As I celebrate my first year back in the world of hospitality vendors, I’m happy to see both how things have changed and how they’ve stayed the same. Hotels have operated under the same principles of hospitality for thousands of years. Each hotel has relied on the basics-putting their own spin on them to try to attract more guests. They often imitate the great things they see in other hotels, because they’re the things that work.
But the changes in hotel technology have impressed me.
Technology, because of cost, turnover and training, is only now becoming commonplace with line-level staff. There are many factors, including reduction in cost, but the main factor is training. Staff that formerly looked at technology as untouchable suddenly had leapfrogged their job-provided technology in their personal lives. They had iOS-this, android-that and Alexa, play “ME! by Taylor Swift” at home, in their living rooms, pockets and purses. The training and turnover risks were gone, and the staff that was once afraid to touch computers now had them in their hands.
They looked at their employers and said, “Why are you so far behind? We could be so much more productive if we had more information!” and “Our workday would be awesome if we didn’t have to run back to the office 5 times during our day to do this or that!”
I joined Quore because I saw something that I hadn’t really seen before: a company that genuinely wants to improve the workday for the hotel staff.
Quore didn’t originate with the goal of making the big bucks-they didn’t chase the 5-star resorts with deeper pockets. Scott Schaedle wanted to help as many people as possible, and he priced the application to be affordable by mid-tier properties and large brands alike for that reason. He wanted to make the workday awesome for the line staff and management of as many hotels as he could.
To date, Quore has done that for over 3,800 hotels numbering nearly 100,000 staff members.
Just as hotels have imitated each other over the years, hotel technology companies do the same. Just recently, I noticed an article at Hotel Tech Report announcing Alice’s new housekeeping module. In tech as in hotels, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. We, at Quore, are flattered by how similar the screens look to ours.
In any field as venerated and steeped in tradition as the hospitality industry, it’s difficult to come up with new and original ideas.
Quore was the first cloud-based system to put fully functioning mobile apps in the hands of housekeepers, maintenance staff, front desk agents, management. We didn’t invent housekeeping, preventative maintenance or guest service-but we strive to streamline these areas, giving more time back to the people who know them best. Many of them will use that time to make their guests’ stays better. Quore is cultivating hospitality in such a way that it’s rippling through other systems like the classically copied, tried-and-true methods of hospitality that started centuries ago. Our software has received awards for its housekeeping tools two years in a row, and our user base is constantly growing, because our solutions work!
That’s what I’m most excited about.
So when I see other hospitality solutions following our lead, I feel hopeful and enthusiastic for the whole industry. And I’m proud to be a part of a company leading hotels into the future. One device at a time.
Richard Bradbury is a Hospitality Systems and Operations Expert and the VP of Strategy and Alliances at Quore. Connect with Richard on LinkedIn here.
