It might come as a surprise that, in a recent interview with LODGING, Towne Park CEO Andrew Kerin emphasized more than how the company’s AI-enabled parking solutions with an enhanced arrival and departure experience work for hotels, owners, and guests. He also highlighted how the staff deploying this service to its clients’ guests exists—rather, thrives—within a company culture where the value it places on its human capital is reflected in the makeup of its management, 40 percent of which started as associates.
“We think of ourselves as a tech-enabled hospitality company in that the services we offer, including the staff we provide, are very much part of the core of that guest experience and how that brand is seen and felt, meaning we’re part of a ‘better value equation’ that enables them to raise rates and increase their profitability,” he asserted.
The following conversation with LODGING shares further details about the company:
How would you briefly describe your solutions?
Our solutions are specifically designed to enhance the guest experience at every point during their stay. Our integrated bell and door solutions work seamlessly with our parking services to deliver a memorable experience for each guest who walks through your doors.
We basically do three things for owners: we increase revenue, reduce costs, and grow margins. We do this by offering tech enablement in three areas: AI-based recruitment, AI-based labor management, and AI-based revenue-generating solutions, mainly related to parking.
To address the staffing challenges facing so many hotels, we provide the people who are such an important part of the arrival and departure experience for hotel guests. We ourselves recruit, train, and manage the 13,000 associates we can quickly deploy to our hotel partners. These team members are cross-trained for flexibility and Forbes-trained to deliver exceptional guest experiences.
We can provide this labor at a lower cost than hotels because, unlike them, we don’t have to staff every department for the peaks. Further, our AI-based labor management scheduling capability allows us to staff for demand, and make sure that we are doing it in the most efficient and, therefore, cost-effective way, thus optimizing efficiency, productivity, and costs for hotels.
Lastly, we can grow revenue by leveraging consumer elasticity when it comes to the parking experience that is an important part of the value equation. We’ve developed our own dynamic pricing capability that is AI-based. Using it, we’ve been able to generate 15 percent incremental revenue for our clients by creating ranges of rates based on several factors that let us know the optimal price for a specific day and time.
How is Towne Park’s staff recruited and managed?
Our human capital management system is tech-enabled and supports every aspect of the employee lifecycle. The process starts with how we recruit associates leveraging AI recruitment technology, and then we create the right schedules for our teams and clients with our state-of-the-art AI-based labor management platform.
However, within our company, we’ve built a culture devoted to retaining and developing talent using the kind of emotional intelligence that is at the heart of hospitality. This is apparent in the makeup of our organization: 40 percent of our management started as associates, including 30 percent of our VPs and above, and two of our three operating executives in the field started as valets.
To explain further, our talent acquisition system, for which there is a department manager, enables us to see 8,000 candidates a month, after which those selected are seen by the site manager at the hotels. All employees ultimately hired are trained both on the job and through the system. They are also cross-trained to meet staffing challenges.
Secondarily, we’ve got what we call Towne Link, a handheld app where people can train and learn in an engaging virtual environment. Through this app, they can also swap shifts, request daily payment, and more.
Beyond tech is our culture. We’ve learned to meet the people who want to work for us where they are, not where we are. We consider their goals. Do they want to learn, earn, or grow? Some want to do all three, and their goals may change. I think that has made all the difference in the world in the quality and in the engagement of our teams.
How can hotels optimize their parking asset with your technology?
We view parking as a powerful revenue-generating asset, based largely on how a positive parking experience factors into guests’ satisfaction, and, therefore, its value to them. This is especially pertinent when demand is high. Our data-driven dynamic pricing combines advanced technology with real-time data, including a national database of parking rates, to optimize pricing, increase efficiency, and drive demand.
Using our data-rich technology stack to understand every parking rate in a geography, and every offset, for example, a citywide event that attracts a population beyond hotel guests, some of our hotels were able to increase parking rates from $40 to $60 at a base rate.
What type of hotel is Towne Park technology best suited to?
Given that we don’t do housekeeping or food and beverage—apart from occasional banquet service—our fully integrated service model, which includes valet, parking, bell, shuttle, and front-of-house support, makes it ideal for luxury and upper upscale properties. These logistically complex environments, such as big box convention hotels like Hilton and Gaylord, require large teams, enabling Towne Park to significantly enhance every interaction while uncovering new opportunities for operational efficiency and revenue growth.
However, our parking management and technology solutions are also suitable for other types of properties with parking operations that seek to maximize revenue and improve the customer experience. For example, for limited-service hotels, we offer integrated self-parking solutions that use license plate recognition technology to create a seamless, stress-free experience with no-touch access and payment, including frictionless entry and exit for greater convenience and safety.
