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Automatic

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  • 7 min

The Evolution of Hospitality: Key Trends Driving Hotel Innovation

🏠 Slovenia's hotel group taps into local pride with attractions like Lake Bled and a resident beekeeper for a unique breakfast experience. The Six Senses resort in Portugal offers DIY moisturizer workshops for guests. EU’s CSRD mandates ESG reporting for large companies from 2025, potentially expanding to smaller businesses. Research indicates 39% of consumers pay more for sustainability, with Gen Z holding $140 trillion in spending power, favoring sustainable experiences. The Ritz-Carlton in Grand Cayman, with Jean-Michel Cousteau, offers environmental education to guests and residents. Personalization in the hotel industry is crucial, evidenced by Ritz-Carlton's guest preference records. Technology enhances guest experiences with AI, mobile check-ins, and apps. Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 aims to transform hospitality with luxury and sustainability, promising 5,000 hotel rooms in AlUla by 2035. Revenue management is key, such as a Malta hotel’s jump from €200 to €550 average rates through strategic pricing. Post-pandemic, luxury hotels may maintain high rates, while mid-level hotels could see pricing pressure.
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Reviving the GDS Advantage: Maximizing Hotel Bookings through Travel Sellers

🏨 North America leads in GDS usage, with 91% of travel sellers using it as much or more than 2 years prior. Latin America (51%), Europe/Middle East/Africa (57%), and Asia Pacific (56%) report increased GDS usage. Over two-thirds of travel sellers are influenced by GDS ads, and 93% respond to terms like “free” or “complimentary”. Sustainability is important for 60% of sellers. Effective GDS campaigns need audience insight, tailored marketing, performance optimization, and relationship building to engage global travel sellers and increase hotel bookings.
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  • 3 min

Three Key Tech Capabilities Boosting Independent Hotel Operations

🏨 Independent hoteliers in the U.S. are advised to prioritize automation, data analysis, and system connectivity in technology investments. Automation enhances operational efficiency and revenue management, leading to higher revenue per available room (RevPAR) and average daily rates than branded counterparts. Data analytics enable targeted marketing and informed decisions on pricing and inventory. Effective system connectivity ensures long-term scalability and strategic business planning without hindering future integrations.
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How Fire & Vine Hospitality Transformed Customer Engagement with RTN Data Standards and Oracle CrowdTwist

💰 Fire & Vine's private dining business generates 30-35% of its total revenue, primarily from corporate clients. The company is using CrowdTwist to segment customer profiles for targeted marketing campaigns. The transition from a 12-year-old legacy loyalty system to CrowdTwist began with the intention to keep initial functionality, but by 2025, Fire & Vine aims to fully leverage the new system's capabilities for personalized customer rewards and employee engagement programs, as discussed at MURTEC 2024. The company is focusing on personalization, with plans to run exclusive offers for loyal customers and create tailored incentives for employees.
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Church’s Texas Chicken Adds Voice AI Ordering at the Drive-Thru

🔥 Bikky, serving multi-unit restaurants, partners with Haven Hot Chicken, founded in 2020 by four local restauranteurs. Haven opened their ninth location in summer, named one of the fastest growing businesses in the state and country, with their chicken sandwich titled “Best Bite in Town” by Food Network. Haven leverages Bikky for guest tracking, behavior analysis, and data-backed decisions, recently guiding a strategic choice to keep a lower-selling menu item for its role in driving guest frequency. Haven aims to more than double store count in 2025, with Bikky supporting their expansion and site selection, informed by detailed guest demographics and behavior data.
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Starbird Expands to Washington with New Franchise Agreement

📈 Bikky, a customer data platform for multi-unit restaurants, announced a partnership with Haven Hot Chicken, a Nashville-style Hot Chicken restaurant founded in 2020. Haven opened its ninth location in summer 2023, and its chicken sandwich was named "Best Bite in Town" by Food Network. Haven uses Bikky to track guest behaviors, make data-backed decisions, and evaluate menu items like their caesar salad, which was kept for strategic reasons. With ambitious expansion plans for 2025 and a focus on precise site selection, Haven is leveraging Bikky's insights for strategic growth. Bikky is also partnered with brands like Dave’s Hot Chicken and Bojangles.
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Haven Hot Chicken’s Harnesses Guest Insights

🍗 Bikky, specialized in customer data for multi-unit restaurants, partners with Haven Hot Chicken, a Nashville-style chicken brand founded in 2020, which opened its 9th location in the summer and was recognized as a fast-growing business in the state and country. Bikky's platform enables Haven to track guest behavior, make data-driven decisions, and improve marketing effectiveness. The data helped retain a strategic menu item and will inform site selection for expansion plans targeting 2025. Bikky's CEO, Abhinav Kapur, highlights Haven's goal to double store count next year.
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  • 3 min

Bob W Deploys NevayaOne

💰 Encore, a global event technology and production services provider with 12,000 team members across 20 countries, launched the ‘Overtime Savings Program’ in the U.S. to improve financial stability for its workforce facing seasonal business fluctuations. Utilizing UKG's payroll technology, the program allows employees to save overtime earnings and receive a company-paid match. Following its post-Labor Day launch, UKG Wallet™ usage surged tenfold. Additionally, the ‘Seasonal Leave of Absence Program’ offers flexible off-season breaks while retaining benefits and career status, with global expansion plans underway.
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  • 3 min

Caring Back: How Robust & Flexible PMS is Improving Your Guests’ Arrival Experience

🏨 Independent hotels enhance guest arrival experiences using technology like property-management systems (PMS) and experience management systems (XMS) to improve communication and offer personal touches. Digital communication enables guests to inform hotels of late arrivals, allowing for staggered room preparation and extended check-in times. Contactless technology provides self-serve mobile check-in options or kiosk check-ins to expedite the process. Modern PMS capabilities also allow guests early access to amenities, increasing revenue and guest satisfaction.
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  • 3 min

B2B is dead, long-live business-to-human

📱 Rikke Wichmann Bruun from Cheil UK highlights a shift from B2B to B2H strategy, emphasizing personalized guest experiences in hotels. Gen Z, comprising 27% of the workforce in countries like the UK, US, Australia, and most of Europe by next year, favors personalization and technology. B2H marketing uses AI for bespoke recommendations and storytelling for relatability, proven effective with LinkedIn data showing a threefold increase in engagement for empathetic storytelling content. Samsung exemplifies this strategy, focusing on real-world problem-solving stories. The strategy seeks a balance between data-led insights, AI, and human connection.
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