Winds of continued recovery and tech adoption are strong characteristics of the current state of the hospitality industry. The recovery is widespread across the globe, although to different degrees on different continents.
Middle East is leading the way as its regular high season matched the period when restrictions from the 4th Covid wave were lifted. The United States is now close to reach 2019 occupancy levels, closely followed by Europe which is having its regular high summer season around the corner, expecting to continue to grow and perhaps even outperform 2019 levels.
However, as has been reported widely, hotels are in general still struggling and suffering from being understaffed. In the short term hotels that have not been preparing for the recovery, by assessing the alternatives in terms of automation software, will be outperformed by hotels with a modern tech stack as these hotels will be able to operate with relatively lower costs and a greater profit margin as a result.
At Atomize we can clearly see the adoption of automation is increasing in the industry as well as among our customers. During the month of May a milestone was reached when we could report that more than 50% of our client portfolio now runs on 100% price automation. For hotels that have started to use Atomize during 2022, that index is 94%! This seismic shift of mentality among hoteliers is without no doubt not going to slow down – we need to realize; automation software is hereby part of the new normal.
Looking ahead, I am optimistic and believe that the appetite for revenge travel post Covid will overrun the fear of market inflation. Especially hotels that have adopted a modern tech stack will be more immune since the cost of running a machine is not affected by inflation to the same extent as if running manual tasks – hence; pay checks.
If you have ever considered to invest in more automation, introducing price automation is a good place to start.
Alexander Edström, CEO at Atomize
