hotels are classified as one of the highest energy consumption building categories, typically accounting for ove

Executive summary To begin with, facilities especially in the tourism and hospitality industry play a very important and essential role in order to provide and fulfil the guest’s satisfaction As we already know, there are many different kinds of facilities that can be provided at the hotel, such as rooms, swimming pools, restaurants, gym clubs, spas etc and all of these facilities have carried a mission to bring the most relaxation feelings and comfort to the guests, help them to feel like they are at home during their vacations However, ensuring the quality of facilities to meet the customer needs, and reducing the cost and wastage of resources like water or electricity for the hotel is an extremely difficult problem for the hotel owners To be more specific, “hotels are classified as one of the highest energy consumption building categories, typically accounting for over 50% of the total energy consumption in the UK, 64% in the US, and 85% in Spain” (Mac, VD & Tran, NQ 2018) Moreover, according to the Hydrofinity article in 2018, “Water accounts for 10% of utility bills in many hotels and depending on how water-efficient the organization is, it’s possible to reduce the amount of water consumed per guest per night by up to 50%” Many facilities managers believe that the priority solution to solve this kind of problem for their hotel and achieve sustainable development goals is to apply new technology approaches, which reduce wastages and also deliver the best customer experience In this report, our core point is to analyze and research about the New Pacific Hotel’s performance in three specific facilities areas, which are Water system, Electricity system and Furniture Afterwards, several suggestions about the implementation of new kinds of technologies, which are already being used in top hotels over the world, are proposed In fact, there are various drawbacks of the facilities in New Pacific hotel which results in disappointment of guest expectations Firstly, in terms of water-consuming facilities, water leaked and no hot water was caused by outdated systems Secondly, the rooms’ conditioning system is also not working as well as the poor internet system Last but not least, the furniture made of solid wood materials was uncomfortable for the guests It has already been operating for a very long time, thus, many possible solutions like voice control, connected room or touch-free faucet will be given in detail through this report in order to upgrade and improve the current facilities efficiency Table of Content Executive summary Table of Content I Introduction II Analysis A Hotel analysis Water system Furniture Electronic system B Market and technology analysis Voice control Connected Room (Hilton Honors application) Technology in the water system III Recommendation Connected Room (Hilton Honors application) Water system improvement a IoT-based water detection technology b Temporary approach Furniture IV Conclusion V Reference VI Appendices 3 3 4 5 8 10 10 11 13 13 14 19 I Introduction Nowadays, there is no doubt that technology has played a very important role in our lives, not only for the tourism and hospitality industry but also for all of the other daily aspects Besides the advantages that technology will bring to the tourism industries like replacing manual labour, it is also reducing wastages and possible issues affecting customer services The technology application trend is leading to a great improvement and convenience for organizations in the hospitality industry all around the world Also, it changes how the facilities managers develop the building and the infrastructure in the hotel This report will analyze the utility and practicality of applying modern technologies in many hotels around the world and have high potential to be used in Vietnam like Voice control, Connected Room (Hilton Honors application) and Touch-free faucet Moreover, these technologies will be made for the recommendation for the upgrading of New Pacific hotel, due to their outdated and inefficient systems and infrastructures II Analysis A Hotel analysis New Pacific Hotel was accepted as a stars hotel by the Vietnam General Administration of Tourism and Hospitality in February of 2011 (HTS 2011) The hotel has 120 guest rooms, a restaurant with a capacity of 450 and many VIP rooms for formal dining and events, and many more special rooms of services (New Pacific Hotel n.d.) However, it has been 10 years that the hotel has not done any renovation, so most of the rooms and services are old and degraded There are three main things that nowaday customers most complain about New Pacific Hotel, which are the water system, the electronic system and the outdated furniture Water system There are so many complaints from customers about the bathroom’s water system, which has water leaked and no hot water These two problems are caused by the outdated water system and affecting guests' experience The leaking water sound is interrupting their bedtime Water leak in multiple rooms also makes the hotel waste a lot of money According to Lillian Connors (2019), one drop of water leak every second can waste 3,000 gallons of water annually In the case of hot water, there are many people who love to take showers with hot water, the lack of hot water may reduce the guests' satisfaction Furniture The hotel was built based on French style ideas and investors used furniture products mainly from solid wood materials such as solid wood armchairs (appendix 2) These furniture products are easily found in Vietnam, especially the elderly are very fond of this material because depending on the type of wood and the age of the tree, the value of the furniture products is higher, and solid wood products have high durability However, these furniture products might not be suitable for the New Pacific hotel because their size is too large to take up room space and the weight of these products is very heavy as well as customers feel uncomfortable when used by its hardness As a result, there were many negative customer reviews about New Pacific hotel’s furniture via OTAs platforms such as TripAdvisor (appendix 3,4) Electronic system The New Pacific Hotel electrical system is also complained about by many visitors Most of the customers had reviewed that the hotel cannot use an air conditioning system or wonder why the hotel did not turn on their air conditioner in the lobby The rooms’ conditioning system is also not working as well as the poor internet system According to World Weather & Climate Information (2021), Ho Chi Minh City average temperatures are always high, which is around 28 degrees Celsius or 82 degrees Fahrenheit The hotness of Ho Chi Minh is one of the most difficult for visitors who come from Northern or Western countries, so the air conditioning systems are very important to gain the guests experience when they stay at New Pacific Hotel In the case of internet systems, especially, wireless internet is one of the best ways to get loyal customers (Joinson 2016) Nowadays, people use wireless internet connections for their everyday activities, for work or entertainment Weak internet connection and lack of air conditioners are pushing the New Pacific Hotel customers to their competitors B Market and technology analysis The hotel industry is racing in technology to create a competitive advantage Currently, the world has developed many smart technologies that bring great experiences to customers such as IoT (Internet of Things) or using robots instead of humans However, in this part, the report will refer to new technologies that are very popular, applied in many hotels around the world and have high potential to be used in Vietnam: Voice control, Connected Room (Hilton Honors application) and Touch-free faucet Voice control The first voice recognition technology that appeared in 2010 was Apple Siri (Dimitrios 2021) The race for voice recognition technology was developed and released by the companies in the following years, such as Microsoft Cortana in 2013, Amazon Echo in 2014 and Google Assistant in 2016 (Dimitrios 2021) Modern voice-activated devices allow people to communicate with machines similar to human-to-human communication using conversational AI including Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Text-to-Speech (TTS) (Dimitrios 2021) The hospitality industry has seen a voice solution as the top impacting technology In 2016, Aloft equipped Apple Siri's in-room tablets while Wynn Resorts Las Vegas installed Amazon Echo speakers in 4000 rooms (Dimitrios 2021) This revolution has attracted many large companies in the hotel industry such as InterContinental Hotels Group or Marriott International to join (Dimitrios 2021) In 2018, Amazon launched Alexa for Hospitality, Marriott was the first partner to use the technology at The Charlotte Marriott City Center in North Carolina (Dimitrios 2021) In fact, 78% of hospitality companies are expecting mainstream voice-activated devices for room lights and temperature controls (Dimitrios 2021) In addition, Covid 19 has caused the loss of human touch in interactions and is now considered as an advantage of voice technology being applied more because safety is a top priority in travel, voice technology would limit customer contact with items in the room However, many hoteliers doubted the security of Alexa developed by Amazon and referred to other companies with advanced security features like Aragon (Dimitrios 2021) Aragon Base PoE is priced at $727 (tax included) and features outstanding features such as offline devices without the need for a cloud connection to increase privacy, allowing customers to control lighting, dimming, heating, air conditioning, room service, order cleaning, and media devices with their voice alone In particular, Aragon makes customers feel at home with a personalized experience by greeting them with their names However, its limitation is that it can only communicate in three languages: English, German and French Spanish is coming soon (ProKNX 2021) Connected Room (Hilton Honors application) Nowadays, smartphones play an indispensable role in our lives According to statistics, about 6.378 billion people will use smartphones by 2021 (Statista 2021) Based on this factor, the hospitality industry has had a revolution where smartphones will replace keys and controls in the room First in 2011, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide launched SPG Keyless, an evolution of Smart Check-In, at Aloft Hotels (SPG KEYLESS 2019) Six years later, Hilton released Connected Room (The Hilton Honors app), which is a high-tech platform, allows customers to control their room's thermostat, lighting, blinds, television, and other amenities with mobile phones (Hertzfeld 2019) In 2018, the first Connected Room partnership was with Showtime which is a premium entertainment provider, allowing Hilton guests in Connected Room-equipped hotels to access Showtime service completely without requiring credentials or a subscription (Esther 2019) A year later, Hilton had a new collaboration with Nextflix to allow guests to stream their favourite Netflix series, movies and more on in-room televisions in the Connected Rooms (Esther 2019) However, customers are still concerned about security issues on mobile devices Rick Garlick said that there was still a threat to security through a hotel’s mobile apps (Esther 2016) But the Hilton Honors app has comprehensive testing and has been vetted by security experts, said Dana Shefsky, Hilton Worldwide’s director of digital product innovation (Esther 2016) In addition, this technology had been available at 362,000 Hilton hotel rooms across 2,000 hotels worldwide with the introduction of the exclusive technology at the Hampton Inn & Suites Washington DC-Navy Yard in 2017 (Esther 2017) Therefore, the HHonors app is expected to become a new trend in the hospitality industry 3 Technology in the water system In 2017, the administrator of Hotelier India has noted that visitors are usually wasting water in a hotel rather than their own home as they not have to pay any extra fees for the amount of water they use Obviously, a hotel also cannot charge an extra fee for the usage of electricity and water for their guests To respond to the trend of sustainability in business around the world, many hotels worldwide have installed modern devices to reduce waste of water consumption Modern hotels around the world apply many types of water-saving devices, such as low flow showerheads and aerators in faucets or automatic (touch-free) faucets (Hotelier India 2017) Touch-free faucet or sensor faucet is the newest technology of taps Due to the danger of the Covid-19 pandemic, the installation of sensor faucets is also recommended by many experts The automatic faucet only works when it detects the user's hands by its sensor system, which means the tap will turn off as soon as the hands are removed (Mcgee 2019) Basically, the user does not have to touch the tap to turn it on, so that will reduce the dirtiness as well The automatic faucets in the Vietnam market have a variety of prices from million VND to 38.6 million VND, so there are many service businesses that install these devices for water-saving (Ngan Phat 2021) For low-flow, it brings a lot of benefits for owners, especially hotel owners, such as reducing 40 per cent of water consumption, saving energy and heating costs and decreasing CO2 emissions by utilizing less energy (Plumbers 2013) This type of showerhead costs in range from 100,000 VND to 5.2 million VND (Shopee 2021) In addition, The water-detect device installation is also one of the most technological solutions to monitor the water flow as well as an alert when a leaked issue occurred The objective of this implementation is to monitor the object based on the real data from devices installed with specialized sensors like temperature adjustment that minimize the systematic risk or interruption (Sklyar & Kharchenko, 2018) Additionally, the firm can predict the upcoming issue and mitigate the unexpected collapse of the facilities due to several causes such as over-using and out-of-date conditions, or even there are any warning signs or unusual performance due to its inside occurrence (Tele2iot, n.d) The tool will alert immediately to the technical department to overcome the issues For instance, when a system or devices in the hotel high-possibly or suddenly occurred problems such as broken pipes, leakage of the water system, WIFI or Electricity consumption capability report at overloading, heating ventilators or air-conditioning unit pressure etc (Mercan et al 2020) Consequently, thanks to this advanced sensor, New Pacific hotel not only can minimize the operational challenges and costs due to repairs punctually carried before the amenities fully shut down, but also can understand the situation of facilities if the guest is using our amenities (Huckle et al 2016) III Recommendation Connected Room (Hilton Honors application) Nowadays, although there is a variety of IoT based technologies invented that can enhance the performance of the hospitality business, some might not be suitable and affordable for several hotels For the New Pacific hotel, Key Card integrated ConnectedRoom application is one of the most ideal technologies that can shift the hotel towards innovation and sustainable development (Rangaiah, M 2021) Moreover, with numerous features mentioned in the above section, not only guests will have a different experience during their stays, but the hotel also receives benefits related to the organizational operation and customers' satisfaction (Torres 2018) To be more specific, the Connected Room application from Hilton Corporation is found the most suitable partner for the New Pacific hotel According to Hilton Owners Portal (n.d), the installation process is carried along to major stages such as UnoNet installation, Readiness Assessment, Budget Setting and Site Survey Firstly, the Connected Room implementation starts with UnoNet platform installation, which is an integrated solution with all new technological approaches of Hilton, so that the application can operate smoothly Secondly, the Readiness Assessment, a process of collecting information and parameters about the overall quality of the hotels' cabling station and guest room devices, is conducted so that the supplier can understand the current form to make a suitable construction plan Afterwards, Budget Settings, which is the most crucial step in the launching process, is measured by the specialized investment calculator tool on Hiltons' platform to estimate the required cost of the application deployment Finally, the operation team of the firm will design a free site survey to complete the assigned deployment plan for the hotel amenity along with a material-expenditure bill In terms of the cost to implement the Connected Room Application, the total cost includes two main groups of costs as One-Time costs and Ongoing Costs In One-Time costs, the cost of Site Survey and Project Management is approximately USD 3,700 Furthermore, Edge Controller Set Top Box and Light Switches paired installation cost $160 per room TV and around $50-$55 per light switch respectively Meanwhile, the price for Configuration Costs is $1,700 per hotel, Thermostats and implementation is around $150 - $250 per unit In Ongoing Cost, the support centre will retain $1 per TV monthly In short, it is notable that the cost will vary based on the current condition and location of the hotel, the total cost of the platform installation for 120 guest rooms is expected at approximately $61,000 for the first month Despite the large investment in the initial stage required, the value and benefit of Hilton's technological solution will help the New Pacific hotel to another level of facility retrofit and achieve more long-term goals Moreover, due to the Covid-19 breakout, this is also an opportunity for the hotel to have time to renovate itself and enhance its performance, which consequently increases the organizational revenue and customer satisfaction in the post-pandemic period To launch the project, it is indispensable to mention involved stakeholders such as the Facility Manager, Purchasing Department, Engineering team, Security department, staff and General Manager (GM) to finalize the master plan for construction The project begins with the Engineering team and the Facility manager will directly contact the supplier to exchange several requirements and crucial information such as instructions, necessary commodities, and budget In other words, they are responsible for the first and second steps in the deployment process of the Connected Room platform Then, the Purchasing department will renegotiate with the supplier after receiving the bill to adjust the best price Hence, they will design a financial written report, which will be sent to the General Manager (GM) GM is the powerful person that hugely impacts the decision-making of the installation (Lausanne, E 2020) GM will re-evaluate the report and create several appointments to have an in-depth consideration before decision-making When the project is approved, all the departments will together design a master plan to illustrate the progress of the installation will be caught up and completed in an allowance schedule Lastly, each department will be assigned their specialized position, GM, Facility Manager and the Security department will be responsible for monitoring the whole construction process to ensure progress and safety in the hotel until completion Finally, the hotel staff will be trained to help the guest using the application and assign the digital key application for a particular guest room to lock a guest's device by using a unique identifier (Torres 2018) Water system improvement Given the problem that the customer and hotel are encountering with the water system, it can be identified that the most broken and damaged elements of the hotel’s water system includes the flushing system, water heating system, and damaged hardware Considering the costs generated for the hotel, including customer dissatisfaction, water leak, and expenses; it could be considered to be a big threat to the business In addition, a water system is implemented in the structure of the hotel, which also means that the operation to improve the water system would carry significant costs such as, direct costs (to fix the water system), and considerable indirect costs (hotel needs to shut down the number of rooms, for a specific amount of days) to enable the operation In this sense, there are two proposed solutions that the New Pacific hotel can use to tackle the current issues Firstly, the IoT-based water detection solution is a technological approach for the firm to reduce the possible leaked issue and costs Secondly, considering the worst case of the inner water system fully broken down, the finest and short-term solution is to contact the third-party service provider specialized in the water system Hence, this approach can mitigate some emergency issues immediately, which also retains the productivity of the hotel and consumers’ needs However, the second solution is prohibitive and can be used in a short-term period a IoT-based water detection technology Water Overflow Leakage Detection Alarm (WOLDA), produced by Shenzhen Safety Electronic Technology company, will be the ideal option for New Pacific Hotel to monitor the water flow and tackle the leaked challenge With WOLDA, it allows the firm to daily detect leaky pipes, flooded baths, and faulty water heaters etc in the guestroom by alerts via Tuya APP notifications (Alibaba n.d) The device equipped a WIFI technology, 2.4Ghz of radiofrequency (802.11 a/b/g/n), enough to operate in a square meters area like the bathroom Moreover, the battery is used by AAA power, which can last approximately 1.5 years battery life (Alibaba n.d) Further details such as warranty policy, operated temperature and allowed humidity of the product will be illustrated in the figures below The cost per WOLDA device is around $7.55 to $9.80, which is equal to approximately 220.000 VND The capacity of rooms in the New Pacific hotel is up to 120 guestrooms and several restrooms in public places, hence the total number of rooms is estimated at 200 units Meanwhile, the warranty policy of the product is years, hence, this is an advantage for us when installing this device In the deployment process, the facility manager will contact the supplier and provide the overall layout of the restroom and water system so that the supplier will design a suitable installation plan paired with the required cost Afterwards, the shipping and installation cost could be renegotiated by the Purchasing department and supplier to finalize the best price and options Then, a budget report will be sent to the New Pacific GM to follow and approve to launch of the project During the installation process, the Facility Manager and Engineering team will directly supervise the project and testing devices for a certain amount of time before the official launch Consequently, the total cost is estimated at approximately 90,000,000 VND, including all the installation fee, extra payment for the monitoring team and backup expenditure With this change, the hotel potentially minimizes the water bills, consumer complaints related to leakage issues, and efforts to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) in their operation b Temporary approach In terms of contacting the specialized services provider, the firm firstly needs to contact multiple experts in the water system to identify the problems Secondly, the Facility Manager and Purchasing/Accounting department request a proposal of a fixing plan, which would include a timeline, cost, and some specific options For example, the water system structure is complex Water-system reparation could require up to months, if the hotel is shut down for months, it would cause the hotel great loss Therefore, the firm should have a Scheduling and Planning strategy to assign and monitor each task punctually Therefore, the most viable solution for the water system is to employ the problem-solving process (Wooldridge 1999), which can be interpreted in this specific scenario as following Problem identification: At a glance, there are several problems such as water leaks and water heating problems in the guest room However, the real cause could be truly revealed once experts inspect the hotel and its water system There are some reliable agencies that could be considered to inspect the hotel’s water system, namely Coteccons, Hoa Binh Corp, and so on Solution identification: At the second stage, once the problem is revealed, it is necessary for the executives of the hotel to review as many possible solutions as possible Solution selection: In fact, it is essential to have a set of criteria to evaluate various proposals and potential solutions From the perspective of the hotel's board of management, key priorities are profits, which can be interpreted into customer satisfaction (which would generate positive reviews on review platforms), cost & operation efficiency (such as water retrofit to limit the water waste) Given such inputs, hotel’s executives are required to discuss with multiple agencies to judge if the operation yields considerable returns and also identify the most optimal solution available Plan of action: Once the proposal gets approved, an agency gets selected for the project The agency and the hotel’s executives would need to work closely to develop a detailed plan for the project Given that such a water system maintenance/upgrade project would take a large amount of time, the firm needs to make a suitable plan following the Scheduling and Planning strategy practice Hence, the hotel can still operate during the peak season and assure that the operation takes place during the off-season to maximize operational efficiency Implementation & reflection: Once the plan is settled and approved, the implementation process would take place During the implementation, it is compulsory for the hotel to continuously supervise and reflect on the project, to assure that the project is delivered appropriately, and more importantly, it can actually fix the identified problems Continuous supervision and reflection would enable the hotel to make timely adjustments if necessary c Furniture The interior furniture is one of the largest assets of a hotel, furniture directly contributes to customer experience, hotel’s brand equity, and hotel’s classification Therefore, once a hotel encounters a problem derived from furniture, it is considered to be a serious problem that would be very costly to fix (Forgacs 2003) Hence, in the scenario of the New Pacific hotel, though it seems to be clear that the current furniture and decoration are negatively affecting passenger’s experience, it is more important to plan and execute the furniture replacement Though the value derived from this activity might depend significantly on furniture condition, it is expected to be able to generate approximately 1.5 billion VND Firstly, given that current furniture is made from high-quality materials from different ages, it could be sold to generate cash for the hotel furniture retrofit Secondly, after selling the current furniture and ready for the retrofit, it is the stage of sourcing and decorating Since the hotel has positioned itself as an old hotel with a history and royal theme Selecting furniture that synchronizes well with such themes is compulsory A reliable supplier of such furniture is Trung Tam Noi That Hoang Gia, who has been manufacturing and selling royallook furniture for a long time The company offers a quotation to fully refurbish a hotel room is 50m VND, which means the renovation of the whole hotel would cost approximately billion VND (Trung Tam Noi That Hoang Gia 2021) Given such a large purchase, the hotel could take it as leverage to claim further discounts and installation service It is recommended to perform the retrofit during the off-season (between May and October), and execute it on a part of the hotel at a time, so the hotel can still be active and welcome passengers during the retrofit The refinishing process would take approximately between weeks to month according to the supplier and construction experts IV Conclusion To sum up, along with the development of the technology era, the tourism and hospitality industry, especially hotels are also gradually changing and adapting to the innovation of new technologies that are being used for the facilities, which are cost-effective, friendly to the environment and resulting in better customer experience Due to the outdated systems and operated without any renovation for a long time, New Pacific hotel has been facing many disappointing experiences and negative feedback from the customers In order to solve these facilities problems related to the water leaking, the solid wood furniture and the unqualified electricity system, also increased the number of loyal customers, New Pacific hotel needs to take into action those solutions that are being analyzed above about connected rooms or sensor faucets These new kinds of technology have already 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