When Vincent Ramelli talks about hotels, he does so with the conviction of someone who has lived every chapter of the industry’s evolution. From the dawn of the Internet in the late 1990s to the rise of OTAs, from the early experiments in direct booking to today’s world of data-driven pricing and artificial intelligence, his journey mirrors the story of modern hospitality itself.
In his recent interview on our French-language podcast hosted by Tony Loeb and produced by 10 Minutes News, Vincent reflects on this remarkable trajectory. The conversation, now available in full, is both a personal story and a masterclass in how technology and intuition can coexist in hospitality.
From telecoms to hotelier
Ramelli’s path to LodgIQ, where he now serves as CEO, began in an unexpected place: telecommunications. In the late 1990s, he worked for First Telecom, one of the first companies to provide Internet connectivity to businesses in France. “There were only about 300 million global Internet users at the time,” he recalls. “We dreamed of reaching one billion someday.”
But what fascinated him most wasn’t just the cables or the data, it was what connectivity could enable. He quickly realized that travel, and hotels in particular, would be transformed by this new medium. “People would always need to book hotels,” he says. “That meant there would always be a need for reliable online systems.”
By 1997, he was building websites for hotels, one of the earliest web agencies in Paris focused on hospitality. “We were selling websites like bicycles,” he jokes. “One project at a time, fast and simple.” But soon, the business grew into something much larger.
Becoming a hotelier to understand hoteliers
Around 2004, after selling several of his projects, Ramelli decided to buy and operate his own hotels. It was an unusual move for a tech entrepreneur, but one that would prove transformative. “My products became much smarter the day I became a hotelier myself,” he says.
“Huge investments, small margins, constant pressure. You think you’re going to die every day.”
Operating two Parisian hotels gave him a first-hand understanding of the challenges hoteliers face—fluctuating demand, unpredictable events, and the emotional intensity of the business. “It’s a hard job,” he admits. “Huge investments, small margins, constant pressure. You think you’re going to die every day.”
It also gave him insights into how early OTAs like Booking.com and Expedia operated. In one anecdote, he recalls how, in the early 2000s, he discovered that an OTA’s ranking system rewarded availability. “So I opened 1,000 rooms in the system even though I only had 70,” he laughs. “Suddenly, I was number one in the listings.”
Behind the humor lies a serious point: technology was changing the rules faster than most hoteliers could keep up.
Building WIHP: A tool born out of necessity
In the years that followed, Ramelli founded WIHP, one of the first direct booking platforms for hotels. The company grew rapidly, serving over 15,000 hotels worldwide across 110 markets, before being acquired after the pandemic. “When COVID started, we had 6,000 hotels. By the end, we had doubled that number,” he recalls.
WIHP’s success wasn’t about luck. It was built on Ramelli’s understanding that good technology must simplify, not complicate. “You can’t just throw data at hoteliers,” he explains. “It has to help them make sense of their market, of their city, of their guests.”
That philosophy is what he now brings to LodgIQ, a company already known for its advanced revenue management systems and business intelligence tools.
The new LodgIQ: making revenue intelligence accessible
At LodgIQ, Ramelli’s vision is clear: democratize access to powerful data insights for every hotel, not just large chains. “There are excellent RMS tools on the market,” he notes. “But most of them are built for the big players. You almost need another software just to read them.”
LodgIQ’s mission is to change that. The platform combines AI-powered pricing recommendations, real-time market intelligence, and flight and travel data analytics to give hoteliers what Ramelli calls “the pulse of the city.”
“Understanding your market means knowing how many people are arriving, how many are leaving, what events are happening, and how competitors are reacting,” he explains. “Once you have that pulse, you can make better, calmer decisions.”
LodgIQ’s system even integrates signals from air and rail traffic, car rentals, and other travel flows to anticipate demand. This granular view enables hotels to position themselves with precision—neither overpricing in panic nor underpricing out of fear.
Business Intelligence as the next frontier
For Ramelli, the next major evolution in hospitality isn’t just automation, it’s intelligence. “A piece of data alone means nothing,” he says. “It only matters when you can compare it, contextualize it, and see what it tells you.”
That’s why LodgIQ’s approach merges revenue management with business intelligence (BI), allowing hoteliers to visualize where revenue is leaking and where opportunities lie. “A good RMS doesn’t just suggest prices,” he explains. “It helps you see that your singles aren’t selling on weekends, that your quadruple rooms aren’t booked midweek, or that your direct bookings are too low compared to your OTA mix.”
The result is a system that empowers hoteliers to make decisions grounded in evidence rather than instinct.
Learning from aviation
In one of the most striking parts of the interview, Ramelli compares the future of hotel revenue management to the airline industry. “No airline captain turns around and asks the flight attendant, ‘So what price did we sell the seats at today?’” he says with a smile.
Airlines, he notes, centralized their pricing and yield management systems decades ago. Hotels, on the other hand, have been slower to adopt that mindset. “The core job of a hotelier is hospitality,” he insists. “Welcoming guests, creating experiences. The pricing should be automated, stable, predictable.”
By removing the burden of constant rate management, he argues, hotels can focus again on what truly drives value: the guest experience.
A message to hoteliers
The interview closes on a note that feels both nostalgic and optimistic. Ramelli speaks passionately about his admiration for hoteliers, particularly in France. “French hoteliers are some of the most resourceful in the world,” he says. “They deal with more constraints: legal, fiscal, operational than almost anyone else, yet they remain creative and resilient.”
His message is simple: technology should serve the human side of hospitality, not replace it. “We’re here to give hoteliers back their freedom,” he concludes. “To let them do what they do best: welcome guests, take care of people, and build places that others want to return to.”
A legacy built on resilience
Throughout his career, Ramelli has built companies through crises: the dot-com crash, 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, the Paris attacks, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Each time, he saw opportunity where others saw disaster. “In every crisis, there’s always an opening,” he says. “Hospitality is a resilient industry because it’s built on people, and people always come back.”
That resilience, he believes, will define the next chapter of hotel technology. With AI, automation, and BI now converging, Ramelli’s vision for LodgIQ is not just to optimize pricing—but to restore clarity and confidence to hoteliers navigating an increasingly complex world.
For more insights on data, pricing, and hotel performance strategy, visit www.lodgiq.com/blog
Watch the complete video on our Youtube channel.
