today we're going to be talking about optimizing Hotel operations with iot Solutions this is the first time that you have joined uh one of our webinars my name is Eloise I am your host for today and I'm the editor of Boutique Hotel news and we're an online multimedia publication which covers the global Boutique lifestyle and luxury hotel Industries as you can see from your screens we have two sponsors for today's episode uh first of which and our series sponsor which is agilis a cloud-based Hospitality software company and we have Paul Finch on the call today to provide um a short introduction so Paul this is my moment to hand over to yourself and welcome lovely thank you very much Eloise and welcome everybody thank you for joining today's webinar um I'd just like to say a few words um a bit of a background to agilis and you know setting the scene I hope for today agilis is delighted to be the sponsor of this webinar so as a company that is 100% focused on technology within the hospitality industry agilis has been a leader in the debate on how powerful data can be and will be in helping hotels Advance their guest experiences and optimizing their own operations we should all remember that technology touches all parts of our lives and as a hotel guest we increasingly expect the same or even better technological experiences than we have in our own homes so the potential for a hotel we feel is enormous through the sensing and collecting of data that can enable greater guest personalization the automation of processes and task to make operations more efficient and perhaps the biggest potential and and the one closest to agilis is heart is the ability through data to increasingly monetize the guest and drive up Revenue beyond the room so again we're delighted to be sponsoring this fascinating topic this afternoon and I very much look forward to listening to the debate which I hope you all enjoy so thank you and back to you Eloise thanks a lot Paul and further details about angelis including some contact details have been popped into the chat I would encourage you to connect and find out more secondly on to Ruckus our episode sponsor and Ruckus is a provider of wired and wireless networking equipment and today we have a short video to play for you Ruckus Solutions deliver operational efficiencies that are crucial for Main maintaining profitability and enhancing guest satisfaction improving staff safety and inventory management with location tracking and panic button Solutions boosting employee efficiency to maximize time utilization for enhanced customer service every Hotel system operating seamlessly under a single Network for unified workflows and simplified management Ruckus Solutions Empower Hospitality businesses to reduce their environmental footprint conserve resources and contribute to a more sustainable future reducing energy costs with iot enabled thermostats for sustainability and enabling remote monitoring and control of Building Systems and Equipment designed to support current and future standards protocols and Technologies all fully backed by the expertise and support of a leader in Hospitality Solutions optimize every hotel with always on Wi-Fi smart technology service efficiency and customer loyalty and sharing their experiences with others so you can improve occupancy rates revar and guest satisfaction scores it's time to differentiate your property minimize costs and drive Revenue performance unlock the future of hospitality with Ruckus Solutions and once again further details about Ruckus have been popped into the chat including some contact details for you um let's meet our speakers for today and to segue nicely from one video right into a physical human person I'm going to ask Stephen to lead the introductions first say Steven over to yourself please thank you Eloise my name is Stephen bronen I'm the head of global Hospitality here at Ruckus networks um I've been in Hospitality for excuse me for over 17 years and have been selling Ruckus Solutions and providing those solutions to clients in Hospitality essentially ever since so uh it's a of course Ruckus is the leading manufacturer of wire and wireless network uh equipment for the industry uh we've always been known for our excellent products our excellent Wi-Fi and our excellent networking uh of course now we're expanding even further beyond that branching into heavy into iot into Cloud management uh into Ai and into you know really getting into further the world of hospitality and and connecting with all those different systems through common apis and and and standard protoc protocols so really really happy to be here looking forward to an excellent discussion and really trying to uh you know spread the gospel of fantastic Wi-Fi that Ruckus networks provides thank you Stephen um and vibu over to yourself please welcome thanks Eloise uh viu gan from rbh Hospitality management we are a UK based Hospitality management company and we operate just over 50 hotels across the UK I look after all things Tech technology and information systems for the group and we work with multiple vendors Jing Ruckus for our networks iot Solutions and for our technology setups across the portfolio and really happy to be here on this webinar with you super nice to have you vibu uh KD I can see you next on my screen welcome and over to you thank you Eloise uh hello everyone my name is k sadlo and I am the CEO and co-founder of Hotel buy I an ex hotelier with more than 17 years of experience in the hospitality industry um and hotel body is a self-service solution for independent hotels and hotel groups and we provide the hotels with a web based solution that enables them to digitalize their guest Journey so their guests can check in online order Services chat with a hotel staff open hotel room doors um check out uh cast their um mobile phones to the hotel TV and um and much more and we utilize iot technology uh that enables us to open the hotel room doors without the need for the guests to download an app so great uh to be here thank you KD um and last but not least Sam over to you and welcome hello I'm samas I'm co-founder of City Hub which is a revolutionary Hotel concept actually we kind of fill in the gap between hotels and hostels so we have our own pots which we call Hub which we developed and we have shared bathrooms so we're kind of in between there and uh it's a very luxury experience at the same time we also built a lot of uh ittech solutions to make the whole experience automated and uh offer extra guest experience by City hosts who are let's say our reception we have currently three hotels in uh in Europe and we're rolling out and at this moment three other hotels are on the go and we hope to uh reach 10 hotels in the next four years so let's see where we're going to go best of luck Sam and I'm great to have you here and I will add that all the panelist um LinkedIn profiles have been popped into the chat I do encourage you all to connect um and carry on this conversation after today's webinar has finished to provide a very quick overview of how to today's session's going to run we'll spend around 45 minutes chatting with our panelists today followed by some time to take any questions from the floor so please submit any questions for our speakers using the Q&A function at the bottom of your screens and I will get round to asking those where appropriate um and a reminder that today's session is being recorded and everybody that has registered will receive a copy of that recording within two days time to provide some background to today's conversation um according to Starfleet research which is a survey that came out uh last month I believe 282 hotels and resorts which is 76% of the survey group have implemented iot technology for smart guest engagement and security systems additionally there is a growing Trend in sustainability solutions that use iot Tech technology with almost 2/3 of hotels having deployed Energy Management Solutions connected lighting and water monitoring applications to improve Energy Efficiency and reduce waste the second um headline on your screen um about how iot upgrades are the smart way to drive profitability uh this headline is taken from a research um paper by the international data corpor operation which predicts that by 2027 55% of hospitality and travel organizations will invest in Ai and or iot powered devices to reduce waste by 20% and lower costs by 15% and the anticipated gains are so substantial that by 20129 nearly half of hospitality organizations are expected to earmark as much as 25% of their it budgets for automation of services and processes aiming to increase efficiency by 85% on the next slide just to show the um the the worth of the sector when it comes to Smart Hospitality um a report from the SNS Insider projects that the smart Hospitality Market is anti ipated to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 30% from 2024 so from this year to 20131 and that's expected to reach a US dollar 14316 billion by 2031 and North America is the leading Market of smart hospitality and it is expected to hold that position throughout the forecast period now what are the key drivers that spurring this growth um three points that I want to make all taken from this SNS Insider report number one increasing 5G adoption in the hospitality industry second increasing consumer desire the guest focused hyperconnected personalization and real time tailored experiences both of which to our third point which is leading to interest in iot devices and demand for Hospital It software and services all of which are balanced against the need to lower operational expenses a lot to digest um but stay tuned as we're going to dive into this a lot deeper whilst we talk about optimizing Hotel operations and I want to kick off with a question to vibu if I may I would like to learn about very specific concrete examples of how rbh is or has utilized iot Solutions at it pro uh at its properties okay so aloise we at rbh work across multibrand properties so we work with with global Brands like iig Hilton marot Windam and aor as well and we worked with all these Brands and we have put in common platforms which we starting off with the first one is probably the in room Energy Management we have just been we have been in the second year of the roll out at the moment and uh it is basically replicating what the sensors technology with iot sensors in the bedrooms to look at occupancy levels to then look at the physical presence in the bedroom and that that in turn controls the lighting the air conditioning any appliances in the bedroom including the TVs and that allows us to do some significant inroads towards our ESG policy it really helps our environmental part of the ESG uh contion and in the first year alone at one of the examples Plaza brockland in the first year alone we have had a savings just over of just over 50k uh by deploying that technology and that's British pounds so that's the first example and we in the roll out phase of that the second one which we have started a very good pilot on is to actually have reception L hotels so we have the corner hotel in London where we have eliminated the need for the traditional reception desk uh and that has been enabled entirely because of the iot solutions that we have in the hotel which is direct room checkin it has ports and and a kios Bas solution for international travels who potentially might not have access to the internet during the travels uh and that covers a lot of kind of resource requirement really reduces in that scenario and it helps that our Associates at the hotel can then actually engage in meaningful guest service instead of hunking down over a PC checking in and and doing the transactional part of guest service it just allows the the team to do more in terms of meaningful guest service and that is probably the two prime examples after that we have also utilized or starting to utilize a lot of the iot technology in our kind of FNB areas when it comes to stock monitoring stock control go on of the days when you're doing manual manual stock counts uh those things are starting to come through as as well and in our food preparation area you know just just uh the management of temperature in the refrigeration area uh within within the quicking range being being able to uh put the extracts on and off dependent on what's being cooked and what the temperature in the entire kitchen area is and those are the prime examples which are kind of real life examples where we are seeing iot really coming to maturity and can you talk to me viu about um the measurable impact that um adding these Solutions into said properties what impact that is having on not just efficiency you highlighted that your staff members are now able to interact and engage more with um with guests but also cost savings cost savings uh I think predominantly is the cost of utilities uh I think everybody on this call uh would would be aware utilities cost have 8 skyrocketed over the last two years 2 and a half years and that's the biggest saving if you look at the commercial uh return on investment it's the it's a saving and utilities that is the biggest driver and after that uh it comes down to a measurable Savings in the region of an adopted Hotel a midscale hotel let's say 100 bedrooms or more you would be looking to save anything in the region of between 55 to 60k in the first year alone you know and that and if you look at one of our examples over a 10year period we have we have worked out you would be saving the big savings come at the at the onset when the solution gets delivered and then then they kind of plateau off and you got the situation in place you've got the major savings made then you're looking at what 10 year period you're easily touching the 400k mark in savings when with all the systems adopted into that environment and it depends on the scale if you're if you're using if you're having a hotel operation that has Leisure Spa the savings are here huge and then in the smaller hotel which is let's let's say 60 70 bedroom with very limited f&b there are R saving but there's still a big saving as a number thanks viu um same question to Sam actually because I understand that City Hub has actually built its brand around the technology um it's a slightly different model um to to um rbh as a third party management company um so s can you provide examples of what iot features you're using and the follow-up question on what um impact is that having on efficiency and cost savings yeah I think that uh we implemented definitely a lot of those Solutions in in its core City Hub is already a a concept that was developed to be kind of sustainable super efficient in space and that's how we already save the most cost we actually have uh 83% lower CO2 emissions than the average hotel in Europe so it's already in its Core built like that but um so yeah we have a number of systems some are more experience related and others are more cost uh drivers also and we have our own bar system which is connected to a wristband so people when they check in they activate their wristband which is connected to our bar there's a draft beer there's coffee there's it's it's fully decorated as a normal bar but there's no bartender you uh you do it yourself and it's connected to uh the PMS system and automatically uh everything is being charged on the account which of course saves a lot on staff because there is actually a bar there it fully experiences as a whole bar but actually it's not there's just a self-service system but in experience um we built our own check-in kiosk uh which is also connected to our uh City host which is is actually our reception let's say so the moment people check in we get the personalized data and the host sees that and can automatically interact uh personalized so instead of creating a less personal personal experience the the checkin actually makes it enables us to have a more personal interaction with the guest and this of course also saves a lot on staff but at the same time it creates an experience and then we have our own app in which the app is 24hour the guests are 24hour connected to the city hosts so they can ask them all kinds of questions so there's no reception in a sense that only on checkin and check out or whenever a guest arrives there physically can be helped now they actually it's a continuous process right now so it's h even the moment they make a reservation and from that moment on they can constantly interact with our city hosts and this app also is the control of the room so in our new hotel also for the temperature control and the lights controls and we have a special experience so we have like a fully addressable LED lighting system so we can change the atmosphere in the hub with different colors different atmosphere we have like for example Northern Light and then you know next hotel is going to be in Iceland so then we can also artificially show it in the room um well this of course redu reduces the construction cost because instead of putting a panel in every room uh you can just uh do it once and then do it for all hotels at the same time and this also makes sure that um that you can update it when the exper when you want to improve the experience you don't have to actually physically update any systems there so that makes it a lot easier and um yeah I think that uh our next step actually is uh is that everything is going to be in the cloud so we're going to have one VPN for all all all hotels I guess uh that's something that also for systems like rukus can work well well with you know the especally kind of modern Wi-Fi systems they allow that and then uh we won't have a server anymore so all our systems will be in the cloud connected to One Network in all hotels yeah that's basically it there's definitely a conversation to be had here around um investment uh because you've developed some of these Solutions yourself s rather than Outsourcing and and partnered with what's already out there in the market um so with that in mind how how are you measuring the impact on such things as efficiency and cost savings when you've taken that upfront investment to develop in your Tech yourself yeah like in a way of course we developed it all all as as soon as we started so there's no comparison to another theoretical version of of City Hub but uh yeah of course we're saving a lot on staff like our hotel in Copenhagen has 25 rooms and um it's run basically one person in the reception and in busy times we have a second but uh so the costs are definitely automatically just uh much lower yeah I think that's the most important uh part of this yeah so the staff cost yeah it's we don't of course we measure for example how many people uh we use per guest stay uh but yeah so all those things are measured but uh yeah in the end of course it development costs are not just to build it once you have to continuously update the the software so that's definitely a cost that you have to take into account but not only that also the hardware in the systems also gets outdated like the tablet or the QR reader or all those kind of things so those are also kind of Investments you have to take into account every couple of years if you want to keep the systems updated so we do uh know that we have extra cost there but yeah so far it seems that it's still outweighing yeah the get the staff cost mostly and of course creating a unique experience which is also very important thanks Sam step has there been any tools products features capabilities that has been missed so far in our conversation when it comes to looking at how hotels are utilizing iot to what we're talking about here is tracking and collecting data right yeah absolutely I mean you know there's there is um as both Vu and and Sam mentioned you know door locks of course uh is very very key for Access Control but also the other side of that is loss prevention uh right meaning keeping the door lock uh disabling that card after three uses for example uh against any doors to prevent it from actually opening up the correct door and having the wrong person have access to that room um that's always important thermostats you know Energy Management uh as as viu mentioned as well as him U and lighting you know great great things great applications of iot and these are the kind of the the the lwh hanging fruit so to speak uh for iot these days to make sure that you can have a a great impact on your property um increasing operational efficiencies reducing costs Etc but there's also other things you know that we're working on iot of course is evolving right so it's always changing there's new devices coming along all the time uh one of the latest ones of course that we've stumbled across uh was smoke and vape detectors you know having a having a guest uh come into a hotel room and either use Vape or smoke and having the costly remediation of cleaning that room afterwards um something like that can really play uh an impact in the guest room and can be reduced from smoke and vape detectors just having something in that room to let people know that you know somebody is uh maybe smoking a uh something that they shouldn't be in that room that's going to have a skunky flavor afterwards that they need to clean that room right away right and be able to still um get to that guest and apply those charges while the guest is there versus after they've left and they've got no connection with them uh of course the other one is employee safety uh buttons right um of course here in in North America there's a a large uh many many states uh many provinces have laws with employee safety buttons making sure that you know if employee does need assistance does need help that the that the um uh staff can get to them right away that's obviously a very large component of this as well um and then you know we're we're seeing other things where you know we've got common connections to apis and and so forth like that where people can really build uh through Ruckus networks as the infrastructure can connect to these other devices like casting um like back a house like you know room service and ordering and doing different things like that so um really iot is is always evolving um you know and and we're we're lucky because we're in the center of it all right every every application every iot device that's out there uh most commonly goes through the Wi-Fi and network infrastructure at that property uh so you know we're seeing some great things on that note um I want to pick your brain around emerging Tech that perhaps excites you and I want to talk specifically around any emerging iot technologies that you believe Steph will have a significant impact on Hotel operations in the near future what what are you seeing what do you believe in well I mean one of the most um talkx about items of course is is virtual reality you know you have the all these devices which are now being used now more for business the the AI sorry the the augmented reality goggles and so forth like that that are coming out um you know for for use for gaming or for business Etc uh when you combine those with the uh either the work or Leisure traveler um you know they they require uh an enormous amount of data and they require orous amount of bandwidth to keep going um so these devices of course you know we're going to see them more and more just as we' seen a rise of gaming devices uh for the longer longer term stay hotels in the past we're going to see augmented reality pick up and you know you're going to need to have the right infrastructure at your property to support these devices uh if you've got a an older network uh your guests aren't going to be happy because they can't get access to the the the quality of the Stream they're looking for uh across these devices um it's it's really about you know making sure that your infrastructure is sound uh to be able to support everything you know when you're looking at Wi-Fi 7 Etc um and the speeds are required or or available through that um there's an enormous amount of possibility and I think we're going to see that even pick up quicker over the next several years because of the amount of uh balwi that's available to these Edge devices um another one of course is is AI right I mean um Ruckus ourselves we have ai embedded in our Ruckus Swan Gateway uh which we're providing to the hotel that can actually offload a ton of uh operational costs and so forth like that by having AI answer the questions on the on the chatbot right um that can have ai be available to help the guests to help uh analyze your usage to help analyze Trends to help reduce even uh issues with Wi-Fi across your property so AI is going to be the next one that's driving uh uh in terms of Technology as well and that requires you know not only uh bandwidth of course but it requires a lot of kind of uh hyper localization so you know when you're a guest in a room and you're asking where's the closest pizza joined it actually provides you with the you know a location that's nearby versus one that's nearby the cloud uh you know office where the cloud is located at right it's there's a lot of growth in that market as well I want to bring Katie into the conversation here because I would imagine that there are going to be many hoteliers or perhaps asset managers that are listening into this webinar now who want to embark on this journey integrating and deploying new tech or they're already on that journey and they are facing quite a few challenges because a lot of hotels use Legacy systems so Katie what best practices can hotell is use to ensure that that is a smooth integration process and thank you very much for this question uh yes indeed although uh what we see globally is that more and more hotels today are switching over to cloud-based uh Solutions and cloud-based PMS uh systems uh there's still a fair amount of partners and also in our portfolio who who are still kind of stuck with their old Legacy system um eventually obviously they will also have to move and and there are you know uh Legacy systems coming out with cloudbased Solutions and so on uh from our side we uh very carefully select our integration Partners we do not integrate with all the pms's and sometimes unfortunately we have to say no to hotel uh because we want to ensure that the solution is working if the customer chooses our solution we want to make sure that everything is working then they are buying the product they are paying for the product that actually works um and also there is a lot of overhead when it comes to the integration the Integrations uh themselves are quite challenging and uh time consuming as well as the you know the later up upkeep and monitoring and updating the solution to make sure sure it continues to work uh now we take very uh great pride in our onboarding process with the hotels so when a hotel signs up with Hotel body uh we actually have uh multiple onboarding sessions with the hotel uh with different stakeholders and we really map out uh and kind of like get the understanding of the current hotel processes and uh we build our solution around the customer so we don't expect the customer just to adopt kind of you know new ways of working because at the end of the day it is kind of you know a change that we bring to the organization it's going to be new for for the teams it's going to be new for their customers um and I I would really encourage the hotels when you go um and choose to implement the new technology then to work together with your technology partner at the end of the day you are Partners this is a relationship uh so it cannot be just like you know one-sided that the technology partner is supposed to just bring in the technology and it uh miraculously starts working like both parties need to work uh to make sure that you know it is uh satisfying and longlasting relationship um so um yeah this is this is one of my I I would say the best suggestions uh choose your partners carefully and then put in the the work and and hours and I think it also helps if the hotel has designated uh like a project team or a project manager when they implement the new technology because there is nothing worse than like kind of shared responsibility and like then at the end no one is responsible and and they cannot roll out the solution the way they would like it thanks Katie vibu you earlier provided uh three examples um so I think FNB reception and sort of in room examples um did you run into any challenges uh when you were adding or integrating these Solutions into your existing operations and and management processes yeah uh thanks for that Elise uh firstly I'm very envious of Sim's position where it's a brand new portfolio that he's running you know because these Technologies are so easy to adapt when you're building from the ground up that's the best position to be in when you can adopt the solutions especially with iot in the very outset of the building stages uh the biggest challenge that probably comes out is is the limitation of the Legacy systems and the limitations of the infrastructure that we have in the Wi-Fi you know uh and and Prime examples being door locking a door locking solution can easily have a lifespan of 20 25 years uh it's a huge investment for a hotel to undertake to replace a door locking solution especially if it's still kind of fit for purpose but it's not ready for for today's technology uh so those are the challenges that we are all that we are kind of eliminating and as the investment is coming back after a few tough years as the investment is truly back into hotels we are now starting to see a refresh of those Legacy systems refresh of the infrastructure what we are doing with with the with the Wi-Fi with with the solutioning that is going into it those were those were the challenges already kind of holding us back the solutions exist uh we partner with various uh with various companies that have Solutions around it it's just you can only do so much at a given time and everything is a priority everything is is the right approach everything kind of takes us towards our ESG goals towards our commercial uh payback on these Solutions it's what do you prioritize so we have we as an organization have taken the view that it has to guest guest Centric it has to impact the guest in meaningful way it has to make a decent significant saving and kind of in in the revenue or generate Revenue as well uh but the main challenges are around our Legacy systems initial High Cost of adoption uh I think over the last year they has starting to be a decline in kind of the costs that were needed there's more there are more kind of p&l options available where you don't have to do a huge investment Capital wise so those challenges are starting to go away now and I think the next one is probably around data security and privacy you know there's a lot of thought process that has to be put in when you're putting in iot Solutions it's collecting a huge amount of data off your network you know who's looking after it how are you managing it how secure are you with those data policies those those are probably typically the three or four items that that have been the most challenging for us Stephen can I ask you to to build on top of this and and commentate from a different perspective here and and talk walk us through the considerations um that that will be essential for hoteliers when they're looking at that their infrastructure their Tech stack and their Network when they are looking at um trialing new iot Solutions either be it at a smaller level or even large scale uh projects where where would you advise hoteliers to start absolutely and that's that's a great question um you know with with so many different uh applications on the market today it's it's it's really as I mentioned a great question um you know the the biggest thing I guess I would start with is is looking at the infrastructure right and and I know that you know of course we're a network infrastructure company so that's that's really key to us but if you don't have the proper Foundation to support any of those iot devices really you've gotta you've got to go back and start from the ground up right um so I guess the first thing I'd look at is you know what is the what is the wiring in your building you know what is the capacity of that wiring uh are you looking at um you know cat 6 lines which would be great are you looking at um gpon Network you know something like that for for increased capacity um and then the switching uh of course after that right what is the capacity of those switches and then one step back looking at at the capacity of the Wi-Fi devices uh do your Wi-Fi devices have B Bluetooth and beaconing built into them that's key uh if you don't then you need a BL Bluetooth beaconing capable um Wi-Fi device uh in in your room um then we look at positioning you know where are you going to position that AP uh there have been many many cases where the AP has been deployed too far away from the door lock and that creates a strain from the actual door lock because it has to almost push itself out for the connection um to connect to the to BL or the beaconing and it drains its batteries so then you're continuously replacing batteries which doesn't really increase your operational efficiency if you're always you know supporting those uh door locks and so forth right um so that's of course a huge component is you know what are you looking to do uh how are you looking to accomplish it what technology are you looking at using and that's where we rely on you know our our network of Partners and resellers to kind of use be best practices to work as almost it Consultants so to speak to to help you pick the right solution that they know and trust and to deploy it in a way that is going to be best for you and your property um then we look at of course you know once we have that infrastructure down and and we know what you're looking to deploy what are your means to success right what how can we create this and perhaps a small POC uh you know proof of concept so we've we've done proof of Concepts uh whether it be you know in a in a number of hotel rooms uh where we have the capability of you know temporarily turning on either iot or turning on a a Ruckus one capacity for that property so they can test it trial it for limited time before they actually go ahead and pull the trigger on it uh and we've also done full uh poc's within uh Hotel deployments themselves we've got um a great POC running uh in North America that uh with iot door loocks and and it essentially has increased the again operational efficiency from the property but but it's also just reduced the the amount of time that they spend supporting it uh that battery um item that I mentioned earlier uh they can actually get notifications a week before the battery dies on the specific door lock so that they're not replacing floors at a time of batteries because that's the cycle that they think they're replacing a door at a time right which increases you know increases efficiencies but reduces the amount of time that they're spent you know doing uh operational items right which is which is really really key um you know so it's it's really large part of that but there's also another emerging Trend which is you know kind of green capabilities as well um you know obviously in a lot of the cases when when our partners deploy Ruckus Wi-Fi networks our APS are so powerful that you know we end up turning down the signal turning down the power a little bit right just so there's not too much SNR signal to noise ratio so it's not too loud of an environment uh for Wi-Fi I mean that's that's the power Ruckus but the other thing that we're actually doing is in areas where maybe Wi-Fi isn't being utilized say the conference area in the evening uh let's say it's uh like in the late hours for example let's say it's you know maybe maybe occupancy is low and there's certain floors or areas of the property that are not really in use we're actually investigating into ways that we can reduce the power on those access points which will you know be have a direct correlation to the property's power bill right and and energy costs so we're we're always exploring ways to um you know to help the hospitality industry and our clients we're purpose-driven we provide purpose-driven networks and hospitality is one of our key pillars uh that we do that for so we're we're really striving to always be better for Hospitality it's reassuring to know that you can um start small and then scale up like you mentioned the proof of concept in one room compared to a 200 rooms of of your hotel um I I want to rephrase my next question slightly to to Katie um Boutique lifestyle luxury hotels a lot of our audience members are going to be independent properties they're probably going to be wondering how they can invest in and embrace Innovative Technologies whilst trying to balance the affordability of such an investment um how can Hotel those independent hoteliers strick that balance yeah absolutely you always have to understand the return on the investment right um what we are seeing amongst our partners is actually that um uh they are converting around 50 to 60% of their guests so meaning that actually the majority of the hotel guests if the digital solution is provided to them they choose to check in digital uh way over the traditional way um now when we convert this into numbers then let's take um an example of a 100 room hotel right so with a yearly average occupancy of 80% 50% conversion rates uh our calculation shows that this hotel in average will save about 200 uh labor hours or reception working hours per month so we are talking about saving one to one and half jobs just right there uh in addition the hotels uh they can uh benefit from increased incremental Revenue which is coming from the extra service sales the room uh upgrades and uh one thing of course that is very hard to measure but this is the uh the increased um customer satisfaction rates as I think viu and S both brought out that uh by utilizing this kind of like digital self-service solution for the guests it is actually not kind of taking them further away from the guests but it actually helps them to personalize the guest journey and to offer a much better uh experience for the guest because now all the mundane you know these kind of nonv value adding tasks are being uh digitalized and taken over by technology and the humans uh that actually really make the difference in in the hospitality industry to have the time to provide uh the nice service and and to provide nice human interactions and this is what really matters I think there's there's something to be said about upfront cost versus the revenue generating capabilities I think maybe we need to Pivot that conversation to to as you've mentioned look at look at what can be generated as a result of it be it on the cost-saving side but also what can be produced as a result another thing is that more and more hotels are adopting these Technologies and they are going ahead you know and I think you know coming from the industry myself I know how very competitive their hotels are and how important it is also not to kind of miss that train so can you just imagine you know you're you have two hotels similar hotels on the same street one of them is utilizing all these technology is they have much uh you know higher increased profitability uh they can take down their ADR you know sell have much higher occupancy rates and so on and you are just you know losing behind of them and you know and not to mention the staff shortages that of course the whole industry is experiencing regardless of the region we've just touched on there about sort of financial um challenges and opportunities and I want to bring s back into the conversation here because we spoke off camera about um about your Beall uh recent accreditation and how that is um influencing your or reshaping the relationship with your lender and so I want to bring this back into an iot smart Hotel conversation here um but how are you quantifying the financial benefits of smart systems uh in terms of those operational cost savings but more importantly the value creation for stakeholders and if you wouldn't mind talking us through um the same conversation that we had yeah I think in in this case it's not so much about costs it's more about well I guess whenever it comes to energy it's both costs and environment right they often go together a lot so and in this case yeah what you're talking about with ABN Amro which is our bank that does most of our financing uh they after we uh got the B certification which is a sustainability certification for companies that uh go an extra step let's say for that part um they yeah they they came with a proposal basically to us saying uh we would like to give you a 0.3% I think discount on your interest rate if you can show us a increase of the score in the coming three years so uh yeah and then that was very interesting proposal and then of course the measurement uh becomes very important which you already do for borp I mean usually these kind of sustainability certificates are a a lot of measurements like endless forms of measuring every little detail and but then values come out and then you can clearly show array let's say in certain values in every aspect and uh yeah that then automatically of course you have a financial benefit from that if there are partners and Banks who are willing to do these kind of things and there certainly as Katie mentioned the value creation for your guests as well when you start to digitalize the guest experience and automate certain operational tasks or or Management Systems you can you you can you're empowering the guest to almost create their own stay and experience whil on your property yeah I think uh yeah it's it's also uh like Vio said that uh we are of course from the ground up built this way so it's much easier for us it's actually the only reason why it's even possible for us I would say to develop all these systems because we can make them very lean we've developed a concept that is very simple and lean like we don't have a restaurant for example so so there's a lot of uh things involved in making this for us possible but I do think of course in in a traditional Hotel world yeah you'll probably have to rely much more on external uh partners and and see see if you can integrate them in the right way that's the big challenge but for us uh yeah it's it's easier to to justify the cost of the development and the result deliverers boo i' would like to bring you back in here um almost like a a comparison as I mentioned of of the two different sort of models uh from from an operational side um how do you see rbh leveraging iot advancements in the future you mentioned a couple of Standalone properties within the portfolio but are you exploring any other possibilities scenarios tools to further optimize operations so I think we have touched during during the the course of this webinar I think we have touched on most items that that that have that kind of found its way into the industry uh one of the unique situations we faced early on in this year was at one of our London properties uh they hosted a e gaming event at the property and they took the the event took something like 80 rooms at the hotel and we suddenly realized our Wi-Fi is just not good enough and we had to Cable up the hotel and actually run temporary fiber cables into bedrooms to give these Gamers opportunity so I think the the one thing that we have started to see as as demand grows is these unique environments are starting to be created which use hotels as a temporary base and hoteliers need to be ready for it you know that's that's one area where iot is really coming to its prominence better and more controlled data delivery data usage at the guest levels and for these specific very very unique situations where you have to cater to a very set segment of guest who will utilize a lot of your bandwith coming into the hotel you know so much so that you're overc consumed and and you have to make them Provisions uh the key areas remain it's it's a lot to do with AI which is coming through that that is going to be a game changer as I think everybody on this call has probably being in discussions or sat in panels or being in the room where it's where it's it's it's the next iteration of the internet right it's it's going to change how we physically do business and how we how we operate our hotels how we service our yes uh key things uh around automated checkin checkout it's it's nearly here uh the technology exists it's just a legacy systems that is stopping its 202 adoption uh smart rooms we are starting to do that a lot better in our new build hotels in our new B hotels it's it's the starting point rather than afterthought and then it's more about preventive maintenance in our Legacy hotels in our in our hotels that are a bit more aged as as a asset Set uh iot is really help with the pr preventative maintenance you know it's it's literally becoming predictive and more more managed as as Steven said you know you can you can Target a door you can know a door lock has a fault even before a guest goes up to that door that's the kind of stuff that is that we starting to see uh Inventory management is another is another position uh in our bizier FNB hotels uh that's where we starting to see a lot of inventory management systems going which are all based on iots and the backups and uh I think the next one is is probably around housekeeping maintenance uh personalization and guest deliveries you know how do you how do you make it better at a fivestar hotel how do you make the service even more better and personalized so that when a guest reappears to stay in the hotel it's exactly as they would have left it right it's it's giving that personalization to that degree and those are probably the key things those those are where we would look like to see you know better adoption ourselves and in the industry as well super thank you Viv what a great note to end on I always like to get out that crystal bow and and take a look at what the future might hold and where the industry might be moving to but I can see that we've got four minutes on the clock and I've still got some slides that I would like to run through um so I'm just going to say a very brief thank you to to vibu to stepen to Katie and to Z for their insights and I will flag here that we're going to keep our webinar open um at the end for an extra two minutes to allow our audience members time to follow up on any of the links that we have popped into the chat today um including the LinkedIn profiles of our speakers for you to ask your burning questions and to carry on that conversation so to flag the next um webinar in our series we're taking a very short um break over the summer and we are going to be back on Monday September the 9th for a discussion or a debate around adrs can only go so far so picking up on that Revenue generating opportunities um outside of the hotel rooms on properties so we'd love to see you there and you can register by um clicking on the link that has been popped into the chat and whilst we take a break over the summer I would encourage all of you to take a look at our past webinar archives they can be found on the boutique hotel news web um website the link has also been popped into the chat we have um discussions on there from investment and finance to experiential hotelier to FMB you name it we've covered so much on there we've been going for four years strong now so there will be a topic there that entices um or will align with most people that have been uh tuning in today so do take the time um there's plenty of insights to be to be found there and to flag an in-person event that we're hosting this September on the 18th and 19th of September here in London at Kings Cross the urban living Festival which brings together all the um hospitality and living asset classes Under One Roof that's hotels service departments short-term rentals co-living co-working student housing Senior Living it's all going on and once again we'd love to see you there tickets are on sale um and you can find out further information on the link that has been popped into the chat if you're Keen to work with us um either across our digital webinars like today or our in-person events please do get in touch and my colleague Piers his details are on your screen and also in the chat we would love to hear from you and all that's left for me to say is thank you so firstly thank you to Steph to viu to KD and to Sam thank you to agilus and to Ruckus I hope you've enjoyed this conversation I certainly have and I very much look forward to seeing you once again back in September well enjoy the rest of your afternoons and we'll see you all very soon take care hello we are international Hospitality Media or IHM for short IHM is the number one brand to engage with decision makers in hospitality and real estate our for multimedia Brands lead your respective sectors with breaking news comments Trends and opinion across a variety of multimedia Solutions we provide an inspiration Community to connect people through world class events webinars podcasts award schemes and much more but let us share our story of who we are and what we do over 10 years ago Pearson George had a light bulb moment to provide expert opinion comments and lowcost digital content and so they went on a journey over the past decade creating 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2024-08-10