Learning to like IT

The UK travel industry is slow to adopt new technology and is quickly losing ground. That claim first emerged when London-based systems integrator WEB Ltd published the free 1998 WEB/Ascend Travel Technology Report, saying that 31% of the hundreds of UK travel industry companies it interviewed had no idea what the two biggest on-line travel companies - Sabre Travelocity or Microsoft Expedia - actually are.

But the report is only one of many to show that most UK businesses are not keeping up with technology. The latest, published by Energis last December, shows that only one in 10 UK businesses has even thought about how to exploit the Internet.

For the full horror of the UK hospitality industry's approach to information technology, turn to IBM. Its Hotel Industry benchmark industry report last summer revealed that running a professional Web site was the least important priority in hoteliers' plans for their IT spend. Using IT to build cheaper links with suppliers - by exchanging sales and marketing information with them - turned out to be almost as unimportant. This, despite the fact that cutting costs was the reason for installing IT given by about 96% of the 50 hotels and hotel groups IBM surveyed. So what is going on?

"Staff are frightened of losing their jobs if they are seen not to understand computers, which actually makes them frightened of them," says the night auditor of a well-known central London hotel, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "And the computer guys… they make it worse because they only ever tell you that a problem was your fault or that the problem is OK now. They don't want to talk to you."

Strong words. But they're typical of the mystique that surrounds IT and its uses in the hospitality business. Ask the management of any UK hotel chain if they feel they're behind with IT and the answer is "no" or "that's not something we comment on". For example, the general manager for IT at a smallish national chain says: "We're not behind, but I'd say the industry is behind. Two or three years ago we were massively behind, and now we're ahead. But I don't want to be quoted on this."

Even the people who sell IT "solutions" to hoteliers seem wary of IT. The managing director of one of Britain's well-known property management systems (PMS) vendors still insists text information is sent to him by fax rather than e-mail, despite the fact that his company heavily promotes its PMS system on the basis that it integrates hoteliers' own booking systems with their Web sites. As a result, it costs anyone who wants to send him text information about 18 times more than it needs to. Nor does it set a good example for hotelier customers. But he's just not comfortable with e-mail.

Not being comfortable is one of the keys to the problem. According to a survey by Hotel Systems Support Services (HSSS), 72% of hotel managers could not bring themselves to describe their PMS systems as "user-friendly"; 36% said the quality of training they received was low or worse; 47% said the quality of their system's documentation was only average; and 36% said it was low or worse.

HSSS's figures are important because they show hoteliers' views of their PMS. And the PMS is what most hoteliers consider the most important, according to IBM. If hospitality IT vendors don't get this one right, hoteliers are less likely to come back to buy more.

"That's because they're sold more than they need," says Neil Newport, managing director of Performance Technologies. "There's something of a ‘No one ever got fired for buying IBM' mentality that makes hoteliers choose expensive, complex systems from big PMS vendors - even though the systems are inappropriate for them."

That view wins partial support from Luis d'Souza, managing director of hospitality systems vendor NFS.

"The problem with the hotel industry is that it is actually still possible to run a fairly large hotel manually," he says. "You can do it on a £500 accounting system and a reservation book. That's part of the reason why IT has been slower to be taken up in this sector."

Financial pressure

He contrasts the hospitality sector with banks and the financial service industry, where the number of transactions rules out manual records. But, he says, part of the reason is that the financial pressure on the hospitality industry has prevented it from paying prices that could fund the development of more user-friendly computer products.

"Historically we've distributed DOS products, where in other industry sectors they had [user-friendly] Windows," he says. "The only reason NFS could bring out products that fully exploit Windows is that we had a US business and therefore the scale to do it in the USA too. Our latest products could never have been developed in the UK alone."

There's also another factor: the reluctance to spend money training - and rewarding - a transient workforce. This problem is most visible to d'Souza, who sold to the financial services industry before moving to the hospitality sector.

"In insurance and banking," he says, "the labour force tends to stay with companies longer, so the investment in IT training is more easily justified."

Forte Hotels' IT manager for UK brands, Fraser Ewen, agrees. He says that banks typically spend 10-15% of their turnover on IT, while hotels usually spend less than 5%. But there's a good reason for that:

"IT would be considered back of house, and the hospitality industry predominantly invests in front of house," he says. "That means, in what you and I as customers see - we want to see nice surroundings and good finishes."

Internet access

Despite that, says Ewen, the industry is waking up to IT, and he cites Forte's £20m spend on the central reservation system (CRS) that services its 250 hotels, not to mention new switchboards, new cabling and customer-driven services such as in-room Internet access.

Where smaller hotels take up IT enthusiastically, it tends to be because they have self-confident owners who are curious about the technology that underlies IT.

"We're in favour of as much technology as can be used," says Amanda Barnett-Marmian, manager of the 39-bedroom Tophams Belgravia, "although we're not a big hotel."

To prove her point, Barnett-Marmian goes on to list the IT services Tophams has installed: a CRS, a PMS, voicemail and Internet access for guests, a Web site and an office that guests can use with their laptops. "And I designed the Web site myself," she says.

Ironically, it's probably the geeky, acronym-laden Internet that will change the attitudes of the rest of hospitality to IT. That's because it's relatively cheap to start using it. Setting up and running a basic Web site with an address like "www.yourhotel.co.uk" costs about the same over three years as the cost of depreciating two desktop computers over the same period.

The skills needed to do it and the services needed to enhance it are cheaper and more widely available all the time. Contrast them with the relatively high initial cost of buying CRS and PMS systems and the financial return available may be the hook that drags hospitality into living with - if not liking - IT. n

The WEB/Ascend Travel Technology Report is available by calling 0181-960 3050.