Technological and human transformation: Key concepts of Hotel Innovation Day Gran Canaria.

The event held at the Salobre Hotel Resort & Serenity in Gran Canaria was marked by a high turnout with over 100 representatives from the tourism sector. During four round tables, discussions focused on the latest technological trends in the hotel industry concerning profitability, asset repositioning, human capital, customer satisfaction, operations, and strategy.

The in-person event organized by Schôolers.io brought together hotel industry professionals from the Canary Islands for a day that highlighted top-level speakers who underscored the importance of human value and technological innovation in addressing current and future challenges.

Bernat Cañellas, CEO of Schôolers, opened the event by presenting his vision of the three factors driving innovation in companies: changes in the environment, the entrepreneur's vision, and successful implementation by a capable and committed team.

Bernat Cañellas, CEO and co-founder at Schôolers

Innovation and the Use of Avatars and Artificial Intelligence.

On the other hand, as an example of change in the environment, he referenced a Forbes quote stating that “people retain 95% of a message when they see it in a video, compared to 10% when reading text” and explained Schôolers' vision to leverage these changes to democratize training in the tourism industry, making a qualitative leap as well as the successful implementation that has allowed training over 5,000 tourism professionals in less than a year and a half.

Lastly, he presented new applications to the tourism industry using AI-generated avatars for training, onboarding, and corporate communication processes, which he believes will revolutionize these activities.

Innovation leads us towards digitalization, the main theme highlighted throughout the day in the four panels, but which was particularly emphasized in the second panel in which we participated. It focused on reducing operational costs, maximizing human capital efficiency, the importance of training, and the opportunity to eliminate paper.

Digitalization as a Complement to Human Capital.

The role of innovation in reducing operational costs and increasing GOP was the central theme of the second panel, moderated by Néstor Toledo, an expert in hotel digitalization and guest experience, which discussed technological trends that enable hotel management optimization and operational cost reduction. 

Regarding desirable features for a digital tool, Xavier López, CEO of EISI SOFT, highlighted that given the current digital ecosystem, it is essential to invest in integrable tools to unify as many functionalities as possible into the fewest platforms to maximize efficiency and enhance the role of people through digitalization.

Sonia Cervera, SIHOT; Diego Viu, AMResorts Hotels Europe; Xavi López, EISI SOFT; Ayoze Alamo, Hotel Catalina Plaza; Néstor Toledo, panel moderator.

For his part, Diego Viu, Corporate Maintenance and Engineering Director at AMResorts Hotels Europe, mentioned that in the last two years they expanded from 12 to 51 hotels and detailed that “with the project we have developed with EISI SOFT, digitalizing the back office, we have achieved good process control by focusing on training and implementation, which has allowed us to generate that benefit for the company, meaning having that competitive advantage and, of course, a better GOP.”

Ayoze Álamo, Director of Catalina Plaza Sustainable Hotel, shared his perspective as an individual hotel that, after being closed for two years for renovations, used the opportunity to reassess the systems used in the hotel with the goal of digitalizing as many processes as possible and eliminating paper. He commented: “We focused on people and sustainability and decided to digitalize the maintenance and housekeeping departments, in addition to installing photovoltaic panels, automation, and home automation.”

Sonia Cervera, Business Development at SIHOT, concluded by stating that “There is no exact figure or percentage to measure the impact of technology on a company’s economic results, as technology is just one variable among many. It is a great opportunity to generate more income and optimize labor costs, especially after seeing the data published by the INE for April compared to the same period last year, where we see that all ratios (average stay, average price, etc.) have increased except for labor performance, which has decreased by 30%.”