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2023 HOSPITALITY TRENDS: IDENTITY MANAGEMENT AT FOREFRONT

Recently Hospitality Net, the top-ranked global hospitality website that provides B2B-driven articles produced by hotel industry experts, published an article entitled Six Hospitality Industry Trends for 2023 and Beyond. The article covers which key business trends within the hospitality industry are gaining steam as we head into the new year, and shares guidance on how the industry can evolve to match these trends.

Since SecZetta works with so many organizations within the hospitality industry, I was curious to read more about the future of the industry. I’m glad I read the article because four of the six trends relate directly to identity and access management! Trends included:

1. A Continuation of the Hotel ‘Brand Explosion’.

There’s been a “fragmentation of the hotel sector” that’s led to a plethora of hotel sub-segments. For these hotel groups that manage multiple franchise brands along with a sizable extended workforce of contractors, vendors, and other third-parties, identity and access lifecycle management has never been more challenging.

Often, the identity and access needs of each brand are managed by a large, internal team at the corporate level and involve a complicated process that is highly manual, costly, and error prone. When a property changes ownership, management, or brand name, identity updates are often a nightmare. You can read more about those identity challenges by reading Identity Authority for Non-Employee Lifecycle Management Provides Cost-Savings, Collaboration, and Compliance.

2. Deploying Smart Technology in Hotels.

From apps that enable guests’ to completely control their hotel rooms to remote check-in/check-out to adding robots to the workforce, hotel smart technology has reshaped the hospitality industry over the past several years.

While these “smart hotel” technologies improve the customer experience, they create more access gateways, which in turn creates an even larger surface area for potential attacks resulting in more hospitality groups being breached.

3. Collaborating with Third Parties to Attract “Working Nomads”.

The author sees a huge opportunity for travel destinations to attract working nomads, who are digital remote workers that combine employment with international travel. She suggests collaborating with tourism boards, travel companies, event planners, and other enterprise partners, as these third-party organizations can help amplify your property to a broader audience and attract more people to stay with you.

While collaborating with other organizations within the hospitality industry is a necessity in today’s climate, it can lead to challenges as access to sensitive customer data can accidently be allotted to an extended enterprise partner, which violates GDPR and other privacy laws, as well as increases the likelihood of a breach.

4. Embracing Change in Hotel’s Spa & Wellness Program.

There’s been a “war for talent” in hospitality, and the article suggests that hotels should partner with outside vendors rather than try to hire internally. This would allow your hotel to provide guests with access to specialized third-party wellness professionals, as well as trendy technology like hyperbaric chambers and cryotherapy.

While hospitality groups are becoming more and more reliant on contractors and contingent workers, often when their engagement with the hospitality group ends, access is left open and unmanaged. This is problematic as a reported 59% of companies have experienced a third-party breach, and often the easiest entry point for a bad actor is via an unmanaged identity that originated from a group’s extended enterprise.

With the hospitality industry ranking as one of the most targeted industries for a cyber-attack, those that don’t take identity and access seriously could pay a high price in terms of lost revenue, reputation, and customer confidence.

Why? Because another 2023 trend expected is an increase in identity-related breaches.

In recently released research from the Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA) where IT and identity professionals were surveyed, 98% of organizations stated they’ve experienced rapid growth in the number of identities that they manage. That growth was driven by expanding cloud usage, more third-party partners, and machine identities, all of which, you may notice, are included in the 2023 hospitality trends.

Further, businesses have experienced an increase in breaches as a result, with 84% of firms suffering an identity-related breach in the past 12 months, compared with 79% in a previous study covering two years.

Identity & access management (IAM) and hospitality IT teams need to rapidly prepare for these trends, as they should expect not only to manage more identities than ever before, but a wider range of identities from their extended enterprise. With an increasing need to rely on third-party partners, and contract & contingent workers to earn new business, managing identities efficiently and securely should be a top priority in 2023 and beyond.

Experience first-hand how SecZetta helps hospitality groups with their extended enterprise’s identity lifecycle management needs by taking this self-guided tour to see how easy it is to onboard a new property worker using our platform. 

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Industry Blog - SecZetta authored by Mike Conti. Read the original post at: https://www.seczetta.com/2023-hospitality-trends-identity-management-at-forefront/