When Hotel Management celebrated its 140th anniversary in 2015, John Kim—then-chief product officer for Expedia Worldwide—shared five key technology trends that he predicted would transform travel over the next five years.
“Mobile now often is the primary device people use to access the Internet,” Kim wrote at the time. “Hoteliers will have to continue to redefine what mobile means to them and their respective businesses.” Needless to say, between dedicated apps and mobile-optimized websites, this prediction was very accurate, and it is especially interesting to note how hotel workers themselves now use smartphones and tablets to do their jobs at the property level.
Kim also predicted that cars would become a more important Internet-connected device. “Since eight out of 10 leisure trips involve a car, this may be a more important question than you first might think.” As the market share of electric vehicles grow, and embedded technology in these cars direct drivers to charging stations, this prediction was particularly impressive.
The Apple Watch launched in 2015, and Kim noted at the time that presales for the wearable technology were setting records. “This level of adoption encourages developers to build more apps, which, in turn, will make the product work better. Hotels have taken advantage by enabling itinerary alerts.”
Perhaps Kim’s most notable prediction was that computing would “surpass” the processing power of human beings, long before AI became a ubiquitous technology. “Google engineering director Ray Kurzweil predicts that processing capabilities of common computers will equal that of the human brain by 2020 or about the time the iPhone 11 should launch,” Kim wrote. (And for the record, the iPhone 11 launched in 2019.)
Finally, Kim noted how quickly hotel marketing was changing. “Reaching your target audience will become more data-centric and technical,” he wrote. “Hoteliers will need new capabilities, skill sets and approaches in order to maintain their fair share.”
“How will hoteliers ultimately make the right tech choices to support their hotel when the technology around them is changing so quickly?” Kim wondered in 2015. Ten years later, the technology may have changed, but the question is still the same.