MOU to help tourism operators better utilise technology

Hospitality and tourism industry operators are being encouraged to ramp up their use of technology to meet customer demands, protect their operations, increase revenue and improve efficiency.

And a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) has signed with the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) will assist them in doing that.

CHTA officials said the three-year MOU will result in several benefits to members, allowing them to access finance and technology-related education on a range of topics including data privacy, cryptocurrency, digital marketing, automation and staffing; attend conferences and seminars; receive various discounts; and for hospitality tech entrepreneurs to enter specific competitions and benefit from joint training and development.

President of the CHTA Nicola Madden-Greig said the COVID-19 pandemic had highlighted the need for greater use of technology in several areas including training so that industry operators are better able to satisfy labour demands, strengthen the workforce and increase productivity.

She also noted that through the partnership, the CHTA was hoping members will be able to use technology to make their operations more sustainable, cut costs, recover faster after a shock, and engage in more digital marketing.

Madden-Greig also lamented that despite a “big shift” in other destinations that are competing with the region for tourists, many operators in the Caribbean, especially micro and small hospitality entrepreneurs, continued to only accept payments by credit card, cash or cheque.

“There are so many ways now that you can get payment and find yourself in that space that you can get those online business transactions done even though you might be a craft vendor in a market in St Lucia,” she said.

“We need to be much smarter when it comes to the application of technology across the region – from artificial intelligence to big data.”

Pointing out that the CHTA wanted to help industry operators increase revenue and improve efficiency, Madden-Greig said: “We are going to place special emphasis on inclusion of micro, small and medium-sized tourism entities as well as independent tourism organisations.”

She pointed to the importance of communication through the use of new technology, noting that customers were keen on communicating with tourism operators through methods other than e-mail and telephone.

“There is a lot to be unpacked, and I think through this partnership and exposing our membership to the options we will really see an eye-opening change that is welcomed and help to fast track the way we imbed technology into our operations, so that we can continue to have not only a sustainable tourism product but one that truly thrives in a new environment,” said Madden-Greig.

Chief Executive Officer of HFTP Frank Wolfe said he expected that as a result of the partnership, industry operators will give more attention to the issue of cyber security.

“Cyber security is more than just making sure a property or an enterprise has a good firewall. Cyber security now has expanded to things where people can hack in and turn on your air conditioning [and] turn on your printers,” he pointed out.

Highlighting the need for using more energy saving technology in the industry, Wolfe noted that “as prices go up and margins in the hospitality sector become smaller”, operators will need to “squeeze every little bit of energy efficiency and conservation out of the resources that we possibly can without suffering the guests”.

He also indicated that with the shrinking labour force and more people going into entrepreneurship, tourism industry players should find ways to use technology to “get around this labour shortage”. (MM)