Hospitality security solutions provider, ASSA ABLOY is set to support this year’s GM Leaders Conference by coming on board as a sponsor.
Manit Narang, vice president, MEAI, Vingcard Elsafe explainins why the company have taken steps to become involved in the Conference. 
What are your core products and services?
As the hospitality industry’s leading manufacturer of security access control solutions, ASSA ABLOY Hospitality provides an array of solutions designed using the latest technology. Door lock products include VingCard Signature RFID, VingCard Essence and VingCard Allure. These door locks are equipped with superior anti-cloning technology to ensure against unauthorized access, and are designed using a minimalistic approach so that they can seamlessly blend in with any hotel environment. VingCard door locks are also compatible with ASSA ABLOY Hospitality Mobile access, a cutting-edge solution that is already installed on more than 100,000 guestrooms and allows guests to use their own smart devices as an electronic guestroom key.
Why have you chosen to partner with The GM Leaders Conference 2016?
In partnering with The GM Leaders Conference, ASSA ABLOY Hospitality aims to gain greater insight on the needs of regional hoteliers. In order to ensure that we can effectively address those needs, we look forward to also meeting with existing hotel clients so that we can present them with upgrade opportunities to guarantee that they have the best tools that the industry has to offer.
What are the top trends driving the hospitality industry currently?
Much of the industry has been affected by the increasing trend of guests demanding faster and more convenient services. As other industries have adapted to include self-service options as a solution to providing customers with instant satisfaction, hotel guests are increasingly being greeted with alternative ways of interacting with traditional hotel services that ensure faster results. Guests today are finding services such as self check-in or check-out to be more commonplace, and now view them more as a required option as opposed to a mere add-on service. The overwhelming rise in smart device usage has also seen properties provide guests with even greater control over their hotel stay experience. By simply downloading a property’s app, guests can now gain instant access to an array of convenience enhancing abilities such as room service, making restaurant reservations or even using a smart device to unlock and enter certain areas within a hotel.
What are the top positive and negative trends driving business in your specific sector/ line of operation?
Mobile access technology has really had a profound impact on how hotels present security access to their guests. While still a new innovation, mobile access has experienced tremendous interest from hoteliers and guests alike, thanks to its ability to streamline the often time consuming routine of checking-in at the front desk. By providing guests with an option that further caters to their demand for instant service, mobile access has consequently experienced impressive adoption rates by properties around the world.
With multiple factors affecting its performance, the global economy continues to provide uncertainty within hospitality markets. Issues as regional conflicts or terrorism persist in fostering sudden declines in market performance that may linger for an undeterminable length of time. This can obviously influence the spending power and desire to improve services for properties within an affected region.
Which session are you most excited about at the conference?
We look forward to gaining insight during the guest experience session, as it provides us with an opportunity to learn more about what guests expect when they stay at a hotel. We hope to understand more about the challenges that properties face when aiming to satisfy their guests, and are committed to aiding them in addressing such tasks in order to ensure business success.
