Technology planning in the hotel industry

Abstract

The hospitality industry has turned to technology as a strategic weapon to improve operational efficiency, boost competitive edge, improve service quality, support employees, and maintain guest relationships. Hence, this paper is about technology planning in the hotel industry. We propose a prescriptive methodology to strategically select technologies which best serve the hotel. Based on LDA, HITS, and PageRank algorithms, we construct a network connecting “hotel selection criteria,” “activities,” and “technologies.” The results present the technologies’ rankings based on the HITS or PageRank weights, utilizing a network analysis. Considering the technologies’ costs and the hotel’s budget, we formulate an optimization model using the Knapsack problem. We demonstrate how our methodology can be applied to plan technology investments in a hotel with a numerical example.