits are bound to go down. If billed party preference goes into effect, these profits will dwindle to practically nothing. Sooner, rather than later, hotels will need to begin redefining their marketing plans to create new value from the world of high-tech telecommunications. To compete successfully, hotels may have to invest even more heavily in telecommunications technology. 

More Important Role 

Telephones will play an increasingly important role in information management as people come to rely on them to access and transmit information using newer, more advanced digital systems and services for hotels. Digital telecommunications blurs the distinction between work and leisure. Nowhere is this more evident than over the phone lines. 

An increasing number of cost-conscious business travelers are spending their evening and early morning hours accessing and downloading time-sensitive data, compiling reports/information, and transmitting them via fax modem to their home or office. 

High speed, around-the-clock digital data transmission, for instance, is now viewed by many as a regular and necessary part of doing business, even though hotel revenue from this usage is dropping severely, and will be all but eliminated in the next 3-5 years. 

As more advanced technology is required to support the technology-dependent road-warriors, hotels will either buy smart in the area of technology or see the competition lure away select business. The investment that hotels will be making in future telecommunications services, systems, and information-management technology, is guaranteed to boggle the mind. There is an unprecedented business opportunity here for hotels. Over time, telecommunications will be the access to other more lucrative services that will make more money for hotels than they could make reselling long distance. Hotels will be able to give away basic telephone service and charge premium prices for high-value optional services. Merely offering good telephone service, including special features such as voicemail, will not provide a competitive edge in the future. It will only be the price of admission in to the game. 

Profit from telephone services resale may not be possible in hotels by the year 2000. It may be that the role a hotel has telecommunications technology play will be the key to bringing the marketplace closer to doing business with that hotel in the future. Completely understanding and then redefining the needs of a marketplace, and the role a hotel will play in the unfolding competition for the most lucrative business, will be essential. 

Key To The Future 

How hoteliers support guests¹ information management requirements in the future will be more important than the actual bed itself. A hotel will be judged more for the ease in which guests can do business from the property than by whether it has 24-hour room service, a quality restaurant or even a fitness center. Success will be determined by the ability to leverage guests' dependence on telecommunications services. 

Broad band capability and integrated data transmission will be must-haves. Hotels will continue to convert (in phases) regular rooms into high-tech command centers for preferred business travelers who increasingly will find it profitable to use these rooms. 

Some hotel chains already are partnering with digital technology and office equipment companies to outfit these rooms. Each room contains a large work desk with a fully-adjustable office chair, excellent desk lighting, a multifeature phone, and, most importantly, a dataport. The dataport will access a number of applications: specialized fax services, news and information services, travel and reservations technology, and videoconferencing. This last function is poised to become of prime importance in the new lean, mean business environment as companies replace business trips with "telecommuting" via video-phones to reduce travel costs. 

More advanced videoconferencing from the room will allow travelers to change the way they do business with each new situation. In other words, videoconferencing may create value for hotels by providing business travelers with a way to be in more than one place at a time. In this way, some hotel rooms may have more value as they are perceived as productivity centers. The data port will also provide access to the Internet, which is one of the fastest-growing phenomena in history. Now that true digital commerce is becoming secure, we will see more businesses discovering that ongoing Internet access is critical to their operations. In two years, a hotel that offers Internet access to its business travelers will see a clear competitive edge over hotels that don't. That's only some of the advantages that dataports can provide. Once you have the port, many things arepossible. 

Inevitably, there will be retooling costs. Converting a few rooms at a time to high-level command posts -- and charging for it as a competitive extra -- can help finance the overall conversion. It's one way to ride the horse in the direction that it's already going in. 

Perception Of Value 

At the same time, hotels need to build public perception that while excellent telephone service is either free or very inexpensive, exceptional or extraordinary telecommunications related services are top-flight extras and valuable enough to pay a premium for. 

Hotels investing in telecommunications and information management will have every reason to stand up for a fair and reasonable profit on these services. Few could argue that while the needs and concerns of the guest are paramount, without profit there will ultimately be no business at all. For now we may have to go with the flow. But we can shape that flow by envisioning what our marketplace will need, empowering the inventors and developers of new technology by being willing to embrace the changes that are coming, and by allying ourselves with new players -- and old players in new functions -- to create the programs that will afford us a valuable niche in an inevitable digital, wireless world that we find ourselves in. 

Daniel F Prosser is the founder, president and chief executive officer of Telman. Begun in 1986, Telman creates technology partnerships with hotels and hotel management companies that maximize the return on their technology investments. Prosser in on the board of advisors for Hotel & Motel Management Magazine and has written several articles for industry publication. He also makes regular presentations for hotel and technology conferences and associations.