May has been a very full month for Testbed Vegas as we prepare for June. One of the biggest months in technology particularly for the hospitality industry. We will be on the road in June with plenty of travel and then at the end of the month we will be hosting two local events here in Las Vegas. More about that shortly.
Talking Tech with techtalk.travel
On our recent trip to Europe one of the great experiences we had was visiting Cologne. The purpose of the visit was to reconnect with a long time industry colleague, Andre Baljeu who recently founded his hospitality technology information platform techtalk.travel – the point of difference being that it is Video based.
While we were there Andre asked Cheyne and I to sit down for a discussion on the state of technology and our philosophy and approach to technology. We really enjoyed it and you can watch the video here.
Future Jobs – How will they look?
The May Vegas Travel & Hospitality Tech event on how job roles may look in the future and the impact of technology was a robust dialogue. Yours truly presented some theories on what may happen to the workforce through the advent of technology and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Chelsea Pashnick from Levy discussed her practical and academic thoughts on the future of leadership in business.
During the discussion I cited an article by Bradford Delong about the 10 types of work humans do and research on where technology was affecting our future job roles. I said I would share the article and here it is. Well worth the read and some time to ponder your thoughts on the future.
Along the same lines I’ve also included an article from HVS questioning the state of technology deployment in the hospitality industry and whether we may have gone too far. As an advocate for hospitality being a human condition – best delivered by humans I lean more toward optimizing human effort versus replacement. Read on for an interesting perspective.
Google – Everyone is Tripping out!
The big news from Google is that Google Trips has moved from mobile only to the Desktop. A natural progression and something that we had highlighted in our prediction of the future of Google in Travel a few months ago. It has set the Cat among the Pidgeon’s and now we are really seeing the large companys like AirBNB, Expedia and Booking Holding making rapid steps to diversify or shore up their position in the market.
The further this goes the more acute it will be for the large OTA’s as the power of a combined Google platform will be hard to match when compared to a transaction booking platform that OTA’s provide.
Expect to see much more activity attacking Google by these company’s. My view is that if Google maintains a focus on search and resist the temptation to monetize to the level the OTA’s have, then they should be able to continue their momentum. The information they possess is more valuable than the transaction revenue.
Here’s is Skift’s thoughts on the latest developments.
Top 10 Hacks in Q1
Information security and all things data privacy is still a hot topic and will continue to be moving forwards. Misbehavior and lack of care on behalf of large organizations will continue to push momentum towards personal data ownership and individual rights on what can be done with the information we produce.
As it so happens this month Cheyne and I through TRAVHOTECH and our fellow Testbed Vegas community members, Lukas and Michel from insighti have launched a hospitality technology and information security product called hiGuard.io. We’re excited about combining our expertise to present a targeted approach toward operational information security.
On that same topic Help Net security reviewed the major data breaches in Q1 2019 and their impact. Read on.
Start Me Up – Take 2
For every success there are many failures in the startup world. Although the one we don’t talk about so much is where company’s have deliberately deceived and duped their customers and investors. There are some major cases of such activity with one of the most public ones being Theranos – the Blood work company making blood testing far more practical and accessible…apparently.
Plenty more where that came from and CB Insights provides a listing of some of the major frauds.
GM – Not what it used to be!
The nature of the hospitality industry continues to shift rapidly through the combination of technology as well as the nature of the investment model and at scale hotel management operators spread around the globe. While all staff in industry experience change the role of the General Manager has shifted significantly as well. Necessary due to the level of capital investment involved as well as the explosion of hotel style properties around the world.
Hopefully we won’t go so far as to lose the experience of hospitality in the process. Here’s an article looking at how things are changing.
So whats left for June. We’re headed to InfoComm, HITEC and then back in town for Hospitality Technology Hacks & Pundits and then the 1st Birthday of you know who……….Testbed Vegas!
See you there!
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