Episode Details

In this special HITEC episode of The Modern Hotelier, hosts David Millili and Steve Carran sit down with Ryan King, SVP of the Americas at Shiji, live from the Shiji Cafe and Marketplace on the trade show floor. The conversation dives deep into how hospitality technology is evolving—and where it’s still falling short.

Ryan shares insights from over a decade of attending HITEC and explores the industry’s ongoing struggle with fragmented, siloed systems across PMS, POS, spa, and operations. While hotels rushed to adopt tech to solve staffing shortages, many ended up with disconnected tools that fail to deliver a unified guest experience.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

•  Why many hotels still struggle with fragmented, siloed technology—and how it impacts the guest experience 
•  How rushed tech adoption during staffing shortages created operational inefficiencies instead of solving them 
•  What it really means to “meet the guest where they are” and how these changes hotel operations in practice 
•  How mobile and on-the-floor service models can increase speed, upsells, and guest satisfaction 
•  Why cloud-based systems are key to connecting PMS, POS, spa, and other hotel platforms 
•  The growing importance of clean, unified data in an AI-driven hospitality landscape 

Watch the FULL EPISODE on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qIkt3mlnx1U

Links:
Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-king-11083842/
Shiji Group: https://www.shijigroup.com/

For full show notes head to: https://themodernhotelier.com/episode/288

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Connect with Steve and David:
Steve: https://www.linkedin.com/in/%F0%9F%8E...
David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mil.