Hotel & Tourism SMARTreport - 2018 EHMA Special Edition

INNOVATIONS & TECHNOLOGIES
Álvaro Carrillo
de Albornoz
General Manager,
Instituto Tecnológico Hotelero (ITH)
INNOVATE – YES… BUT
HOW AND WHY?
Examples of innovative thinking applied
to the hotel business
Álvaro Carrillo de Albornoz, General Manager at Instituto Tecnológico Hotelero
(ITH) tells us about the main themes of his conference at this year’s EHMA AGM.
There are a number points being covered
in the conference: What does innovation
actually, mean? What can one identify or
understand as innovation within the tourism
industry? What do we, the tourism sector,
and in particular the hotel sector, innovate
for? How can a hotel stand out from its
competitors? How to apply innovative
ways of thinking to really make a difference
within the sector? Technology and its
impact in our society: New behaviours; and
the newest technological developments
- the future awaits (wearable technology,
smart data, IoT, AI, deep learning, etc.)
In will go over the concept of innovation,
and its meaning to the tourism sector,
and then review some good examples of
innovative thinking applied to the hotel
business. A very relevant aspect of the
conference deals with the way to transform
innovation into a competitive advantage
to stand out over the competitors within
what it is a very demanding sector. Finally,
we can’t forget about the most important
thing: target markets… audience.
Technology evolves expeditiously, so does
our society. Those technologies that are
springing up today are going to become an
essential part of our lives very soon, and the
way our behaviour as individuals change,
makes a necessary point to carefully look at
for the hotel industry