Hotels seek eco cachet

The Life: Over the next three years, the Abu Dhabi hotel market is expected to expand by a further 40 per cent. The challenge of how to stand out awaits.

"Technology plays a massive part in a hotel guest's experience," says Stewart Coggans, second from left, the executive vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels for the Middle East and Africa. Ravindranath K / The NationalShow less

It seems a new hotel opens every month in the capital.

But over the next three years, the Abu Dhabi market is expected to expand by a further 40 per cent, according to the property consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle. The addition of 7,500 rooms may leave hotels looking for other ways to stand out.

The answer, some experts suggest, may lie in brand-builders such as new technologies that can help hotels cut their water consumption, boost recycling or track the carbon footprints of guests.

"Technology plays a massive part in a hotel guest's experience," said Stewart Coggans, the executive vice president of Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels for the Middle East and Africa.

"It makes you feel more at home. If technology under-delivers or isn't compatible, it creates an issue for me as a guest. That's why hotel companies are wanting to create this balance with technology," said Mr Coggans, who spoke at Five Star and Beyond, a hospitality seminar by the electronics company LG in Dubai last week.

Hotels have not traditionally been at the forefront of technology adoption, said Sanjay Nadkarni, an associate professor at the Emirates Academy of Hospitality, who also spoke at the event. But hotels in the Middle East have made leaps and bounds over the past three years while projects have stalled elsewhere. "Technology has advanced, but there have not been that many hotels [completed globally]," said Mr Coggans.

"A lot of the new hotels that have been built here are harnessing the technology of today and tomorrow. It's an example here of what is to come elsewhere," he said.

The Jumeirah Group is one brand that been using technology to limit its water consumption and increase recycling, said Mr Nadkarni.

In the future, hotels may use technology to help travellers track their carbon footprints.

Mr Nadkarni said guests were increasingly concerned about their environmental impact, and anything a hotel could do to show that it had gone the extra mile to be green without compromising the guest experience would be a plus.

"We are seeing huge volumes of leisure travellers from emerging markets, and the consciousness about ecology and environmental sustainability is rapidly taking root in those markets," said Mr Nadkarni. "Effectively, what will be a differentiator in the choice of hotel property or an airline service, for instance, would be to what extent there would be a value-add in [the] environmental [area]."

Guests will be at the centre of any hotel of the future, said Frederick Sabty, who is director of hospitality solutions at Avaya, a business communications company, and also spoke at the Dubai event. About 80 per cent of guests turn on the television when they first enter a hotel room, said Mr Sabty. But in the future, he said, the hotel-room TV will no longer just be something on which to watch news and old films. The TV will be used for video conferencing and even to check emails. "You can have a communication so when the phone rings you … look at the TV for the caller ID," said Mr Sabty.

People will also be able to connect their mobile communications devices to the hotel's telecommunications system. But the technology must be easy to use, he warned.

"I used to be in a hotel where we had so much technology and it was so complicated that we used to take half an hour to teach the guest how to use it," said Mr Sabty. "It's not, any more, what we want to sell. It's what the guest wants to see in the room."

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