Hotel companies are generally evaluating wireless solutions along two fronts – consumer oriented solutions, and wireless business applications for streamlining and improving operational performance.  Both major opportunities and major challenges exist in moving into the wireless world which will be briefly discussed.
 

There are a multitude of potential uses under consideration today in the hospitality industry.  Some of these are briefly described below.

Hotel reservations – Hotel reservations appear to be the first priority for several leading hotel companies in adapting to wireless devices.  Just like in the airline industry, customers want to make and change hotel reservations while in their cars, sitting in meetings, or from a wide variety of “unwired” locations.  As hotel companies push to maintain customer allegiance and increase direct Website bookings, wireless devices appear to be one more channel to this end.  Undoubtedly, to accomplish this will require revamping Web “front-end” reservations applications to support wireless browsers.

Remote guest check-in and check-out – Remote guest check-in and check-out from digital telephones and wireless devices would be a great way to improve customer service and free up some clerical staff time for other tasks.  To make this happen will require wireless Web connectivity to a hotel’s property management system (PMS) and possible upgrades to current technology.

Guest’s own digital telephones as mobile guestroom telephones - Another customer driven adaptation of wireless technology is guests’ use of their own digital cell phones as mobile guest room telephones.  This could be accomplished by connection to the hotel’s phone system via a wireless network.  Imagine the convenience for a hotel guest to still be able to receive calls, pages, and emails that would normally be routed to their rooms, while having breakfast in the restaurant, sitting in a meeting room, or laying out by the swimming pool. 

e-Transaction settlement and payment -  Another use under consideration is transaction settlement and payments using personal wireless devices.  This would be the equivalent of an electronic debit card to be used in retail and food outlets, in vending machines, and to settle accounts upon checkout.

Wireless connectivity to hotel LAN –  A big push is already underway in hotels to allow guests to use their laptops from anywhere on campus.  With wireless Local Area Networks (LANS), guests have immediate access to hotel network resources.  They can quickly connect from anywhere in the building or campus without needing to locate and connect to a fixed network jack.  By doing so, they can access email, use the internet and hotel services, and send files to print.  This is an attractive alternative for locations such as meeting rooms and patio areas, beach areas, lobbies, restaurants and other public spaces that are difficult if not impossible to wire with standard cabling.  For older hotel buildings, a wireless LAN might make a lot of sense, since typical mechanical and structural issues pertaining to older structures make it often difficult if not impossible to install wired jacks in many locations.  Think of how convenient it would be for participants attending a meeting or conference to connect to the network, access and display a presenter’s presentation on their own laptop, send and receive documents, check email or surf the Web without being marred down with wires.  

To make this work, users must insert special Ethernet LAN PC cards into their computers.  The cards then transmit and receive digital data to and from various “access points” strategically located throughout the facility or campus similar to cell phones with cell towers.  

There are generally three types of LAN connectivity with differing benefits and costs:

• Infrared – Infrared typically has a range of one mile and speed of up to 155Mbps.
• Microwave- Microwave is typically less expensive than infrared, fairly easy to install and typically has a range of up to 12 miles and maximum speed of up to 10Mbps.  Microwave requires a license from the Federal Communications Commission to use.
• Spread Spectrum – Spread Spectrum is easiest to set up with speeds from 2Mbps to 8Mbps and a range of up to 25 miles.  This solution is considered one of the most secure because of the wide range of frequencies.

Wireless Business Applications

Many hotel companies are beginning to plan for wider spread adaptation of mobile computing in a variety of operational situations as technology standards stabilize and higher speed wireless networks are developed.  The hospitality industry in particular is well suited to be a beneficiary of mobile technology solutions because of the many opportunities to greatly improve operational efficiency.  From housekeepers, to sales staffs, to maintenance engineers, to restaurant wait staffs and inventory stores clerks, the majority of hospitality employees are involved in jobs that require a high degree of mobility.  These employees greatly rely on paper forms and manual procedures to process transactions because they do not have direct access to computers on location where their work needs to be done.  This requires inefficient manual summarization of forms and reports, manual entry of the information into various computer systems and greater vulnerability to data inaccuracies.
 

In addition to customer driven wireless adaptations, there are many wireless business solutions under development today geared toward improving operational efficiency for the hotel industry.  Some of these innovations are briefly discussed below. 

Virtual front desk - One application is the “virtual front desk” which is already in the works at a number of hotels, to check-in and check-out individuals or groups of individuals from anywhere in the hotel.  This is similar in concept to the handheld paper printer devices used by roaming rental car agents at airports.  The “virtual front desk” is intended to alleviate the long lines at counters and vastly speed up the check-in and check-out process.  This works by sending and receiving signals from a thin-client server connected to a PMS or other information database.  

Work Order Processing and Inventory Maintenance – Other examples of wireless business applications already in use in some hotels are work order processing by maintenance and engineering employees and checking and reordering food and operating supplies by various housekeeping, engineering and inventory stores clerks using wireless handheld devices.

Wireless POS – Wireless point-of-sales (POS) solutions are gaining wide-spread acceptance in the hospitality industry  for restaurant and retail sales.  This is particularly useful for restaurant and bar wait staffs for processing food and beverage orders and settling checks.

Wireless Door Lock and Security - A variety of vendors are offering wireless door lock and security solutions that are totally integrated with property management systems (PMS).  Using infrared devices for communication,  door locks and fire safety systems can be connected to property management and security systems to lock and unlock doors, monitor smoke detectors, manage energy usage and to monitor comings and goings of guests in and out of their guestrooms.  One example is Motorola’s updated “iFind” Wireless Location System which is already in use to provide real-time information and tracking of the whereabouts of anything from hotel staff and guests to valuable assets.

Wireless Enablement of Corporate Business Applications - A major wireless initiative under consideration by several leading hotel companies is providing access to core enterprise business applications through wireless devices.  Enterprise business applications such as accounting, sales force automation, customer relationship management, purchasing and HR self service applications are the primary focus.  Plans are to make these applications available over the Web through a corporate portal or extranet Web Site and accessible from handheld wireless devices.  Distributing business applications to wireless devices today in many cases is a bit of a challenge given the early state of wireless technology, the dated architecture of many legacy hospitality applications, the need in some cases to re-design the Web front-end, and the requirement for infrastructure upgrades to support the solutions. 

Other Challenges Hotel Companies Are Facing In The Move To Wireless

Although wireless solutions are beginning to take hold in most industries, it is a little surprising to see how few hotel companies have actually moved forward with major wireless projects.  There are several reasons.  One is that hotel companies have so many other mission critical IT priorities on their plates.  Second is a concern about lack of technology standards around wireless applications and the perceived slow data speeds.  Third, and maybe most significant, is that many companies view the move to wireless as a “high risk” investment with a degree of uncertainty on the financial payback.  This sometimes hinders their ability to gain buy-in from franchisees and other stakeholders to invest in the technology.

Lack of wireless standards - Lack of agreed upon standards for wireless applications is a big issue in moving forward with wireless solutions.  There is also concern about possible new standards for data delivery and data presentation such as messaging, multimedia, and document representation standards that are likely to emerge.  Standards are finally stabilizing and companies are moving forward now because they believe that early adaptation will result in a competitive edge with customers and employees down the road.  A crucial decision is how the company is going to implement wireless access to its existing applications.  The idea of rewriting all of its applications for each individual wireless device, taking into account screen size and bandwidth, is obviously out of the question.  Wireless enabling a Web site will still require some re-writing if the site is written in standard HTML.  Going forward, Web site builders will also want to develop solutions aimed at HTML microbrowsers or XML (Extensible Markup Language)/WML (Wireless Markup Language) based devices.

Slow Data transfer speed - Another issue is wireless network data transfer speed.  Carriers are in process of developing 3G (third-generation) wireless services to carry-high-speed data with bit rates as fast as 2Mbps.  Commercial rollouts of 3G though, are estimated to be as long as 2 to 3 years down the road.  Most solutions today are low speed at 19.2Kbps.  For early wireless adapters, some carriers plan to roll out 2G and 2.5G solutions in the next 12 months with data speeds between 115Kbps and 307Kbps.  A big concern with early adaptation is the possible need to replace wireless devices suitable for today’s state of technology in just a year or two down the road, with next generation devices to accommodate the new 3G data networks.  

Higher Costs of Wireless Network Connections - Regarding hotel local area networks, an issue is the significantly higher cost of wireless network adapters compared to traditional adapters for wired network jacks.  The difference can be 3 times more for wireless and this cost must be passed on to guests or absorbed by the company for employee use.  In the long run, companies will likely consider wireless LANs as a more desired, and possibly less costly solution than hard wiring the environment and its components.  Wireless LANs are also likely to be easier to manage and more convenient for customers and employees alike.  Some notebook computers are now being installed with wireless LAN antennas.  

Payback on Investment – There is a big upfront investment generally associated with a major move to wireless.  This entails costs of updating or replacing legacy applications and investing in upgraded network infrastructures to support wireless solutions.  Payback on investment in wireless technologies, like most technologies, cannot always be measured in pure dollars and cents in terms of increases in hotel revenues or reductions in operating costs.  Some things though can be measured in financial terms like numbers of incremental bookings over wireless devices, guest usage fees, fee based usage of hosted wireless business applications by franchisees or customers, and labor savings from streamlined business processes around deployment of wireless devices.  It is prudent to assess the financial impact where possible, and equally important to measure qualitative benefits of wireless devices, such as market defensive or market opportunistic strategic positioning, better communication and more timely processing of critical data for management decision making and increased guest and employee satisfaction.  

What are the Steps in Evaluating a Move to Wireless?

Recommended steps in a move to wireless solutions:

1. Determine how mobile your customers or employees want or need to be and the tradeoff benefits of wired versus wireless solutions.
2. Decide on how customers and employees will be accessing information.
3. Determine how to make wireless access possible – for example, wireless enabling the host Website through next generation markup language, re-writing business applications to support wireless solutions, or deciding on the most efficient networking alternative.
4. Anchor on the appropriate wireless standards for maximum compatibility across the customer spectrum and corporate enterprise.
5. Develop an appropriate systems architecture and phased implementation priorities.
6. Understand where wireless fits into the broader scheme of other business and technology priorities across the enterprise.
7. Develop the appropriate business case justification, both qualitative and quantitative, with set goals and business objectives.
8. Bring on board the right business solutions and integration partners to get the job done.

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