Hilton raises the bar for hospitality
Hilton quickly launches digital campaigns, features and services to match offerings with demand and meet customer expectations.
Hilton Hotels & Resorts (Hilton), headquartered in McLean, Virginia, operates more than 7,000 properties across 20+ brands in over 120 countries and territories. As one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing hospitality companies, Hilton strives to provide guests with the seamless experiences they’ve come to expect from the hotelier. When it comes to the digital services guests are accustomed to, Hilton needed to improve the flexibility of its technologies and speed development.
Many hotels look to Hilton for inspiration, especially for modern guest services. Every year, approximately 200 million people stay at Hilton properties. And every day, millions of people visit its website and Hilton Honors mobile app. Hilton worked with NTT DATA digital experts to create and manage an easy-to-scale infrastructure, support a cloud-native update of its website and help revise the mobile API for the smartphone apps guests use to interact with the company for booking, check-in and rewards programs.
Business Needs
While organizations are evolving their models to support changing digital expectations, hotels have the added challenge of making their customers feel at home when they’re away from home. Initial customer interactions — and the impressions they make — are often conducted via websites and mobile apps. To help increase bookings, hotels must ensure their digital channels are engaging and responsive. They also need to provide digital services that give guests more choice and control.
Because more customers are using the web and mobile apps in all aspects of their lives, Hilton wanted to increase the number of reservations on its digital channel — a process known as conversion. However, this would require faster development so it could launch digital campaigns, features and services more frequently than every three months, matching offerings with demand. Kathy Millican, senior director of digital product management at Hilton, explains, “Our digital services need to be a seamless part of our customers’ daily lives.”
Outcomes
- Enables immediate and future incremental revenue gains from its digital channel
- Boosts agility and competitiveness
- Implements changes on a daily basis thanks to an automated testing framework
Solution
Moving a global digital channel without disturbing guests
Achieving its vision required a new IT approach, so Hilton collaborated with NTT DATA to host its existing applications in its data centres, allowing the hotelier to focus on rewriting its website to be cloud-native and developing new guest services such as Connected Room, which uses Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Naveen Manga, vice president of customer journey and delivery at Hilton, says, “At Hilton, 30% of our bookings come through our website and apps. To move this channel to the cloud, we engaged NTT DATA. It provides everything we need to achieve a full-stack digital transformation, including the infrastructure, middle layers and user interfaces.”
For example, developers to augmented the hotel’s IT teams as they rewrote Hilton’s website and consolidated its iOS and Android apps (projects that are both complete). “We're expecting to realize immediate and incremental gains in conversion from our digital channel from the digital transformation that we’re working on with NTT DATA,” says Manga. “And we expect the payback time for our investment to be less than 12 months.”
Accelerates time-to-market of new features by months
Hilton realized unexpected benefits from its engagement. Manga explains, “Over the last three years, NTT DATA started adding value, shifting from a vendor-based mentality to a partner-based mentality.” An automated testing framework that works on Hilton’s legacy platform was created and modified, so Hilton’s developers can use it on new platforms. “We’ve automated 80% of the tests using the framework from NTT DATA,” says Chandy Littlejohn, senior manager of build quality at Hilton. “This makes it possible for us to implement changes on a daily basis, in a continuous integrated fashion. So, instead of taking up to three months to bring a new feature into production, we can deliver that same feature in days or potentially hours.”
Responsive service in billions of customer interactions each month
With its web-scale infrastructure, Hilton improved its availability from 95% to 99.998%. “NTT DATA keeps our back-end infrastructure running 24/7, including our central reservation system, guest profile system and digital channel,” says Manga.
Innovation that delivers memorable guest experiences
Hilton’s new digital services provide guests with more choice and control. For example, Hilton’s Digital Key enables guests to use their smartphone as the key to their hotel room, pool and gym. The Hilton Honors app uses IoT to support Connected Room, allowing guests to use their smartphones to control room features, including the thermostat, drapes and lights. “We’re constantly experimenting with new technologies and ways that we can propel change,” says Manga. “NTT DATA is a critical partner for Hilton in helping us innovate and keep our customers at the centre of our transformation journey.”
About Hilton
Founded by Conrad Hilton in 1919, Hilton Hotels & Resorts is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing hospitality companies. Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, the company currently operates 7,295 properties across 22 brands in 123 countries and territories.