When Marriott’s long-time Chief Information Officer Carl Wilson retires next week, Bruce Hoffmeister, also a seasoned technology executive at the lodging giant, will succeed him as global chief information officer. During his tenure, Wilson oversaw the development of the company’s technology infrastructure, the rollout of Marriott.com and the introduction of the industry’s first high-speed Internet access to guestrooms.

Hoffmeister joined Marriott 22 years ago as a senior financial analyst in the development finance department and held a wide range of finance, accounting and technology positions, including his most recent post as senior vice president of IR shared and application services. We spoke with Hoffmeister recently as he prepares to take the reins at one of the lodging industry’s largest technology operations:

What will be the biggest challenges in your new role?
Carl Wilson has done a great job building the organization so I have some big shoes to fill. I want to build upon his work and take information resources at Marriott to the next level. We’ve delivered a lot of great technology to our guests and our associates and we have some strong platforms we can leverage, including reservations, guest services, property management systems and more.

What areas of technology are your priorities?
We’re focused on several. Obviously, mobility and how we interact with guests, as well as the ability of the guest to use high-speed Internet access to bring their work with them and be productive wherever they are. We’re also always looking to leverage our Marriott.com platform. It’s the seventh largest retail site and our guests spend about 3.5 million hours on Marriott.com, so it’s an area we continue to leverage and prioritize.

How has Marriott become a leader in technology?
We have a talented team of professionals, and Carl has done a great job of building the team over the past 10-plus years. Another factor is that we work very closely with the other disciplines at Marriott to shape the strategy, to develop the goals and to deliver the innovation. We’re an integral part of the business, and the work we do is guided by our business strategy of growth, loyalty and profitability.

How has hotel technology changed in the time you’ve been involved in the business?
Technology is changing everywhere and very rapidly. When technology first came to hotels in the back office, it was all about productivity. Then it moved to the front office, where it was about guest services. It then moved into the guestroom for both service and entertainment. And now technology has reached into peoples’ homes and into their smartphones and PDAs. It’s pervasive now, not just in hotels but also in peoples’ lives.

Has Marriott gone to the cloud?
You can look at the cloud two different ways. There is an external cloud and an internal cloud. From an internal perspective, we have a lot of applications we host above property and they are essentially a form of cloud computing. One example is our human resources systems, which is a cloud offering. We also have done a lot with virtualizing our hardware platforms, which gives us the ability to dynamically allocate and use assets in a way that is similar to the cloud offerings. The next step is looking at how we allow our developers to provision these resources without any manual intervention, which would be a true cloud application. From an external perspective, we’ve been using software as a service for several years. We have some of our property management systems hosted above property by external parties.

How are you able to defend your budgets in these tough times?
Defending budgets is the same whether it is good times or difficult economic times. In tough times, the funds are tighter so the prioritization process is a little more difficult, but you always need to look at how the dollars entrusted to you are delivering value to the company. It’s particularly true for new initiatives. Because we often partner on projects with other disciplines at Marriott, whether it is operations or finance or food and beverage, they help defend the budgets of their projects. It’s not just a technology conversation; it’s an overall business conversation. One of my strong beliefs is that technology is not separate from the business. Technology is an integral part of the business, and we need to act accordingly and take on accountability that goes along with that.

In what areas of technology can Marriott innovate in the coming years?
Mobility, both from the guest side and the hotel associate side. It goes hand in hand with improvements that will be coming with network capacity and speed. From a guest perspective, mobile devices are changing the way they interact with hotels throughout the entire life cycle of a stay, from researching property to making reservations, for check-in, in-room ordering of services.

Mobile devices can also be used in hotels by associates to communicate rapidly between departments or to a central location. They can be used to show room types and amenities to guests to better market the hotel. There is a myriad of uses for mobile devices, and we haven’t even begun to consider what they all are. It will be one of the largest areas of growth and innovation we will see in our business.