UAE hotels are among the global leaders in Smart Hospitality solutions, as Dubai and Abu Dhabi are set to top 110,000 hotel rooms in 2017, experts announced Wednesday in advance of Arabian Travel Market. Driven by new tourism and hospitality offerings, and government initiatives such as Abu Dhabi Vision 2030 and Dubai Plan 2021, the number of combined hotel rooms in Dubai and Abu Dhabi are set to grow by nearly 30 percent from 87,800 in 2015 to 113,100 by 2017, according to a recent report by JLL MENA. Dubai's tourists are set to nearly double from 14.2 million in 2015 to 25 million in 2020. With Smart Hospitality growing, 2016 hotel transaction volume in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa is set to reach $25 billion, and $70 billion globally, according to JLL. "Smart hospitality has surpassed price and location as the key differentiator for visitors to the UAE. Guests expect a seamless experience from when they land at the airport, to check in at the hotel, and restaurant and entertainment advice," said Savitha Bhaskar, COO of Condo Protego, a leading UAE-based hospitality IT consultancy. Enhancing the guest experience, UAE hotels are deploying a wide range of Smart Hospitality solutions, including in-room climate control and broadcast, back-end operations such as check-in kiosks and loyalty programs, and physical and cyber security. Using Smart Hospitality solutions, hotels can also enhance their operational efficiency, drive return visits, and support new business with a range of mobile-based solutions. "Smart Hospitality solutions are creating a vast amount of data that needs to be defined, analyzed, stored, and protected in real-time. With World Expo 2020 less than five years away, hotels need to plan their digital transformation journeys and information management solutions by 2017 in order to succeed," added Savitha Bhaskar. Condo Protego is seeing strong UAE demand for the latest information management solutions that support hospitality innovation, such as EMC's Isilon network-attached storage and EMC's XtremIO all-flash storage, along with high-availability information management and data protection solutions from Veritas. — SG
