hotels are classified as one of the highest energy consumption building categories, typically accounting for ove

However, ensuring the quality offacilities to meet the customer needs, and reducing the cost and wastage of resources likewater or electricity for the hotel is an extremely difficult pro

Executive summary

To begin with, facilities especially in the tourism and hospitality industry play a veryimportant and essential role in order to provide and fulfil the guest’s satisfaction As wealready know, there are many different kinds of facilities that can be provided at the hotel,such as rooms, swimming pools, restaurants, gym clubs, spas etc and all of these facilitieshave carried a mission to bring the most relaxation feelings and comfort to the guests, helpthem to feel like they are at home during their vacations However, ensuring the quality offacilities to meet the customer needs, and reducing the cost and wastage of resources likewater or electricity for the hotel is an extremely difficult problem for the hotel owners To bemore specific, “hotels are classified as one of the highest energy consumption buildingcategories, typically accounting for over 50% of the total energy consumption in the UK,64% in the US, and 85% in Spain” (Mac, VD & Tran, NQ 2018) Moreover, according to theHydrofinity article in 2018, “Water accounts for 10% of utility bills in many hotels anddepending on how water-efficient the organization is, it’s possible to reduce the amount ofwater consumed per guest per night by up to 50%” Many facilities managers believe that thepriority solution to solve this kind of problem for their hotel and achieve sustainabledevelopment goals is to apply new technology approaches, which reduce wastages and alsodeliver the best customer experience

In this report, our core point is to analyze and research about the New Pacific Hotel’sperformance in three specific facilities areas, which are Water system, Electricity system andFurniture Afterwards, several suggestions about the implementation of new kinds oftechnologies, which are already being used in top hotels over the world, are proposed In fact,there are various drawbacks of the facilities in New Pacific hotel which results indisappointment of guest expectations Firstly, in terms of water-consuming facilities, waterleaked and no hot water was caused by outdated systems Secondly, the rooms’ conditioningsystem is also not working as well as the poor internet system Last but not least, the furnituremade of solid wood materials was uncomfortable for the guests It has already been operatingfor a very long time, thus, many possible solutions like voice control, connected room ortouch-free faucet will be given in detail through this report in order to upgrade and improvethe current facilities efficiency

I Introduction

Nowadays, there is no doubt that technology has played a very important role in ourlives, not only for the tourism and hospitality industry but also for all of the other dailyaspects Besides the advantages that technology will bring to the tourism industries likereplacing manual labour, it is also reducing wastages and possible issues affecting customerservices The technology application trend is leading to a great improvement and conveniencefor organizations in the hospitality industry all around the world Also, it changes how thefacilities managers develop the building and the infrastructure in the hotel This report willanalyze the utility and practicality of applying modern technologies in many hotels aroundthe world and have high potential to be used in Vietnam like Voice control, Connected Room(Hilton Honors application) and Touch-free faucet Moreover, these technologies will bemade for the recommendation for the upgrading of New Pacific hotel, due to their outdatedand inefficient systems and infrastructures

1 Water system

There are so many complaints from customers about the bathroom’s water system, whichhas water leaked and no hot water These two problems are caused by the outdated water

system and affecting guests' experience The leaking water sound is interrupting theirbedtime Water leak in multiple rooms also makes the hotel waste a lot of money According

to Lillian Connors (2019), one drop of water leak every second can waste 3,000 gallons ofwater annually In the case of hot water, there are many people who love to take showerswith hot water, the lack of hot water may reduce the guests' satisfaction

2 Furniture

The hotel was built based on French style ideas and investors used furniture productsmainly from solid wood materials such as solid wood armchairs (appendix 2) These furnitureproducts are easily found in Vietnam, especially the elderly are very fond of this materialbecause depending on the type of wood and the age of the tree, the value of the furnitureproducts is higher, and solid wood products have high durability However, these furnitureproducts might not be suitable for the New Pacific hotel because their size is too large to take

up room space and the weight of these products is very heavy as well as customers feeluncomfortable when used by its hardness As a result, there were many negative customerreviews about New Pacific hotel’s furniture via OTAs platforms such as TripAdvisor(appendix 3,4)

3 Electronic system

The New Pacific Hotel electrical system is also complained about by many visitors Most

of the customers had reviewed that the hotel cannot use an air conditioning system or wonderwhy the hotel did not turn on their air conditioner in the lobby The rooms’ conditioningsystem is also not working as well as the poor internet system According to World Weather

& Climate Information (2021), Ho Chi Minh City average temperatures are always high,which is around 28 degrees Celsius or 82 degrees Fahrenheit The hotness of Ho Chi Minh isone of the most difficult for visitors who come from Northern or Western countries, so the airconditioning systems are very important to gain the guests experience when they stay at NewPacific Hotel In the case of internet systems, especially, wireless internet is one of the bestways to get loyal customers (Joinson 2016) Nowadays, people use wireless internetconnections for their everyday activities, for work or entertainment Weak internet connection

and lack of air conditioners are pushing the New Pacific Hotel customers to their competitors.

B Market and technology analysis

The hotel industry is racing in technology to create a competitive advantage.Currently, the world has developed many smart technologies that bring great experiences tocustomers such as IoT (Internet of Things) or using robots instead of humans However, inthis part, the report will refer to 3 new technologies that are very popular, applied in manyhotels around the world and have high potential to be used in Vietnam: Voice control,Connected Room (Hilton Honors application) and Touch-free faucet

1 Voice control

The first voice recognition technology that appeared in 2010 was Apple Siri (Dimitrios2021) The race for voice recognition technology was developed and released by thecompanies in the following years, such as Microsoft Cortana in 2013, Amazon Echo in 2014and Google Assistant in 2016 (Dimitrios 2021) Modern voice-activated devices allow people

to communicate with machines similar to human-to-human communication usingconversational AI including Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Natural LanguageProcessing (NLP) and Text-to-Speech (TTS) (Dimitrios 2021) The hospitality industry hasseen a voice solution as the top impacting technology In 2016, Aloft equipped Apple Siri'sin-room tablets while Wynn Resorts Las Vegas installed Amazon Echo speakers in 4000rooms (Dimitrios 2021) This revolution has attracted many large companies in the hotelindustry such as InterContinental Hotels Group or Marriott International to join (Dimitrios2021) In 2018, Amazon launched Alexa for Hospitality, Marriott was the first partner to usethe technology at The Charlotte Marriott City Center in North Carolina (Dimitrios 2021) Infact, 78% of hospitality companies are expecting mainstream voice-activated devices forroom lights and temperature controls (Dimitrios 2021) In addition, Covid 19 has caused theloss of human touch in interactions and is now considered as an advantage of voicetechnology being applied more because safety is a top priority in travel, voice technologywould limit customer contact with items in the room However, many hoteliers doubted thesecurity of Alexa developed by Amazon and referred to other companies with advancedsecurity features like Aragon (Dimitrios 2021) Aragon Base PoE is priced at $727 (tax

included) and features outstanding features such as offline devices without the need for acloud connection to increase privacy, allowing customers to control lighting, dimming,heating, air conditioning, room service, order cleaning, and media devices with their voicealone In particular, Aragon makes customers feel at home with a personalized experience bygreeting them with their names However, its limitation is that it can only communicate inthree languages: English, German and French Spanish is coming soon (ProKNX 2021).

2 Connected Room (Hilton Honors application)

Nowadays, smartphones play an indispensable role in our lives According to statistics,about 6.378 billion people will use smartphones by 2021 (Statista 2021) Based on this factor,the hospitality industry has had a revolution where smartphones will replace keys andcontrols in the room First in 2011, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide launched SPGKeyless, an evolution of Smart Check-In, at Aloft Hotels (SPG KEYLESS 2019) Six yearslater, Hilton released Connected Room (The Hilton Honors app), which is a high-techplatform, allows customers to control their room's thermostat, lighting, blinds, television, andother amenities with mobile phones (Hertzfeld 2019) In 2018, the first Connected Roompartnership was with Showtime which is a premium entertainment provider, allowing Hiltonguests in Connected Room-equipped hotels to access Showtime service completely withoutrequiring credentials or a subscription (Esther 2019) A year later, Hilton had a newcollaboration with Nextflix to allow guests to stream their favourite Netflix series, moviesand more on in-room televisions in the Connected Rooms (Esther 2019) However,customers are still concerned about security issues on mobile devices Rick Garlick said thatthere was still a threat to security through a hotel’s mobile apps (Esther 2016) But the HiltonHonors app has comprehensive testing and has been vetted by security experts, said DanaShefsky, Hilton Worldwide’s director of digital product innovation (Esther 2016) In addition,this technology had been available at 362,000 Hilton hotel rooms across 2,000 hotelsworldwide with the introduction of the exclusive technology at the Hampton Inn & SuitesWashington DC-Navy Yard in 2017 (Esther 2017) Therefore, the HHonors app is expected tobecome a new trend in the hospitality industry

3 Technology in the water system

In 2017, the administrator of Hotelier India has noted that visitors are usually wastingwater in a hotel rather than their own home as they do not have to pay any extra fees for theamount of water they use Obviously, a hotel also cannot charge an extra fee for the usage ofelectricity and water for their guests To respond to the trend of sustainability in businessaround the world, many hotels worldwide have installed modern devices to reduce waste ofwater consumption Modern hotels around the world apply many types of water-savingdevices, such as low flow showerheads and aerators in faucets or automatic (touch-free)faucets (Hotelier India 2017) Touch-free faucet or sensor faucet is the newest technology oftaps Due to the danger of the Covid-19 pandemic, the installation of sensor faucets is alsorecommended by many experts The automatic faucet only works when it detects the user'shands by its sensor system, which means the tap will turn off as soon as the hands areremoved (Mcgee 2019) Basically, the user does not have to touch the tap to turn it on, so thatwill reduce the dirtiness as well The automatic faucets in the Vietnam market have a variety

of prices from 2 million VND to 38.6 million VND, so there are many service businesses thatinstall these devices for water-saving (Ngan Phat 2021) For low-flow, it brings a lot ofbenefits for owners, especially hotel owners, such as reducing 40 per cent of waterconsumption, saving energy and heating costs and decreasing CO2 emissions by utilizing lessenergy (Plumbers 2013) This type of showerhead costs in range from 100,000 VND to 5.2million VND (Shopee 2021)

In addition, The water-detect device installation is also one of the most technologicalsolutions to monitor the water flow as well as an alert when a leaked issue occurred Theobjective of this implementation is to monitor the object based on the real data from devicesinstalled with specialized sensors like temperature adjustment that minimize the systematicrisk or interruption (Sklyar & Kharchenko, 2018) Additionally, the firm can predict theupcoming issue and mitigate the unexpected collapse of the facilities due to several causessuch as over-using and out-of-date conditions, or even there are any warning signs or unusualperformance due to its inside occurrence (Tele2iot, n.d) The tool will alert immediately to thetechnical department to overcome the issues For instance, when a system or devices in thehotel high-possibly or suddenly occurred problems such as broken pipes, leakage of the watersystem, WIFI or Electricity consumption capability report at overloading, heating ventilators

or air-conditioning unit pressure etc (Mercan et al 2020) Consequently, thanks to this

advanced sensor, New Pacific hotel not only can minimize the operational challenges andcosts due to repairs punctually carried before the amenities fully shut down, but also canunderstand the situation of facilities if the guest is using our amenities (Huckle et al 2016)

III Recommendation

1 Connected Room (Hilton Honors application)

Nowadays, although there is a variety of IoT based technologies invented that canenhance the performance of the hospitality business, some might not be suitable andaffordable for several hotels For the New Pacific hotel, Key Card integrated Connected-Room application is one of the most ideal technologies that can shift the hotel towardsinnovation and sustainable development (Rangaiah, M 2021) Moreover, with numerousfeatures mentioned in the above section, not only guests will have a different experienceduring their stays, but the hotel also receives benefits related to the organizational operationand customers' satisfaction (Torres 2018) To be more specific, the Connected Roomapplication from Hilton Corporation is found the most suitable partner for the New Pacifichotel

According to Hilton Owners Portal (n.d), the installation process is carried along to 4major stages such as UnoNet installation, Readiness Assessment, Budget Setting and SiteSurvey Firstly, the Connected Room implementation starts with UnoNet platforminstallation, which is an integrated solution with all new technological approaches of Hilton,

so that the application can operate smoothly Secondly, the Readiness Assessment, a process

of collecting information and parameters about the overall quality of the hotels' cablingstation and guest room devices, is conducted so that the supplier can understand the currentform to make a suitable construction plan Afterwards, Budget Settings, which is the mostcrucial step in the launching process, is measured by the specialized investment calculatortool on Hiltons' platform to estimate the required cost of the application deployment Finally,the operation team of the firm will design a free site survey to complete the assigneddeployment plan for the hotel amenity along with a material-expenditure bill

In terms of the cost to implement the Connected Room Application, the total costincludes two main groups of costs as One-Time costs and Ongoing Costs In One-Time costs,the cost of Site Survey and Project Management is approximately USD 3,700 Furthermore,Edge Controller Set Top Box and Light Switches paired installation cost $160 per room TVand around $50-$55 per light switch respectively Meanwhile, the price for ConfigurationCosts is $1,700 per hotel, Thermostats and implementation is around $150 - $250 per unit InOngoing Cost, the support centre will retain $1 per TV monthly In short, it is notable that thecost will vary based on the current condition and location of the hotel, the total cost of theplatform installation for 120 guest rooms is expected at approximately $61,000 for the firstmonth Despite the large investment in the initial stage required, the value and benefit ofHilton's technological solution will help the New Pacific hotel to another level of facilityretrofit and achieve more long-term goals Moreover, due to the Covid-19 breakout, this isalso an opportunity for the hotel to have time to renovate itself and enhance its performance,which consequently increases the organizational revenue and customer satisfaction in thepost-pandemic period

To launch the project, it is indispensable to mention involved stakeholders such as theFacility Manager, Purchasing Department, Engineering team, Security department, staff andGeneral Manager (GM) to finalize the master plan for construction The project begins withthe Engineering team and the Facility manager will directly contact the supplier to exchangeseveral requirements and crucial information such as instructions, necessary commodities,and budget In other words, they are responsible for the first and second steps in thedeployment process of the Connected Room platform Then, the Purchasing department willrenegotiate with the supplier after receiving the bill to adjust the best price Hence, they willdesign a financial written report, which will be sent to the General Manager (GM) GM is thepowerful person that hugely impacts the decision-making of the installation (Lausanne, E2020) GM will re-evaluate the report and create several appointments to have an in-depthconsideration before decision-making When the project is approved, all the departments willtogether design a master plan to illustrate the progress of the installation will be caught upand completed in an allowance schedule Lastly, each department will be assigned theirspecialized position, GM, Facility Manager and the Security department will be responsiblefor monitoring the whole construction process to ensure progress and safety in the hotel untilcompletion Finally, the hotel staff will be trained to help the guest using the application and

assign the digital key application for a particular guest room to lock a guest's device by using

a unique identifier (Torres 2018)

2 Water system improvement

Given the problem that the customer and hotel are encountering with the watersystem, it can be identified that the most broken and damaged elements of the hotel’s watersystem includes the flushing system, water heating system, and damaged hardware.Considering the costs generated for the hotel, including customer dissatisfaction, water leak,and expenses; it could be considered to be a big threat to the business In addition, a watersystem is implemented in the structure of the hotel, which also means that the operation toimprove the water system would carry significant costs such as, direct costs (to fix the watersystem), and considerable indirect costs (hotel needs to shut down the number of rooms, for aspecific amount of days) to enable the operation

In this sense, there are two proposed solutions that the New Pacific hotel can use totackle the current issues Firstly, the IoT-based water detection solution is a technologicalapproach for the firm to reduce the possible leaked issue and costs Secondly, considering theworst case of the inner water system fully broken down, the finest and short-term solution is

to contact the third-party service provider specialized in the water system Hence, thisapproach can mitigate some emergency issues immediately, which also retains theproductivity of the hotel and consumers’ needs However, the second solution is prohibitiveand can be used in a short-term period

a IoT-based water detection technology

Water Overflow Leakage Detection Alarm (WOLDA), produced by Shenzhen SafetyElectronic Technology company, will be the ideal option for New Pacific Hotel to monitor thewater flow and tackle the leaked challenge With WOLDA, it allows the firm to daily detectleaky pipes, flooded baths, and faulty water heaters etc in the guestroom by alerts via TuyaAPP notifications (Alibaba n.d) The device equipped a WIFI technology, 2.4Ghz ofradiofrequency (802.11 a/b/g/n), enough to operate in a 3 square meters area like thebathroom Moreover, the battery is used by AAA power, which can last approximately 1.5years battery life (Alibaba n.d) Further details such as warranty policy, operated temperature