Who Really Leads Hotel Technology Innovation?
A room split between hotel technology buyers and suppliers was asked who leads innovation in the industry. Hotel groups received 6 votes. Startups received 3. Established property management system vendors received none.
The result came from a closed-door Hospitality Net round table at HITEC San Antonio. The room included technology leaders from Radisson, citizenM and Mandarin Oriental, along with executives from Oracle, Mews, Shiji and other hospitality companies. The session was held under the Chatham House Rule and moderated by Floor Bleeker, global technology executive, board advisor and investor at IN2 Consulting.
The vote was striking because suppliers made up half the room. It also led to a more useful conclusion: workable hotel technology is usually built through cooperation.
Operators understand where work breaks down. Startups can test a focused solution quickly. PMS vendors can scale a proven idea.
The problem is access.
When large hotel groups and established vendors dominate product roadmaps, smaller operators receive technology designed around someone else's operating model. Integration fees, security reviews and procurement rules can end a pilot before the product has a chance to prove its value.
The discussion also exposed a gap between what the industry says it values and what receives funding. Labour cost saving ranked above guest experience as the room's leading AI priority, even though participants repeatedly described guest experience as hospitality's point of difference.
If cost saving is your starting point, you will get AI wrong.
Owners need a return on technology spending. The risk is that labour reduction becomes the objective rather than the result of solving a defined operating problem. As Hotelier's Digest #12 argued after HITEC, a tool earns its place when it removes administrative work, fits the existing workflow and creates capacity for the people running the hotel.
Five participants selected the brand as the owner of customer data, 3 selected the hotel owner and 3 chose another answer. Nobody selected the vendor.
Whoever signs the contract owns the data. Everything after that is an argument.
Independent hotels should settle their own position before signing. Contracts need to state what the property can export, in what format, at what cost and what happens when the relationship ends. This becomes concrete during a system change. Our roomMaster-to-Mews migration guide shows how data access determines whether reservations, rates, balances and guest profiles survive the move intact.
The practical priority is to lower the cost and complexity of testing new ideas. Smaller hotels and technology companies need a realistic path to pilot, learn and improve before committing to a full integration.
Vendors can support that with clearer access, pricing and integration terms. Hotel companies can open the door when the operating problem and pilot are well defined. Without that path, useful technology will continue to stall before it reaches hotel operations.
Read Hospitality Net's full report from the closed-door PMS round table.