The difficult truth about hospitality technology is the massive chasm between what an operation actually needs and what a vendor is desperate to sell you. I was catching up with an old colleague the other night—someone who, like me, has racked up the frequent flyer miles, walked the trade show halls, and lived through the rise and fall of countless tech players over the decades. Longevity in this game brings a certain clarity.
We got to talking about why it’s so damn hard for hotels to get technology right. The reality? Vendors eventually have to surrender their grander ambitions. From a purely commercial standpoint, they are forced to focus on their narrow slice of the architectural construct. They have to ignore the broader operational health of the business because they’re only incentivized to solve one specific problem. They sell you their box, log the revenue, and move on to the next deal.
That’s the fundamental divide between the vendor community and those of us sitting on the advisory side. As a consultant, my mandate isn’t to push a single application; it’s to look at the macro picture and figure out how to build a better, more resilient hospitality business. Hotels aren’t just single-purpose outlets—they’re dynamic micro-cities. They have intricate, interconnected moving parts spanning operations, guest touchpoints, supply chains, and finance.
If you don’t possess a deep, cross-functional understanding of the entire ecosystem, you will never craft a long-term technology platform that actually eliminates the legacy friction points that have plagued our sector for decades. Point solutions might fix a momentary symptom, but without an overarching architectural strategy, you’re just adding another silo to an already fragmented landscape. Real progress requires looking past the product pitches and taking command of the whole canvas.
Life is so tech. What colour the Imprimatura?
