What kind of tech developments can hotel guests, especially meeting attendees, anticipate in the months or years ahead?
While meetings tech guru Corbin Ball applauds the fact that most hotels have come on board with wired and wireless Internet access, he is hopeful that the next trend will be for all properties to make it complimentary.
"The mid- and lower-priced hotels are offering free Internet, but the upper-end hotels really need to start doing this, too," he says. "I’m not opposed to hotels charging for extra bandwidth in the meeting rooms, but basic Internet access should be considered the same as water and lights."
When it comes to meeting rooms, Ball forecasts that mobile phone technology will soon usurp Web-based connectivity for videoconferencing and other communication.
"Sprint and others are rolling out technology that will replace broadband Internet connections, so there will be a great need for carrying phone signals in the meeting space—this will become a big issue," he says. "Wi-Fi is an interim step. It will be phone technology that will be the heart of business travel communication."
The impact of social media, particularly sites where guests post their own reviews of hotels, is already huge—and will only get stronger. Ball, who frequently consults reviews on TripAdvisor.com when making hotel choices, predicts that many hotels will be creating new sales and marketing positions devoted solely to social media.
"With people blogging, ‘yelping’ and making comments about you online, you have to pay attention," he says. "For hotels, it’s not about direct sales, it’s about listening and finding out about how to use social media as a marketing opportunity. These social review sites are really changing the way people are looking at things."
