Innovation

💾 Hoteliers must ensure direct rates are competitive amidst increasing price sensitivity and fragmented booking journeys. Tools like BenchDirect offer real-time visibility and benchmarking across OTAs and metasearch platforms. Real-time Price Comparison and features like Inliners and Price Match maintain rate integrity while enhancing transparency and trust. Personalized messaging, including predictive personalization for low-intent visitors and exit messages, bolsters direct booking conversion by communicating unique direct booking perks tailored to user behavior.

💸 A16z's program, a16z speedrun, invests up to $1M in very early stage startups. Marketing challenges for new products include SEO's long setup and unpredictability, influencer marketing's poor conversion, PR's lack of signups, email marketing's sub-30% open rates, viral loops' need for exceptional products, costly ads, referral/affiliate fraud, and one-time social media launches. The article suggests startups focus on 'Little Channels' for marketing, prioritize novelty, take brand risks, and leverage new technologies. It argues for product quality as key, noting the current AI wave's impact on marketing success.

💸 Hotels and resorts suffer financial losses through poor procurement, leading to redundancies, higher prices, and unchecked pricing inconsistencies. Efficient buying processes are crucial for preventing supply chain disruptions and maintaining business health. A procurement strategy audit is necessary to identify weaknesses and align purchasing across locations with guidelines. Group purchasing operations (GPOs) offer streamlined procurement, negotiated rates, and exclusive eProcurement tools. Improved procurement is vital for profitability and resilience in the hospitality industry. Sponsored by Foodbuy Hospitality.

📢 In London, on 29 April 2025, Clermont Hotel Group partners with IDeaS to integrate G3 Revenue Management System (RMS) and Optix across their properties. Clermont previously used IDeaS SmartSpace for event space optimization. The new RMS features advanced forecasting and automation for revenue optimization, aiming to enhance RevPAR and profitability. Key London hotels include The Tower Hotel, The Cumberland, and the Royal Horseguards Hotel. The partnership emphasizes after-sales support and focuses on actionable insights for strategic improvements.

🏨 AI concierges are becoming essential in the competitive hotel industry, offering 24/7 service without additional labor costs. A luxury resort group reported a 23% increase in ancillary revenue after implementing an AI-driven upselling tool. TrustYou's AI Agents, a customizable solution, enables hotels to automate responses, drive upsells, and deliver faster service, ensuring personalized guest experiences and increased revenue opportunities.

🏨 Cloudbeds introduced CB Pay Thailand in San Diego, CA, enabling Thai hoteliers to automate onboarding, handle payments in local currency, and improve guest experience by eliminating manual credit card data handling. Partnering with dLocal, the platform offers OTA payment acceptance, local and international credit card processing, and pay-by-link options, all through a secure, compliant interface. This financial tool simplifies management, optimizes cash flow, and aims to strengthen hotel financial stability in Thailand.

📅 At the Arabian Travel Market 2025, Mabrian Technologies and Almawave Group co-hosted a roundtable titled "Successful Market Strategies With AI and Data Intelligence". The event, part of the Global Travel and Tourism Resilience Council and involving Travolution, gathered 20 senior executives for a 90-minute discussion on AI and data intelligence in travel. Attendees included representatives from Visit Oman, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Authority, NEOM, PATA, the Egyptian Hotel Association, and consultancies like McKinsey & Co., BCG, and Roland Berger. Emphasis was placed on leadership and collaboration for effective use of AI, with a focus on operationalizing insights for the Middle East's tourism sector.

🏡 Cloudbeds has expanded its integrated payments solution, CB Pay, into Thailand, becoming one of the few hospitality platforms offering end-to-end payment options for hoteliers in the country. The platform enables hoteliers to automate onboarding, manage ledgers, settle payments in local currency, and securely process both local and international credit cards. In partnership with dLocal, Cloudbeds facilitates fast settlements in Thai Baht, optimizing cash flow and financial management for Thai hotels. CEO Adam Harris highlights the solution's ability to handle collection to reconciliation on a centralized platform, aiming for global deployment.

💻 KAYAK, a travel metasearch engine, launched KAYAK.ai, an AI platform, using OpenAI's technology combined with their own data. KAYAK.ai features over 400 providers' pricing, aiming to transfer successful features to KAYAK.com. CEO Steve Hafner announced the new platform and the appointment of Yaron Zeidman as CTO, a former Agoda veteran with 29 years of experience, to lead KAYAK's 400+ product and engineering teams in AI advancement.