Matthew Bell has spent more than two decades building and scaling hospitality brands that successfully blend technology with human touch. As former Chief Hotel Operations Officer at citizenM and current Managing Director at Mollie’s, he’s witnessed both the promise and pitfalls of hotel technology implementation firsthand.
The scenario he’s seen play out repeatedly: a hotel chain invests in digital check-in, guest communications platforms, and chatbots. Twelve months later, adoption remains disappointingly low, owners are unimpressed, and leadership teams struggle to justify the investment—let alone consider the next wave of innovations like biometrics or advanced personalization.
The problem isn’t the technology itself. According to Bell, most failed implementations share a common root cause: they prioritize the technology over its purpose.
Start with purpose, not features
“CitizenM was always positioned — and Mollie’s is positioned — as a very tech-forward brand, but actually they’re a very human brand as well,” Bell shared with Danica Smith on a recent Hospitality Daily Podcast. “What we were able to do was successfully blend those two components.”
That blend requires clarity on what you’re actually trying to accomplish. Bell sees too many hotels deploy technology “simply for the sake of it,” leading to predictably poor adoption from both guests and team members.
His framework starts with three fundamental questions:
What is the purpose of this technology? Define the specific problem you’re solving or experience you’re enabling. If you can’t articulate this clearly, you’re not ready to implement.
What metrics will prove it’s working? Establish concrete KPIs before deployment. How will you know if this technology is adding material value? Guest satisfaction scores? Conversion rates? Time savings for staff?
Can you report against those metrics? Ensure you have the systems in place to track performance and demonstrate ROI. The business case you present upfront should be measurable throughout implementation.
Think small to win big
One of the most damaging tendencies in hospitality technology projects is scope creep driven by “if” thinking.
“Often in hospitality, we start the ‘if’ thinking: ‘if I do that, I also need to do that. And what if this and if that, and then if this,” Bell observes. “You end up creating this absolute monster of a project that you will never get to the end of.”
The result: projects that take so long to deploy that by the time they finally go live, the technology is already outdated. Business needs have evolved. The competitive landscape has shifted.
Bell’s alternative approach prioritizes incremental progress over comprehensive transformation. Start small. Deploy quickly. Learn from real-world usage. Iterate based on data. This agile methodology allows you to demonstrate value faster, adjust course when needed, and avoid betting the farm on untested assumptions.
Build for flexibility, not permanence
Both citizenM and Mollie’s chose proprietary, custom-built technology stacks rather than single monolithic platforms. The reason: flexibility and agility.
“That’s the preferred route that we have taken historically,” Bell notes, acknowledging that others will make strong cases for integrated platforms. But for brands that want to experiment, adapt quickly, and maintain control over their guest experience, flexibility matters more than feature completeness.
This approach enables what Bell calls the ability to “play and experiment”—something that becomes nearly impossible when locked into rigid systems. When market conditions change or guest expectations shift, hotels need technology that can evolve with them.
The human element of tech adoption
Perhaps most critically, Bell emphasizes that successful technology implementation requires genuine integration with human service delivery.
“If technology is done simply for the sake of it, then it doesn’t surprise me that there may be low adoption,” he says. That adoption challenge manifests in two ways: guests who ignore or resist the technology, and team members who work around it rather than through it.
The solution lies in positioning technology as an enabler of better service, not a replacement for human interaction. At citizenM and Mollie’s, technology handles transactional elements efficiently, freeing staff to focus on creating memorable guest experiences. The technology serves the relationship, not the other way around.
Practical steps for struggling implementations
For operators facing disappointing results from recent technology investments, Bell’s advice offers a clear path forward:
Audit your current state. For each technology you’ve deployed, can you articulate its purpose? Do you have metrics showing whether it’s delivering value? If not, that’s your starting point.
Reset expectations around scope. Rather than trying to fix everything at once, identify one high-impact area where incremental improvement is possible. Deploy that change quickly and measure results.
Evaluate your technology architecture. Does your current stack allow for experimentation and rapid iteration? If you’re locked into systems that require six months to implement simple changes, you have an infrastructure problem that will undermine any improvement efforts.
Focus on adoption, not features. Spend as much time on change management and training as you do on technical implementation. Technology only creates value when people actually use it.
The bottom line
Hotel technology should enable better experiences and stronger business performance. When it doesn’t, the failure rarely lies with the technology itself—it stems from unclear purpose, excessive complexity, inflexible systems, or inadequate attention to adoption.
The solution requires discipline: define clear objectives, start small, measure relentlessly, and build systems that can evolve. It’s less exciting than comprehensive digital transformation initiatives, but it’s far more likely to deliver results that impress both guests and owners.
As Bell’s experience at citizenM and Mollie’s demonstrates, the most successful technology implementations don’t feel like technology at all—they feel like better hospitality.
