April 25–DUBAI — How can hoteliers and tourism operators ensure a seamless travel experience and hotel stay from the moment a visitor touches down at an airport till the moment they check out?

The answer is through digital transformation, which is now the key factor in how hoteliers and travel agents are creating a new generation of loyal customers.

Experts at the Arabian Travel Market (ATM 2017) on Tuesday said that going digital is not just a requirement anymore, it has become a necessity, especially in the GCC which boasts one of the highest smartphone penetration rates in the world. Residents in the region, who are connected to the Internet 24/7, see online hotel and flight bookings as a natural progression in their holiday making plans.

Travel agencies and tourism operators that fail to provide travellers with a seamless and digital option run the risk of being left behind, said Benjo Van Laar Hoven, CEO of Prizm.

"In the next five years, 50 per cent of travel agencies in the region will be out of business unless they embrace digital opportunities. Today, everything that you need to plan a holiday is available online, and the GCC has a very young population that prefers to do its research thoroughly before making any decisions."

He also revealed that 80 per cent of bookings are made on mobile, as opposed to the 20 per cent which are made on PCs. "You need to have a mobile strategy; and, beyond that, you need to have a social media strategy with which you can engage with and influence younger millennials, and ultimately generate revenues. However, you must make sure that your digital experience is better than your offline experience, otherwise you will just frustrate potential customers."

Another trend that is slowly impacting the hospitality industry is virtual reality (VR). Experts have pointed out that it is not uncommon today for many hotel chains to offer a VR walkthrough of what visitors can expect. A mobile app that utilises a VR video can be used by potential travellers in the comfort of their home, and can greatly influence a holidaymaker's decision on where to stay and which hotel to book. Hoteliers around the world are already using this technology and it will soon become a norm in the industry.

Experts have also announced that connected visitor technology will drive the UAE's hospitality market to top $10 billion by 2020, meeting the needs of millions of Expo 2020 visitors. With 25 million visitors set to attend Expo 2020, the UAE's hospitality sector is on a building boom. Dubai aims to double the number of hotel and serviced apartments leading to revenue of $10 billion, according to figures by Alpen Capital.

As hoteliers jostle for a position, they are aiming to stand out from competitors through disruptive technologies to save time and money and meet the preferences of millennials, said Savitha Bhaskar, COO at Condo Protego. "Smart technology could revolutionise the visitor experience for the millions of visitors set to attend Expo 2020, offering a hassle-free end-to-end experience from the plane, to easy hotel check-in, to autonomous vehicles taking them to the exhibition pavilion."

The UAE's hospitality sector is fast adopting digital solutions to streamline administrative processes and enrich the guest experience, saving time and money. Increasingly, hotels are offering remote check-in, card-free room access and Big Data analytics to monitor customer preferences both in-room and from partners. These technologies have the power to generate substantial revenues.

"For UAE hoteliers to manage guest data in real time, they need high availability, secure and scalable data storage and management solutions," added Bhaskar.

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