Judging by the size of the crowd at last week’s HITEC trade show, and the air of professionalism among the exhibitors, i.e., a lack of the hucksterism evident in the past, it seems as though hotel technology may have finally come of age.

Nearly every exhibitor at the show, especially those who’ve been in the industry a long time, seemed to agree that lodging automation is heading in two distinct, but positive directions. One is the focus on guest-facing technology that entertains, informs or simplifies the customer experience. Road warriors everywhere will rejoice once all hotels understand what they want: a speedy, mistake-proof arrival process (either aided by technology or not), reliable and fast Internet service (free is nice, but guests will pay if it’s top-notch service) and a guestroom media package that lets guests enjoy their entertainment the way they want and probably have at home (a dizzying array of TV channels, access to multiple forms of on-demand programming and a way guests can plug their own media into the guestroom electronics package.)

Many of the booths at this year’s HITEC reflected those guest expectations. Most of the new devices, systems and gadgets I saw seemed to be created by tech geeks who also understand the hotel business and its customers. That wasn’t always the case in the past.

The other striking trend permeating the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando was cloud computing, or the concept of software as a service. These ideas have been percolating throughout the hotel industry for a number of years, but this HITEC was the first time every relevant vendor I spoke to discussed the merits of cloud computing and how they planned to incorporate the concept in their offerings.

The most articulate spokesperson for cloud computing wasn’t a vendor, however. It was Nick Price, the wunderkind CIO of Mandarin Oriental, who on other occasions has publicly said any vendor that wants to do business with his company needs to present a cloud computing solution. At HITEC, Mandarin and Microsoft announced a deal in which the company will standardize all its IT systems on Microsoft as a step toward a full “cloud” platform in which all of Mandarin’s technology applications will be hosted at a corporate or vendor location. No more heat- and space-hogging servers would be housed at individual hotels.

According to Price, the cloud approach is a must for his company’s future, particularly as it expands into emerging markets where it is too costly and too time-consuming to install individual PMS in each property. Price even envisions a time when the hotel industry is able to cooperate on a shared data model in which all travel customer records for all brands and hotels will be housed in a centralized database that hotels and consumers could access from anywhere.

The future is here in hotel technology, and not just in hype and gimmicks (although every booth seemed to have some sort of application that works on Apple’s hot new iPad, with very few of them functional as of yet). Hotel technology vendors and their customers—the hotel companies—are finally sharing their expertise to find answers that create better customer experiences at lower costs for hotel owners and operators.