In a follow-on from my post of yesterday, I am currently doing research in #IoT on smart spaces in the corporate world, looking at how devices and objects can create a better working environment for mobile workers.

One area of interest of mine is smarter hotel rooms, and how devices can make the room even more profitable and efficient.  This goes beyond energy management and into a level of personalization that a guest can opt-in to share their data (with appropriate privacy clauses) to enhance the experience. This goes beyond temperature preferences and pillow choices, but can add when they like the room cleaned, what kind of amenities they prefer, etc.   And for the hotel, the room can become even more revenue productive.  For example, if the hotel knows how much WiFi bandwidth you consume and when, and make the assumption that you are watching a movie on your laptop given the time of data and the data flow, they could create a movie bundle that included video on demand, soda and popcorn and/or a pizza delivered from room service.

I also believe that hotels can become the location of choice for mobile workers, if they can create work spaces for travelers that surpass what a coffee shop would offer in terms of amenities to work while on the road. There is a lot of conference room space in hotels that could be utilized as coffee shop alternatives for mobile workers.

Two good examples of hotels that understand that a stay is an experience that can be enhanced by technology are Starwood and Premier Inn.

Let me know if you want to reach out to share some of my business modelling on the subject with you.