Naturally, the hotel as a meeting place cannot escape these fundamental changes. The hotel is close to perfection – the microcosmos of social life where the key word is communication.

Consequently, hotels attract an increasing number of investors. As a matter of fact, the hotel industry is booming everywhere for the enjoyment of everybody. The challenge is always the same: satisfied guests on the one hand, who pay for the services provided and, on the other, a satisfied hotel profit center director.

In other words, everything should be done to ensure the hotel guests will return. In the case of 3-, 4- or 5-star hotels, the majority of guests are pretty well defined business travellers, both men and women.

This category of people in these types of hotel represent more than 60 % of the hotel guests. For this reason, the strategic management of a modern hotel must focus primarily on this type of customer category.

The best known systems in a hotel are those used for bookings, reception services and billing. The front desk manager takes advantage of state-of-the-art information technology that is put at his / her disposal, matched to the marketing needs of the hotel.

In the hotel room, the interior designer is given all the choices and freedom of creativity to the benefit of the guest. Colours and furniture, the volume of the space and the decoration are the most important elements at the designer’s disposal.

Each of the 30 rooms is differently arranged and designed, an example of successful innovative ideas where technical management is at the disposal of the hotel manager!

These hotels will welcome business travellers and holiday makers in a sophisticated and priviledged environment. The climate, the friendly ambiance, the cuisine with all its varieties and the development of the region attract an increasing number of international guests. In many respects, the Far East and Hong Kong in particular, have practically been outperformed by this region.

In Dubai, city of the lights and the business world, hub between East and West, a visionary – Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktloum – 25 years ago designed the basis of the future city with a human touch.

Business, hobbies, sports and shopping are the major ingredients of this international meeting place. Naturally, the hotels represent the hub of all this. The architects, developers, designers and owners do their best in terms of creative imagination to warrant the comfort and well-being of visitors. What can be seen, touched, tasted, bought and sold here is the paradigm of the show.

The most complete illustration of this short description is the Jumeirah Beach Complex, the most majestic hotel in the world. The Burj Al Arab welcomes demanding visitors from all over the world. Here, modern technology and good taste merge. The gigantic hotel is higher than the Eiffel tower in Paris and becomes synonymous with technical beauty.

The explanation is the behaviour of poorly informed investors and hotel directors.
Unfortunately, many of them believe that making investments in new technologies represents losses with no end in sight. And, very often, if investments are approved of, they are primarily made for things the hotel guest can see: administration, reception desk and services, booking system, leisure time programs in the rooms (TV, music, etc.). Unfortunately, integrated building automation systems are neglected most of the time. It is the missing or weak management system in a large number of hotels, the reason being essentially the kind of training offered to hotel staff in hotel management schools.

I am thinking especially of the hotel manager who has to deal with numerous problems on a daily basis. He or she does not pay adequate attention to the concerns of the technical manager who proposes technical modifications and renovations that are often mandatory but not necessarily directly visible: heating boilers and refrigeration machines that operate inefficiently, worn out air handling units and, even worse, outdated monitoring and building management systems, non-existing room management systems – so many missing features that, in terms of building automation, one might get the impression that the hotel is rather an office building than a place of hospitality. Building management tools have simply not been adapted. As a result, the hotelier receives customer complaints almost every day.

There is a solution that can be achieved in three steps:

It must be made quite clear that comfort is a permanent evolutionary process. Communication technology and strategic hotel management must be omnipresent and well understood. There are in fact four different types of comfort: thermal, olfactory (indoor air quality), technical and economic comfort.

*Jacques Levy-Bonvin is an International Hotel Consultant and graduated from the School of Engineering in Geneva. For 20 years, he managed the International Division at Staefa Control Division and, in 1996, became manager of the Hotel Marketing Department of Siemens Landis & Staefa in Zug, Switzerland

Technical management integrated in the hotel
A book entitled "Technical Hotel Management – Needs and Solutions" * deals with the subject on 190 pages. It is abundantly illustrated and is particularly intended for hotel directors, people with technical responsibilities and all those involved in hotel management, including teachers, trainees and students of hotel management schools.

Each chapter provides clear, concise and practical answers to the various problems associated with comfort, indoor air quality and energy management in a hotel.

The author explains in detail how to select the most appropriate technical equipment – whether for new construction or renovation – to improve the quality of life in all areas of the hotel.

The reader also finds a great deal of information about the technical equipment used in hotel rooms, and the integration of electronic systems that contribute considerably to the satisfaction of guests and the profitability of an "intelligent hotel".