Hospitality Sector Tops USD 10 billion by 2020

Connected visitor technology will drive the UAE’s hospitality market to top USD 10 billion by 2020, meeting the needs of millions of Expo 2020 Dubai visitors, experts announced today on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market.
With 25 million visitors set to attend Expo 2020 Dubai, the UAE’s hospitality sector is on a building boom. Dubai aims to double the number of hotel and serviced apartments leading to revenue of USD 10 billion, according to a recent report by Alpen Capital.
As hoteliers jostle for position, they are aiming to stand out from their competitors through disruptive technologies to save time and money, and meet the preferences of Millennials.
“Smart technology could revolutionize the visitor experience, for the millions of visitors set to attend Expo 2020 Dubai, offering a hassle-free end-to-end experience from the plane, to easy hotel check-in, to autonomous vehicles taking them to the exhibition pavilion,” said Savitha Bhaskar, COO at smart hospitality consultancy Condo Protego.
The UAE’s hospitality sector is also rapidly adopting digital solutions to streamline hospitality administrative processes and enrich the guest experience, saving time and money. Increasingly, hotels are offering remote check-in, card-free room access, and Big Data analytics to monitor customer preferences both in-room and from partners.
“For UAE hoteliers to manage guest data in real-time, they need high-availability, secure, and scalable data storage and management solutions. Condo Protego has seen strong success in enabling the UAE’s leading hospitality and leisure organizations to undergo digital transformation,” added Savitha Bhaskar.
In the UAE, Condo Protego is seeing strong demand for solutions such as Dell EMC converged infrastructure, Isilon network-attached storage, XtremIO all-flash storage, and VERITAS information management and data protection solutions.