In the world of hospitality, legacy technology gets a bad rap – and it’s no secret why. Unlike fine wine or nostalgic memories created and shared with friends and loved ones, the technology we utilize to enhance our personal and professional lives is meant to evolve at an accelerated pace.

In the book “The Future is Faster Than You Think,” Peter H. Diamandis pays tribute to Ray Kurzweil’s ‘Law of Accelerating Returns.’ “Ray Kurzweil did the math and found that we’re going to experience twenty thousand years of technological change over the next one hundred years,” he wrote. “Essentially, we’re going from the birth of agriculture to the birth of the internet twice in the next century. This means paradigm-shifting, game-changing, nothing-is-ever-the-same-again breakthroughs.” This is, perhaps, the perfect way to describe the digital era in which we now live – innovation is no longer a nice-to-have; instead, it is a necessity built into the very fabric of our world.

From a business perspective, digital innovation is key to survival and success, and, as you might have guessed, the hospitality industry is no exception to this rule. Despite this, our industry has become notorious for its continued allegiance to antiquated platforms that are no longer equipped to serve the modern world and its modern customers. Legacy applications are defined as “an information system that may be based on outdated technologies, but is critical to day-to-day operations,” and, across our industry, many hotels have simply failed to commit to replacing these systems. But similar to spoiled milk, platforms that fail to adapt to meet (or better yet, anticipate) the needs of the modern world have an expiry date, and it’s due time for independent hotels to clear out the hypothetical kitchen.

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