Ruckus IoT ecosystem partners and solutions make for a better hotel stay

You hear a lot about the Internet of Things (IoT) and its implications for many industries, including the global hospitality industry. By many accounts, there will be somewhere between twenty to thirty billion connected “things” by 2020. That’s three to four connected things (sensors, controls, and other low-power devices) for every person on earth. And that’s not counting the devices that more than half the world carries every day, such as smartphones, tablets, wearables and the like. So, is the hype around the IoT real? Let’s take a look at how the IoT can affect the hospitality industry.

In every hotel, there are a lot things getting used. Lights get turned on and off. Personal devices and things like vacuum cleaners and irons get plugged into electrical outlets. Doors get unlocked, opened, and closed. Thermostats get adjusted. Drapes get opened or closed. Water runs, and sometimes is not turned off. Televisions get watched, and sometimes ignored. There is a lot of usage in every private and public space in any hotel. What if we could collect meaningful data about all that usage? What would we do with it?

With connected devices and “things”, we can collect a lot of information about how things are used, and do some very powerful things with that knowledge. The information flow looks something like this:

Usage > Data
In a connected, IoT environment, usage leads to the collection of data.

Data > Analytics
That data can then get analyzed, either by humans or some sort of an automated system or AI.

Analytics > Knowledge
The resulting analytics then lead to knowledge about usage, patterns, and behaviors.

Knowledge > Business Insights
That knowledge leads to business insights about that particular hotel or hotel chain, and how it operates every day of the year.

Insights > Efficiencies
Those insights into the business can then be utilized to create efficiencies that help the hotel run better and more cost-effectively.

Efficiencies > Profitability and a Better Guest Experience
Creating efficiencies has the two-pronged effect of improving profitability while helping create a better guest experience, resulting in increased future bookings and more business.

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples:

Guest Knowledge and Preferences

By understanding the preferences of a known guest, hoteliers can adjust controls in a guest room prior to their arrival. If a hotel has historical data about the room temperature a particular guest prefers, or how bright or dim they like their room, the hotel can pre-set those controls so that the guest walks into their room with everything just the way they like it. This is the same thing as knowing in advance that they prefer a King bed, or foam pillows – and a lot easier to control and manage. Once usage data is tied to a CRM, the possibilities are endless.

Facility Knowledge and Better Efficiencies

Knowing more about how the building functions helps hotel chains design more efficient buildings and spaces. Knowing what resources are used the most – and the least – helps designers create efficiencies that are designed in from the start. Say, for example, that the electrical outlets or lamps in a room are all IoT connected devices. Over time, a hotel company may discover that the electrical outlet nearest the window almost never gets used. In future builds, architects or designers can eliminate that outlet in the room, saving in cost – not just for the outlet itself, but in the design approvals as well.

Implementing IoT solutions is also a great way to improve hotel staff safety, security and efficiency. With pervasive Wi-Fi coverage and the Ruckus IoT Suite, solutions such as panic buttons for staff, and RTLS (Real Time Location Systems) solutions for asset tracking also go a long way towards making a hotel a better place to work and stay. Ruckus works closely with our ever-expanding ecosystem of IoT solution providers, with an open architecture that makes integration of IoT solutions with the Ruckus network easy to achieve. We also work closely with our specialized Hospitality Solution Provider partners to ensure they are always up to date on the IoT solutions we support, and how to implement and support them.

In the hyper-competitive global hospitality industry, it can be complicated to run a hotel efficiently and profitably, with major concerns for staff and guests that need constant attention. With the Ruckus IoT Suite and our solution partners, providing best-in-class service and a better guest experience is getting easier and easier.

Visit our Hospitality Solutions page to learn more.

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