Innovation

💻 Palette Hotels deploys Quore workflow management solution across all 25 properties, enhancing operations in engineering, housekeeping, front desk, management, and above property tools. Quore's cloud-based, mobile-ready, multilingual platform aims to improve staff connectivity and guest experiences. Richard Lou, CEO of Palette Hotels, stresses the importance of tech investment for efficiency and meeting modern traveler expectations. The adoption of Quore will streamline operations for brands like Marriott, IHG, Hilton, Hyatt, Choice Hotels, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, and Best Western. Quore's dashboard provides insights into operational performance, problem resolution, and guest satisfaction, with Palette Hotels looking to maximize the system's capabilities, including its CapEx functionality. Quore's support praised for aiding the deployment process.

💸 Palette Hotels is deploying the Quore workflow management solution across all 25 properties, aiming to enhance engineering, housekeeping, front desk, management, and communication. The cloud-based, multilingual platform promises more efficient operations and improved guest experiences. All hotels, representing brands like Marriott, IHG, Hilton, Hyatt, Choice, Wyndham, and Best Western, will benefit from improved internal processes and data-driven insights into costs, complaints, satisfaction, and more. Palette Hotels is discovering new capabilities within Quore, such as CapEx functionality. The deployment, praised for its support and training, is expected to streamline operations and provide a quick return on investment.

📝 In 2024, Original ChopShop (OCS) experienced its first full year using Ovation, a guest feedback tool, leading to 20,000 reviews within three months, with a response rate of 100%. Annually, OCS garnered 64,000 reviews, averaging a 4.6 out of 5 rating. OCS also emphasizes convenience with 70–75% of food consumed off-premises and a loyalty program used in 50% of in-store transactions. Their catering business, about 7–8% of sales, offers a rewards system with Paytronix, giving 10% back on $1,000 spent quarterly. The brand has a strong employee retention rate, with GMs averaging over 4 years and top hourly staff averaging 2.5 years.

🏨 Predictive AI enhances hotel guest loyalty by personalizing incentives and optimizing engagement, shifting from broad, generic perks to precision-timed, relevant offers. It analyzes behavior across channels, predicts future wants, and re-engages guests showing early signs of disengagement, potentially boosting re-engagement rates by double digits. Combining predictive and generative AI, hotels can strategize and deliver targeted messages, with predictive models trained against years of data. Future success in hospitality relies on unified data and personalized guest experiences, with predictive AI at the core of intelligent loyalty workflows.

📺 Featuring tech leaders Kevin Bentley (Jollibee Foods Corp.), Chris Demery (Blaze Pizza), and Bryan Myers (City Barbeque), this 5-minute excerpt from the session "Personalizing the Guest Experience" at MURTEC 2025 discusses redefining guest experiences through data utilization, engagement enhancement, and loyalty building via personalized service.

💸 SuiteOp, a Guest Operations Platform, secured its first external financing with a $3 million seed funding round. ScOp led the investment, with contributions from Dream Capital, Kunal Shah, Sudeep Singh, Song Pak, and a private European fund. Founded by Jean-Emmanuel Losi and Simon Seroussi, SuiteOp evolved from Sosuite, a short-term rental brand in Philadelphia. The platform, which caters to various lodging businesses, aims to streamline operations by integrating IoT, automation, and analytics. Featuring a fivefold annual run rate increase, 15% monthly growth, and zero percent customer churn, SuiteOp plans to further develop automation tools and expand into new markets.

💾 SuiteOp, a Guest Operations Platform, raised $3 million in seed funding to accelerate development, roll out automation tools, and expand markets. ScOp led the investment alongside Dream Capital, Kunal Shah, Sudeep Singh, Song Pak, and a private European fund. Founded by Jean-Emmanuel Losi and Simon Seroussi from their experiences with Sosuite, SuiteOp caters to a range of lodging businesses. It boasts a fivefold increase in run rate, 15% month-over-month growth, and zero percent customer churn. The fresh capital aims to enhance automation and efficiency in the hospitality sector, responding to high costs and labor constraints.

🏨 In a strategic partnership, BWH Hotels Scandinavia teamed up with The Hotels Network, 2025's #1 Direct Booking Tool, to enhance direct bookings using THN's Price Comparison and Price Match tools. Top Nordic brands Strawberry and Elite Hotels of Sweden already trust THN. An A/B test from October 30 to December 1 revealed a 7.1% conversion rate increase among Swedish desktop users. The group's 191 hotels across Scandinavia aim for transparency and guest confidence in direct booking. BWH Hotels Scandinavia, with over 4,300 hotels globally in 100+ countries, is Scandinavia's largest independent hotel group offering 17 different brands.

📊 CRM technology is crucial for restaurant growth and customer engagement—experts Dave Harris (CTO, Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurants) and Aaron Abramoff (CFO, The Restaurant People) shared insights in a panel discussion. They emphasized: actionable insights from CRM systems are key; a balance of instinct and data in decision-making is necessary; personalization improves guest loyalty but is complex to implement; ROI on CRM is hard to measure but essential; tech integration needs to be seamless; and AI is becoming vital in CRM strategy, enhancing human decision-making. CRM is a must-have for competitive restaurants.