TECHNOLOGY
BLOCKCHAIN BLUNDER ?
W ilko Weber wants to make a bet with you : that within a couple of years , some outside disruptors will develop a blockchain-based solution to a problem the hospitality industry hasn ’ t figured out that it has – and then charge hotel companies a hefty sum to participate . Yep , just like the OTAs did .
“ I don ’ t think we should ask ourselves whether we should use blockchain ... We as an industry should wake up and realize that the technology
RISK ANALYSIS
“ If you don ’ t know what you ’ re ingesting , you probably are not sure how to protect it ,” says Patrick Dunphy , CIO of Schaumburg , Illinoisbased nonprofit Hospitality Technology Next Generation . As the EU ’ s General Data innovation will disrupt our industry again ,” says Weber , partner at Swiss Hospitality Solutions AG in Meggen , Switzerland . Hotels should be asking a few critical questions to leverage the technology , a digital distributed ledger or database that records transactions from multiple computers and has a strong security selling point . “ How could I use it for my business to make guests more happy and to make more money ? It ’ s just as simple as that . Then you stumble across
Protection Regulations take effect , he advocates a discerning approach : “ As more and more data is collected , more and more analysis will need to take place about whether this data is useful … The larger issue a couple of ( ways ) you could use it .”
For instance , Weber says , you could use blockchain as the basis of a decentralized workforce management system ; or to create digital IDs that allow guests to bypass the traditional registration and identification processes of check-in and access their guest room immediately .
Won ’ t all this require an enormous investment of people , business intelligence and resources ?
“ I think it ’ s a shift . I know that many hotel companies are debating investing more and more in IT systems . But if I look into overall workforce distribution … I see very little headcount in IT or innovation .”
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here is less about the data that you ’ re holding and more about how you manage and handle it – and keeping only the minimal amount of data necessary to conduct your business ... There are always new ways to protect data , but sooner rather than later hotels need to make a value decision , and frankly
Weber reckons that hospitality applications of blockchain , when they do happen , will probably show up first in payments , then identification , then distribution . But he ’ s not holding his breath . “ In most industries , I would say even in six months it would be different ,” he says . “ But I think one year is not enough to wake us up .”— B . B .
How could I use ( blockchain ) for my business to make
GUESTS MORE HAPPY and to make more money ? It ’ s just as simple as that .
” a business decision , about whether the data is important enough to keep . It obviously needs to be protected . And then based on the level of risk and the amount of resources that it might take to protect that information , they may ultimately decide that it ’ s not necessarily worth keeping .”— B . B .
June 2018 hotelsmag . com 45