Hospitality Technology Trends for 2024
The pace of change of technology is only getting faster, and businesses can no longer afford to get left behind. Tabology is always looking at how to apply new technologies to deliver maximum benefit to hospitality operators. Here, Tabology MD Phil Neale looks at some of the big trends to watch out for in 2024.
AI
2023 has seen an explosion of interest in AI, brought about by the advancements of Chat GPT and similar natural language models. This has led to some initial AI based features, such as chatbots and virtual assistants, being brought into apps used in hospitality. Some of these are more useful than others, and we haven’t seen much for hospitality business owners to get too excited about just yet. AI won’t replace human interaction for now, but is great at analysing large volumes of data and identifying complex patterns, and it’s this we see driving more beneficial features for hospitality in 2024.
Loyalty and small data
If big data is driving AI, we see customer loyalty as all about utilising small data. For example, if John hasn’t visited in a while, let’s send an email to remind him what offers or events we have on. Helen loves an Espresso Martini, so let’s let her know about the 2-4-1 cocktail promotion we’re running. None of these require huge volumes of data, or are complicated to process, they just require the right data to be available and easy to use.
Joined up systems
Both AI and effective loyalty campaigns will rely on more joined-up systems. Other trends are also driving things in this direction. As wages and costs rise, and the economic landscape makes it hard to push through further price rises, efficiency is becoming key to running a profitable business. Restaurants don’t have the money to pay a bookkeeper, or an extra staff member to deal with bookings. They need their accounts to update automatically, customers to book online and be allocated a table automatically, and front of house staff to be alerted to the new booking on the POS. We are already seeing strong interest from owners and managers in getting their systems to join up, and 2024 could be the beginning of the end for disjointed systems.
